Pork liver is a healthy and tasty product that is widely used in cooking. A variety of hot dishes are prepared from pork liver, which are usually served with side dishes. The product can also be a component of salads and cold appetizers.
However, sometimes after cooking the liver may begin to taste bitter. How to get rid of an unpleasant taste? How to cook pork liver so that it doesn't taste bitter? Read more about this in our article.
Causes of unpleasant taste
First of all, it is worth noting that liver is a rather delicate product that plays an important role in the animal’s body. This is why it is so important to choose and buy a fresh and high-quality product, because this organ may contain various toxins.
In general, there are three main reasons for the bitter taste of pork offal.
- Firstly, the unpleasant taste may be due to enzymes accumulated in the offal, which are found in the body of every animal and are necessary to break down fatty tissue.
- Secondly, bile can affect the taste sensation. If this substance enters the liver, it will completely ruin the taste of the product.
- Thirdly, the product may be expired. Only careful selection will help you avoid buying a spoiled product.
How to remove bitterness?
To begin with, it is important to understand that it is not always possible to completely remove the bitter taste of a product. So, for example, if the liver is damaged, then it should simply be thrown away. Do not risk your health under any circumstances. If you notice that there is blood on the surface of the product, you should freeze the product, and only then cut the liver and remove the films. After this, rinse the liver under cold water - this will remove the bitterness better.
If you notice greenish spots, do not immediately throw away the product. In most cases, these spots indicate that traces of bile remain on the liver. Pieces of a greenish tint should simply be cut out, and then you can cook.
Bitter liver can also be soaked. To do this, it must be washed and cut into small pieces. After this, place the product in pre-cooled milk for 60-80 minutes.
If there is no milk, you can use salted water: the offal should be kept in it for no more than 30 minutes.
If after all the cooking manipulations you have noticed that the liver continues to taste bitter, then there is only one thing left to do - to mask the unpleasant taste. This can be done by adding fried onions, herbs, walnuts, and lemon juice.
In general, in order to get fresh liver that is free of the unpleasant bitter taste, you should only buy refrigerated (not frozen) product. Also carefully check the expiration date and monitor storage conditions.
When preparing pork offal, you can use various recipes. You can marinate the liver, stew it in sauces or cook it to make dietary salads.
To learn how to deliciously fry pork liver, watch the following video.
Chicken, veal, lamb, beef, pork liver is a product everyone knows, rich in vitamins, minerals and nutrients. But despite the undoubted benefits, not many people like liver dishes. There is a widespread belief that liver is dry, rough and, unless soaked in milk, bitter. And tea, properly selected, prepared and cooked liver is a delicate, delicious dish.
You will need
- A sharp thin knife;
- Excellent lighting;
- Milk or boiling water and salt.
Instructions
1. So where did the myth that liver tastes bitter come from? The fact is that next to the liver there is a gallbladder, and in the liver- bile ducts. If the animal has been abnormally butchered, if you do not carefully remove the gall bladder, then bile will get into the product and ruin its taste, giving it that very bitterness, which can ruin the entire dish.
2. Observe the liver. Remove the gallbladder, cut out the bile ducts and any greenish-colored pieces. This color is just characteristic of spilled bile. This is all that can be done to get rid of sadness. No soaking spoiled liver unable to cope with the characteristic taste.
3. Pork liver is more saucy in structure and in order to give it additional softness and tenderness, it is soaked in milk. To do this, the pork liver is washed in advance, the membrane is removed, the bile ducts are removed and soaked for several hours in cold cow's milk.
4. The same result can be achieved if you blanch the liver before cooking, that is, boil it for several minutes in steep and lightly salted boiling water.
5. If you doubt that the liver you bought is from a young animal, then, regardless of origin, pre-soaking in milk or blanching will also not hurt. Tea is known that with age, all tissues lose elasticity, which means that when prepared, they will become more rigid.
6. Veal and chicken livers are rightfully considered the most tender. If you choose between these two products, you should pay attention to the fact that calf liver contains much more copper, a lot of zinc, and is also rich in vitamins A and B12. But in chicken liver contains calcium, steel, selenium, thiamine, folic acid, vitamin E and a lot of vitamin C. Many fruits are inferior to chicken liver according to the table of contents of vitamin C.
Helpful advice
The liver needs a short heat treatment. Positively cooked liver is slightly pink when cut. If you overcook or overcook the liver, it will become rough and dry.
Good day.
Indeed, it is not a very rare occurrence when Pork liver tastes bitter.
In order to get rid of this bitterness, it is necessary, of course, to cleanse the liver of the so-called capsule, which covers the liver in the form of a film. It will also be necessary to remove/cut out the bile ducts.
Just recently, for Easter, my daughter asked me to make a liver cake. On the market, the price of beef liver, to be honest, is very steep. And before the holiday, prices were generally crazy. So I bought fresh pork at half the price. I washed it well and cut it into pieces, poured it with milk for literally half an hour. There was no trace of bitterness left. The cake turned out to be tender and airy and no one realized that it was not beef liver, but pork liver. And the guests who came ate it on both cheeks and praised it. So this elementary - simple technique will correct the bitter taste. And you can also cook pork liver with the addition of sour cream, it also turns out incredibly tasty and doesn’t have that specific smell that many children don’t like. Fry a little with onions and at the end a couple or three (as you like) spoons of sour cream, pepper, salt and simmer for ten minutes.
To be honest, I haven’t tried it; I don’t like pork liver precisely because of its bitterness. But my colleague cooks regularly; to remove the bitterness, she soaks the liver in milk. But in my opinion, when translating products, it’s better to buy chicken or beef right away.
Firstly, the pork liver should be cleaned of film and also get rid of bile. The liver should be soaked for half an hour in milk or salt water.
Personally, I stew the liver with onions and potatoes. This dish is useful for those who have low hemoglobin.
It is best to lightly fry the liver in sunflower oil to raise hemoglobin.
I don’t cook pork liver very often; I prefer beef liver, it has a more delicate taste. But pork liver, which is cheaper than beef, can be given quite a good taste if it is properly processed before cooking.
Often pork liver is not bitter at all, even if you don’t do anything special with it. It tastes bitter if bile comes into contact with it. It is necessary to cut off areas with traces of bile, cleanse the liver of films, and rinse well. You can lightly beat off pieces of chopped liver, or you can just chop them. After this, soak the liver in cold milk for an hour.
I like to make liver fried in breadcrumbs, and add some butter to sunflower oil when frying.
In my opinion, it is impossible to remove the bitterness. I don’t fry this kind of liver.
I pre-soak it and make cutlets out of it. Then the spices overcome the bitterness.
Just from experience, sometimes the liver is bitter, sometimes it’s not.
To remove bitterness from pork liver, you first need to cut it into pieces and separate the existing film and bile ducts from it. After this, you need to place it in salted water or milk for 30-40 minutes (there is not much difference in this matter).
We fry pork liver and eat it with the whole family. To prevent the pork liver from becoming bitter, cut it into several parts and soak it well in several waters. If you add salt, spices and fry in good sunflower oil, you get a tasty and healthy product, and without any bitterness at all.
Oh it's very easy to do. You just need to remove the film from the liver before cooking. Then it won’t taste bitter and won’t dry out when frying. Information from a military cookbook I read about 8 years ago.
To get rid of the bitterness that is inherent in pork liver, you first need to rinse it thoroughly. After this, it is necessary to cut out the bile ducts present in it from the pork liver (after all, the gallbladder is located very close to the liver), and you also need to remove the film from the liver. After this, just soak the liver for 30 minutes in lightly salted water. After these manipulations you will get rid of bitterness.
At the stage of preparing pork liver, it is necessary to carefully consider its cleaning and preparation for stewing/frying, since minor omissions can lead to a spoiled dish as a result of the bitterness that will come from the liver.
Particular attention must be paid to complete removal of the bile ducts, as well as removal of the membrane.
How to cook pork liver.
Previously, I attended training camps in the city of Kislovodsk twice a year, where fresh young meat and liver are sold. We cooked pork liver at least once a week because it is very rich in iron and is very inexpensive. To avoid getting tired of pork liver, we experimented by preparing it in different ways. Therefore, I know firsthand how you can prepare it tasty and healthy.
To cook pork liver deliciously, you need to know certain tricks at each stage of its preparation:
1. How to choose pork liver.
Any Caucasian salesman will assure you that “This pig was crowing just yesterday.” But having bought “yesterday’s” delicacy several times, we realized that fresh liver should be smooth and bright burgundy in color. Touch the liver, if it is elastic and your touch does not leave marks on it, then it is fresh. You should not take loose or grayish-brown liver; it is old or thawed. Such a liver may contain harmful toxins. You also need to choose a liver that has no veins. It is advisable to manage to take the very edge of the liver, in this place it is the most delicious and without veins.
2. How to remove bitterness from the liver.
Pork liver is very bitter, which may be why its price is not so high. But this bitterness can be easily removed. The bitterness of the liver is caused by bile, which is located in the bile ducts. Therefore, the bile ducts need to be cut out from the liver. If you don’t want to cut out all the ducts, then remove at least the large ones. Also cut out all the pieces of suspicious color where bile may be located; they are greenish-yellow in color. Then cut the liver into pieces and place in salt water or milk for at least 30 minutes, maximum 3 hours. If, after preparing the liver, you still feel bitterness, you can minimize it by adding some mushrooms and fresh herbs (especially parsley and cilantro).
3. Methods for preparing pork liver.
Recipes for cooking liver are varied and depend on the time and inspiration you have:
A) One of the banal ways of preparing pork liver. Cut the liver into pieces, rinse in cold water, cover with milk for 30 minutes. Place the liver in a heated frying pan with oil, fry on both sides, then add the chopped onion. Then simmer the liver under the lid for 30 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.
B) An extreme method of preparing pork liver. In order to increase hemoglobin, you need to wash it thoroughly, remove all the veins and dubious pieces. Then soak in salt water for 1 hour. Fry in a frying pan for 5 minutes on both sides. The taste is quite piquant, but after 2 weeks, along with the use of iron supplements, hemoglobin rises by 10-15 units.
C) Liver with champignons in sour cream sauce. We will need: champignons - 250 grams, pork liver - 300g, onions - 1 piece, sour cream - 1 glass, water - 1 glass
1 tablespoon flour, salt, pepper, seasonings, parsley. The champignons should be cut into thin slices, the onion into cubes, and the liver into long pieces. At first
Fry the champignons in a frying pan for 5 minutes, then add the onion and simmer until it becomes soft. Then add the liver, salt, pepper, and seasonings to taste. Fry for 5 minutes, stirring. After this, add flour, mix it all and pour in water, then bring to a boil. When the water boils, add sour cream. Simmer for another 15 minutes. 5 minutes before readiness, add chopped parsley.
I myself regularly cook pork liver, as it increases hemoglobin very well.
Chicken liver is a tasty and nutritious by-product, it is rich in vitamins A, B and C, as well as folic acid, selenium and iron. Moreover, the level of iron presence in liver is much higher than that of many vegetables and fruits, which is why it is recommended for consumption by people suffering from diseases of the circulatory system. Liver is used to prepare many dishes and often acts as a worthy alternative to expensive meat products. The only drawback of chicken liver is the likelihood of bitterness, which negatively affects the taste of dishes and is often the reason for refusing to buy it.
Causes
The main reason for the appearance of a bitter taste is improper cutting of a chicken carcass, during which the bile ducts are damaged, bile instantly envelops the liver and makes it inedible. It is the presence of bile that causes unpleasant bitterness, which is due to the presence in its composition of special enzymes that break down fats. This makes it necessary to pay special attention to gutting the chicken: We must try not to damage the ducts and bladder.
However, if a spill of bile does occur, you can try to save the situation and return the liver to its original taste.
Methods for eliminating bitterness
The main way to remove the bitter taste of offal is to soak it. This method allows you to almost completely get rid of the bitterness and makes it possible to use the liver for further cooking. However, before you start soaking, you need to rinse the product under running cold water, removing the yellow-green mucus and remnants of the ducts. The use of hot and warm water in this case is unacceptable: this will promote deeper penetration of bile into the liver structure, after which it will no longer be possible to correct the situation.
After the liver has been washed, you need to take a deep container, pour cold water into it, add table salt at the rate of 1 tbsp. l. /liter and mix well. After the salt has dissolved, place the washed liver in the container and leave for half an hour. The best option would be to place the pieces in one layer, since with a multi-layer arrangement they will touch each other and the process of removing bitterness will slow down.
After the specified time has passed, the water must be drained. If the liquid becomes bloody or has a dirty brown tint, the procedure should be repeated. If the water is only slightly pink, then the liver needs to be rinsed again under cold running water and started cooking.
In addition to water, you can use milk. To do this, the pieces are also washed to remove bile, and then placed in milk, and there is no need to salt it. Milk soaking also lasts 30 minutes, after which the milk is drained, and the liver is washed and sent to the frying pan. As for the effectiveness of both methods, experienced housewives consider them to be equivalent, and which one to use depends on the personal preferences of the cook.
How to save a dish?
It often happens that, despite measures taken to remove bitterness, cooked liver still continues to taste bitter. In this case, you can try to mask the bitter taste with seasonings and spices. Sometimes using sauce with walnuts helps correct the situation. This combination has a very unusual taste, and a barely noticeable bitterness will only be beneficial.
Adding spices that have a pronounced taste helps. If you add a little sourness along with them, the bitter aftertaste will be interrupted and will become almost unnoticeable. It’s better not to experiment with sweet sauces: the sweetness does not overcome the heat well, and the dish will be completely ruined. Also, some housewives recommend chopping several large carrots, frying them with onions and ketchup, then combining them with the cooked liver, salt and pepper and simmer for another 5 minutes. Carrots soften the bitterness well, and ketchup “distracts attention” with a barely noticeable sourness.
- In order not to buy bitter chicken liver, you need to purchase the offal in open trays. For packaging, a transparent film is usually used, which allows you to visually check the product for yellow-green inclusions. After the liver is defrosted, you need to carefully examine each piece and if you find a problem, do not try to wash it, but simply throw it away. The remaining pieces must be thoroughly rinsed under cold water and, for preventative purposes, soaked in salt water or milk.
- When cutting a carcass yourself, you should freeze it in the freezer to such an extent that it can just be cut. Then you need to carefully separate the gallbladder and quickly remove the ducts. Freezing is necessary so that the bubble is removed as a single frozen lump, and does not smear and spread throughout the liver. After the bile has been removed, the liver is washed from excess blood, which, when frozen, coagulates and is easily separated from the offal.
- It is also necessary to pay attention to the appearance of the liver. The fresh product has a dark red color and a smooth, even surface. A lighter or brownish tint indicates that the offal is most likely old or that the chicken was actively pumped with growth stimulants during cultivation. And although such liver, as a rule, does not taste bitter, whether to buy it or not is up to everyone to decide for themselves.
