Is liverwurst fully cooked? Yes! Liverwurst is usually sold spreadable like a pate or sliceable like summer sausage — but either way, it’s fully cooked before you buy it. This means you can let it thaw and enjoy it immediately on a sandwich or plain, or fry it up and serve it as part of a different dish.
Composition of a Liver Sausage
Liver is an organ that works hard by filtering blood and as an animal grows older, the liver becomes darker and might develop a slightly bitter taste. Think of it as it were a filter that would become dirtier in time, the difference is that not the dust, but atoms of heavier materials like iron or copper will accumulate in time within its structure.
Calf is slaughtered at the age of 4 months, a pig at 6 months, but a cow may live a few years. Because it is older the cow’s liver or blood are of much deeper color and will induce a darker color to a finished sausage. On the other hand veal, pork or poultry liver will make a sausage lighter and will make it taste better. This does not mean that you can not use beef liver at all and up to 25% of beef liver may be mixed with other livers without compromising the final taste. As the name implies a liver is an essential ingredient in the recipe but which one is the best?
| Liver source | Description |
|---|---|
| Veal | Excellent. Light color, great taste, more expensive. |
| Pork | Very good. |
| Lamb and goat | Suitable. Up to 50% can be mixed with pork liver. |
| Beef | Can be mixed with other livers but should not account for more than 25% of the total liver mass. Dark color. |
| Goose | Very good. |
| Chicken, turkey, duck | Good. Can be mixed with pork liver in any proportions. |
| Rabbit | Very good. Can be mixed with pork liver in any proportions. |
| Venison and wild game | Poor. |
As you can see you can control the quality and color of your sausage by choosing the type of liver used. The way you will process liver, fat and meats will have the biggest impact on the quality of your sausage and the selected spices will add the final touch. Best liver sausages are made from livers of young animals. Up to 25% of beef can be added as it is tougher and will darken liver sausage. Poultry such as goose, duck or turkey will make a fine liver sausage, but chicken liver is not the best choice.
Liver must NOT be cooked. In many recipes liver is cooked briefly (blanched) in hot water for up to 5 min to remove any leftover blood but there is no real need for that. Blanching will cook some of the liver proteins and less of them would be available for emulsifying fat and water. Instead, liver can be rinsed and soaked in cold water for one hour to get rid of any traces of blood and remaining gall liquid. Soaking liver in milk is an old remedy for the removal of some of the liver’s bitterness which can be noticeable in beef liver.
Meat Selection For Liver Sausages
Meats used for commercially made liver sausages are first cured with sodium nitrite to obtain a pinkish color and the characteristic cured meat flavor. Liver sausages made at home in most cases employ meats that are not cured with sodium nitrite and the color of the sausage will be light yellow. That will largely depend on the type of liver and spices used.
It is advantageous, especially when making coarse type liver sausage, to use meats with a lot of connective tissues such as pork head meat, jowls (cheeks) or skin. Those parts contain a lot of collagen which will turn into gelatin during heat treatment. During subsequent cooling this gelatin will become a gel and that will make the sausage more spreadable with a richer mouthful texture. Meats commonly used in commercial production are pork head meat, jowls, meat trimmings and skin. Although pork head meat may not appeal to most people as a valuable meat, it is high in fat and connective tissues and contains more meat flavor than other cuts. For those reasons it is a perfect meat in liver or head cheese production.
If skinless pork jowls or skinless head meat is used about 5-10% of skins are added to the meat mass. Keep in mind that too many skins may make the texture of your sausage feel rubbery. As long as the proper proportion of liver and fat are observed the remaining meats can be of any kind: pork, beef or veal.
Liver sausages contain a large percentage of fat (20-40%) which largely determines their texture and spreadability. If pork fat is used it makes no big difference whether a hard fat (back fat) or soft fat (belly) or other fat trimmings are utilized. Beef fat or pork flare fat (kidney) are not commonly used as they are hard and not easy to emulsify.
To make fine spreadable liver sausage, fat should be dispersed in the liquid state at warm temperatures. To achieve a final chopping temperature of around 95° F, (35° C), fat or fat trimmings are usually poached at 176° F (80° C). Then when still warm they are ground. Liver and lean meat are emulsified at cool (or room) temperature. Then warm ground fats are mixed with liver, lean meat and spices together.
LIVERWURST // Matt the Butcher
FAQ
Does liver sausage need to be cooked?
What’s the best way to eat liverwurst?
Does Braunschweiger need to be cooked?
What’s the difference between liver sausage and Braunschweiger?