VEGETARIAN CHOPPED LIVER

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There are as many recipes for mock chopped liver as there are Jewish

cooks, mothers and grandmothers. It's done with eggs and onions, with

peas, with stringbeans, with peas and stringbeans, with eggplant,

with either almonds or walnuts, and sometimes with crackers as

filler. Canned stringbeans and/or peas do give a more gray-brown,

realistically liver color, and a certain taste, but it is certainly

better with fresh beans.

 

Gabriella

 

 

 

2 tablespoons salt

2 pounds stringbeans, trimmed and washed

4 medium onions, sliced or chopped (about 4 cups)

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

5 large or 4 extra-large eggs, hard-cooked and shelled

1 cup shelled walnuts

3/4 to 1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

 

Bring about 5 quarts of water to a rolling boil. Add the 2

tablespoons of salt and the stringbeans and boil the beans for 7 to 9

minutes, until tender. Drain and set aside to cool.

 

In a 9- to 10-inch skillet, fry the onions in the oil until many of

the onions are browned, some of them rather dark. Start the onions on

high heat and fry for about 5 minutes, tossing frequently, then

reduce the heat to medium and fry, stirring occasionally, for another

15 minutes or so.

 

In a food processor, fitted with the metal blade, combine half the

walnuts, half the fried onions, and half the stringbeans. Chunk up 2

or 3 of the eggs and add to the processor. Pulse the processor until

the mixture is quite fine (but not pasty) and resembles chopped

liver. Stir down the mixture a couple of times during the processing.

Turn into a mixing bowl and process the remaining ingredients.

 

Stir the two batches together, adding salt and pepper as you do.

Cover and refrigerate at least a couple of hours before serving.

The " liver " tastes even better the next day.

 

 

Makes 7 cups