How to Cook Kosher Liver - Rabbi Shlomo Cohen

[Music] welcome back to another Sher in our short series on casus in the home um today I want to talk to you about koshering liver generally as far as koshering meat is concerned we don't really need to know what to do because no one or very very very few people today Casher meat CER meat themselves at home we all buy meat that has already been cered by the butcher it comes with a hea frozen or not frozen even if it's fresh all the meat that we buy generally has already been cered the cering process is needed in order to get the blood out of the meat the blood is the soul the Torah tells us that we're not supposed to eat the blood we keep away from the blood and that's why we need to koser meat by putting coarse salt all over the meat which draws out the blood that has to be left on for an hour according to the to the 18 minutes is enough you get it that'll draw out all the blood you wash it off that process we don't need to explain and go into because it's not really practical for any of us what is practical for us is liver liver is one one thing that people do buy not koshered you can buy it from the buer butcher non- kosher and people like to kosher it themselves at home fresh liver is very very tasty but we have to know how to do it and how to CER the liver to make sure that it's koser the problem with a liver is that seeing as it's the organ that produces blood it's full full of blood and kazal tell us that salting in the way that we salt the rest of the parts of an animal is not good enough to take out all the blood that's in the liver and therefore the only way to CER a liver is by roasting it you have to roast it that's what the the fire will draw out the blood and then we can eat the liver so how do we do this what's the process we need in order to be able to to to roast the liver and to CER it according to the highest standards the first stage when you get your liver is to rinse it in water you rinse it in water it's also going to soften up the liver it's also going to make sure that if there were any pieces of of other parts of the animal that we don't eat the for example that might have touched and be not the fat might be on the outside that that will come off the second stage is that we put a little bit of salt on it the salt will start the blood inside to start moving and then make it easier for it to come out when we roast it over the fire then we take a knife and we do a crisscross cut on the smooth side of the liver each piece of liver has two sides to it one side which is smooth and the other side which is not on the smooth side you do a few crisscross Cuts with a knife that's going to make it easier for the blood that's inside to come out when we roast the liver you must be careful to use a clean knife of course why is there not a problem of cutting the liver with this knife that it's going to now um absorb something there's no problem of absorption here because there's no heat the liver is not hot right now when I'm cutting it with the knife and so even though I'm using a knife that I might use for other things other kosher things in my kitchen there's no problem right because there's going to be no absorption what there's going to be is there's going to be a layer of fat on the outside of the knife which I'm going to have to wash off when I clean my knife in the normal way right if you long as you clean the knife with uh with some cleaning uh detergent some cleaning liquid excuse me and a scotch something to scrub to scrub it you clean it properly then there's no problem of using that knife for anything else afterwards okay so that's what we would call the Third third step right making these crisscross marks on the liver then you can either put a skewer through the liver and put it over the fire or what a lot of people do you can they they sell a particular a special Grill which is uh comes like a a pocket that closes two pieces that close on the other of a grill and you put the liver in between and you close it you close the you close the grate over the liver and you hold it over the fire and you grill the liver that way or you can put it on the grill if you're having a barbecue outside you can put the liver on the grate on the grill and do it and C cook it like that and roast it like that over the fire while it's roasting the fire will draw out all the blood from the liver how long do you have to roast the liver for you need to roast the liver until it's edible until it's edible if if you you know you can see if you cut open the liver afterwards and you see that there's pink inside that's fine the problem is if you see that it's raw inside well you see that it's raw that means you haven't cooked it enough but the fact that it's pink but cooked then that's fine while it's on the fire we're careful not to poke the liver because while it's in the process of giving off giving out its blood um we don't want to poke it and then we've got a problem of the knife that we poked it with even though that's if you did poke it the knife is considered as kosher you don't need to kosher the knife that you were to if you poked the liver while it's on the fire um you shouldn't remove the liver from the fire until it's cooked you can turn it over but you shouldn't remove it from the fire and start checking it until it's already ready ready to be eaten once it's ready once you can see that it's cooked enough to be to be edible the the the ashkanazi custom is to rinse it under water before eating the reason for that is to because of a little bit of salt that we put on at the beginning which has now absorbed blood in it and mean and any blood that's dried on the outside of the liver we want to get that off before we eat it the S custom is not to be particular about rinsing the liver afterward woods now the question a lot of people ask after I've koshered my liver what about the grill that I koshered it on is it kosher can I cook a hamburger on that Grill afterwards as well or do I need to kosher the grill which would be a difficult process because to koser a grill the grill of a barbecue for example you need to get it you need to do what's called libon you need to get it to be white hot we have a rule in cering of Cabo in the way that it absorbed that's the way it's going to give out if you want to CER it but anything that would absorbed on the fire we need to get it red hot white hot before we can say that the taste that was absorbed has come out which for the lay man is not a simple process to do so the is that with a grill you don't need to CER it after you cered your liver on that grill with the skewer if you put a skewer through the grill and you use that to hold the liver while it's over the fire then the the custom is that the skewer needs cering before you can use it again but the grill doesn't the difference between the grill and the skewer is that the skewer is totally surrounded by the liver whereas the grill it's just lying on the grill the the H explained that while the fire is drawing out the blood so the the fire draws the blood towards it and it doesn't have time to get absorbed inside the grill and that's why where you did it on a grill the grill doesn't need cering but with the skewer which was inside the the liver the custom there is that we would need to CER the skewer a very good idea for someone who likes to have fresh liver at home would be to get one of those electric barbecues that you can you can buy very cheaply and use it especially for your liver right it has a plate underneath which is filled with water and the blood will all go in there everything that's drawn out and you have this this uh this barbecue that is specially set aside for the cering of your livers that would be always a very good idea and there that's how to CER your liver enjoy your livers