Is Beef Liver Kosher ?

Yes, beef liver is kosher.

However, before you are allowed to indulge in tasty yet kosher Jewish delicacies like liver steaks or chopped liver, the raw liver has to undergo various processes before it is deemed fit for kosher use.

In this article we’ll explain how you can make beef liver kosher.

Requirements for Beef Liver to be Kosher

Before you can eat beef liver, here are a few requirements that you need to keep in mind.

1. For the liver to be kosher, it needs to come from a kosher animal, which beef is.
2. Moreover, it needs to be slaughtered in a manner that is prescribed by the Holy Torah. All the animal fat needs to be removed meticulously.
3. It is forbidden in the Torah to eat the blood of any animal or bird. Therefore, you need to remove all the blood as well. The process of extracting blood is known as kashering. You need to soak the meat in water, salt it, and then wash it thoroughly. However, the amount of blood in the beef liver is very large and therefore, you have to broil the liver to Kasher it.

Kashering Beef Liver

Slice the Liver

If you are using frozen liver, thaw it out completely before broiling it. If you are kashering a whole beef liver, make deep criss-cross cuts throughout the liver in different places. This will help in facilitating the flow of blood out of the beef liver.

You can also slice the liver into small pieces of uniform thickness. Make sure that you remove the gall bladder – green in color & cylindrical in shape – has been removed from the beef liver.

Place the Liver on a Grate

Wash the whole liver or the sliced pieces of liver in cold water thoroughly. Place the liver on a fireproof grate and allow the blood & juices to freely flow from the liver. Make sure that the dripping juices don’t have any contact with the liver anymore.

Salt the Liver

Lightly salt the liver on both sides. The salt will give flavor to the liver and will help the fire in extracting the blood. You can use as much salt as you want to. If you want to omit salting due to some medical issues, you can do that.

If you are kashering the liver through broiling, only then can you omit the salting. If you are kashering the meat through soaking and salting, then you can’t exclude salting.

Use Fire to Broil

It is better if you broil the liver using a fire source that is directly below it. However, if that is not possible, then you can broil the liver by placing a heat source above it. If you don’t have anything other than a broiler or an electric oven, that would work as well.

Just make sure that the blood doesn’t splatter onto the broiler cavity or the oven. A practical solution would be to place a bowl or plate under the grate to catch the dripping juices and blood. Turn the liver pieces from time to time in order to facilitate even and uniform broiling.

Broil the liver until the juices cease to flow and it is dry on the outside. The rack or grate that you use for this purpose, shouldn’t be used for anything else. If you use a fork or any other utensil during the broiling process, set it aside and use it exclusively for kashering livers.

Before using them the next time, burn them on fire. Wash off the koshered liver under cold water thrice so that all the salt and any remnants of blood are washed away. You can now use this kosher liver in any meal you desire.