Flash-fried liver married to slow-cooked onions is so irresistible it'll tempt even the most squeamish
Nigel Slater
Sat 5 Feb 2011 19.04 EST
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There is rarely a middle ground with liver. Either you've turned the page already, or you're a devotee who gets excited about the idea of the exceptionally savoury exterior of apiece of flash-fried or chargrilled liver and its almost jelly-like flesh. Most of us like our liver to come with crisp curls of bacon and onions in some form or another. Not many could get it up for liver that isn't pink inside, unless we are faced with it in a luscious, slow-cooked hotpot.
We rarely eat beef liver because of its strong taste and focus instead on that from younger animals where the flavour is still mild. Chicken, duck, calf and lamb are perennially popular, though we still have quite a way to go in general offal enthusiasm. Slow-lane casserole dishes aside, most recipes demand liver to be cooked for seconds rather than minutes. A minute or two on each side is often enough. I like to get a good caramelised crust on the outside, involving a light dusting of paprika-seasoned flour and a nonstick pan with the merest trace of bubbling butter.
Sage is the knee-jerk herb with liver, but spices often work better at teasing out the meat's sweetness. There is an Albanian recipe, Arnavut cigeri, where cubes of the meat are dusted with flour and paprika before being fried and served with an onion salad, and a Lebanese version where diced liver is browned with onions, garlic, ground allspice, cinnamon and black pepper. Add to these our own liver and onions and the Italian Fegato alla Veneziana, where stamp-sized squares of calf's liver are flash fried with scorched onions and it is not difficult to spot this particular form of meat's best friend. Like Gilbert and George, liver and onions are rarely seen apart. My first thought when I bought 400g of freshly sliced, pale lamb's liver was to involve onion in some form another. After an unsuccessful flirtation with a creamy onion sauce, I left the sliced onions to cook oh-so-slowly until amber coloured with some of the meat's other popular seasonings – vinegar, sage and orange.
Vinegar, in all but its most astringent forms, is a perfect seasoning for liver. Sherry, red wine and balsamic versions all complement the deep savoury notes of the meat, as does the sweet almost tar-like vincotto. The sweeter the vinegar, the later you should add it to the dish: balsamic and vincotto need do no more than warm through for a second or two.
Liver is not filling – it needs to bed down with a member of the carb family. A small mound of puréed potato can be good, as can a pile of fluffy mash. Either will soak up the intense pan juices that come with the meat. A risotto of some sort is good, too – preferably on the creamy side with lashings of chopped parsley and butter stirred in at the end. A round of bread can be used to bolster your liver, too, and lentils are also becoming popular for their earthy quality and happy affinity with red-wine or sherry vinegar. If you are trying to win over aliverphobe, remember the flavour gets stronger the longer you cook it. A flash in the pan and some sweet, slow-cooked onions are all it needs. The onion accompaniment takes some of its sweet-sour notes from a Seville orange and vincotto. A sharpish orange and balsamic vinegar will make a fair substitute. Serves 4. For the onion relish: For the liver: Peel the onions, halve them and cut each half into six thick segments. Put these in ashallow, heavy-based pan with the butter and oil and let them cook over a low heat until soft. The slower they cook the better, so expect them to take up to 25 minutes. Stir regularly so they don't stick.LAMB'S LIVER WITH ONION AND SEVILLE-ORANGE RELISH
onions 4
butter 25g
olive oil 2 tbsp
yellow mustard seeds 1 tsp
raisins 2 tbsp
Seville orange 1
cider vinegar 1 tbsp
vincotto 2 tsp
streaky bacon or pancetta 8 rashers
sea-salt flakes ½ tsp
black peppercorns 6vbutter 35g
sage leaves 4
lamb's liver 400g
When the onions are soft, add the mustard seeds and raisins and continue cooking. Grate the zest from the orange, add to the onions then squeeze in the juice. Season with the cider vinegar, alittle salt and black pepper and leave to cook for afurther 5-10 minutes. Stir in the vincotto. Fry the bacon on anonstick pan until crisp then remove and keep warm. Grind the salt, pepper and sage with pestle and mortar then mix in the butter. Melt in the pan in which you cooked the bacon. Lower the seasoned liver into the pan. Fry for aminute or two until lightly browned, then turn over and cook the other side. Divide the onion relish between four hot plates then add the liver and the bacon. When oranges are good, as they are right now, I offer them as a course in their own right. Sometimes they turn up as a salad with watercress or fennel, other times they appear at the end of a meal, sliced finely and seasoned with orange-blossom water. Seves 4.A WARM SALAD OF ORANGES, ALMONDS AND HONEY
For the dressing: To serve: Put 3 tbsp of honey into a nonstick frying pan. Add the skinned almonds and leave them to simmer over a moderate heat for 3 or 4 minutes. Tip into a small, oiled plate or baking tray and set aside. Squeeze the orange and the lemon into the frying pan. Pour in the final 2 tbsp of honey and warm the mixture over a moderate heat. Bring to the boil and simmer for 3 or 4 minutes. Remove the peel from the small oranges then slice the fruit thinly. Divide the slices between 4 plates and add a spoonful of mascarpone to each one. Scatter the almonds and honey over the top and then spoon over the warm orange dressing.
honey 5 tbsp
skinned almonds 70g
orange 1, large
lemon 1
oranges 4, small
mascarpone 4 generous tbsp
Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk or visit theguardian.com/profile/nigelslater for all his recipes in one place
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