Lambs Liver and Beans in Spicy Sauce

Lambs liver is served on a bed of beans in spicy tomato sauce

Lambs liver truly is a delicious eating experience, provided it is cooked properly. If cooked too long or inappropriately, it will be tough and horrible but when done as cooked below, it is both tasty and tender. Given that it is generally incredibly inexpensive to buy and is particularly nutritious - especially in its iron content - what more reason to you need to give this recipe a try?

Ingredients (Serves 1)

2 or 3 smallish slices of lambs liver
1/2 small red onion
1 large garlic clove
2 or 3 tablespoons olive oil
Small (8 ounce) can chopped tomatoes in tomato juice
1 small green chilli
1/2 teaspoon dried coriander leaf (cilantro)
Salt and pepper
Smoked paprika
Small (8 ounce) can red kidney beans in water
Vegetable oil for frying liver

Onion and garlic are firstly gently sauteed

Directions

Pour the olive oil in to a small saucepan and put the pan on to a gentle heat. Peel the onion half and slice across the way. Peel the garlic clove and finely dice. Add the onion and the garlic to the oil and saute for a few minutes until the onion is softened.

Tomatoes and seasonings are added to saucepan

Pour the tomatoes in to the saucepan and add the topped and finely diced green chilli, the dried coriander (cilantro) and seasonings in the form of salt and pepper. Stir well and bring to a gentle simmer. Cover and leave to gently bubble away while you attend to the lambs liver.

Steeped lambs liver is patted dry

There is a theory that liver should always be steeped in either water or milk before it is cooked to both remove the excess blood and help tenderise it for the pan. In all honesty, sometimes I steep it and sometimes I don't, depending upon not only the time I have available but also upon how I am preparing it and with what I am serving it. In this particular instance, I did steep it for about ten minutes in cold water before lifting it carefully from the bowl and patting it dry very gently between several sheets of kitchen paper.

Lambs liver is carefully seasoned

Before the liver is cooked, it was seasoned on both sides with salt, black pepper and a generous sprinkling of smoked paprika, though medium to hot chilli powder would work equally well in this dish.

Kidney beans are added to tomato sauce

When the liver is pan ready, drain the kidney beans and wash them through a colander under running cold water to get rid of the horrible, gungy canning impurities. Add them to the sauce, stir well and leave them to heat through only while you cook the liver.

Lambs liver is added to frying pan

Gently heat a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil in a non-stick frying pan and lay in the liver slices. Cook for about three minutes each side until done (the blood no longer runs out of them when pierced). Spoon the beans in to a deep serving plate and spread out before serving the liver slices on top.

Beans in tomato sauce are plated as bed for liver

Lambs Liver with Twice Baked Potato

Lambs liver with minted twice potatoes, carrots and Brussels sprouts

Mint sauce is a well established accompaniment to lambs liver but this recipe takes the pairing of lamb and mint that one step further by also incorporating mint in the starch element of the dish in the form of a twice baked potato.

Ingredients (Serves 1)

1 medium to large baking potato
Butter
Generous pinch dried mint
Salt
4 or 5 Chantenay carrots
4 or 5 Brussels sprouts
3 medium slices lambs liver
Black pepper
Vegetable oil for frying
Mint sauce

Potato is skewered for baking

Directions

Put your oven on to preheat to 220C/450F/Gas Mark 8.

Wash the potato well and dry with kitchen paper. Take a metal skewer and carefully insert it through the middle of the potato long ways as shown. The metal skewer conducts heat to the centre of the potato and makes for more even cooking. Pierce the potato several times with a fork to allow steam to escape during cooking.

Foil wrapped potato is ready for the oven

Wrap the potato carefully in tinfoil and twist the ends. Sit it on a baking tray and bake for one hour to one hour and fifteen minutes, depending upon the size of the potato, just so as it is cooked all the way through.

Halved baked potato

Take the potato from the oven but don't switch the oven off - you will need it for the second part of the cooking process. Protecting your hands with oven gloves, unwrap the potato and pull the skewer free. If the potato is cooked, the skewer should easily come out. Cut the potato in half length ways with a very sharp knife.

Flesh is scooped out of potato halves

A teaspoon is best used to scoop most of the flesh from each potato half and add it to a small mixing bowl. You want to leave to half shells around an even half inch thick. Add about one ounce (1/4 stick) of butter to the potato flesh along with the pinch of dried mint and some salt. Mix well to combine.

Buttered and seasoned filling is scooped back in to potato halves

Divide the potato flesh mix between the two skin cups and spread out evenly. Try to leave the top slightly uneven with peaks to let them crisp up as they cook. Return to the oven for twenty more minutes.

Chantenay carrots are put on to reach a boil

Wash and top the carrots and add them to a pot of cold, salted water. Bring to a simmer for fifteen minutes.

Brussels sprouts are added to partly cooked carrots

When the carrots have been simmering for five minutes, add the washed and trimmed sprouts to simmer with them for the final ten minutes.

Seasoned lambs liver is added to heated frying pan

Carefully wash the liver and pat dry with clean kitchen paper. Season on both sides with salt and pepper. Bring a little oil up to a medium heat in a non-stick frying pan and add the liver to fry for three or four minutes on their first side, depending upon thickness.

Liver is turned in frying pan to fry on second side

Turn the liver slices to fry for a similar length of time on their second sides.

Butter is added to drained sprouts and carrots

Drain the carrots and sprouts through a colander at your sink and return to the empty pot. Add a little butter and gently swirl the pot to ensure even cooking. Plate the meal components and finish off with a teaspoon or two of mint sauce on top of the lambs liver.

Liver, baked potato, carrots and sprouts are arranged on serving plate

Lambs Liver and Kidney Stuffed Mushrooms

Lambs liver and kidney stuffed mushrooms with mashed potatoes and swede

I love offal of a great many different types but probably most of all, liver and kidneys. When I bought some lambs liver and kidneys to prepare an alternative full Scottish breakfast recently, I had some leftover and came up with this recipe idea for the following night's dinner.

Preparing lambs liver and kidneys for cooking

Ingredients

2 ounces lambs liver
2 lamb kidneys
2 tablespoons vegetable oil for frying
1 small red onion, peeled and diced
1 clove of garlic, peeled and grated or finely chopped
Pinch dried sage
Pinch dried thyme
Salt and black pepper
1/2 small Swede turnip/rutabaga, peeled and roughly chopped
2 medium floury/starchy potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
2 large breakfast mushrooms, stalks removed
1 tablespoon grated cheddar cheese
Butter
White pepper
Freshly chopped flat leaf parsley to garnish

Small red onion and garlic clove

Directions

The liver and kidneys should be roughly chopped. Be sure to remove the white fatty tissue from inside the kidneys if this has not already been done by your butcher.

Prepared red onion with seasoning herbs

Pour the vegetable oil in to a non-stick frying pan and gently heat. Add the liver, kidney, onion and garlic. Season with the dried herbs, salt and black pepper. Stir fry over a moderate heat for about three or four minutes.

Frying lambs liver, kidneys and onion

Turn off the heat, cover and allow to cool completely. Half an hour should be plenty of time.

Potatoes and Swede turnip for making mash

Preheat your oven to 350F/170C/Gas Mark 4.

Potatoes and Swede turnip ready for boiling

Put the potato and Swede pieces in to a large pot of cold water and season with salt. Bring the water to a simmer until the pieces are just softened. This will take around twenty minutes.

Large breakfast mushrooms

Use a teaspoon to carefully fill the cups of the mushrooms with the liver and kidney combination.

Cooked and cooled offal is stuffed in to mushrooms

Very lightly oil a baking tray and lay the mushrooms on it. Cook in the oven for fifteen minutes.

Stuffed mushrooms ready for baking

Take the mushrooms from the oven and scatter with the grated cheese. Return to the oven for one more minute, just to melt the cheese.

Grated cheese is scattered on stuffed mushrooms

Drain the potatoes and Swede through a colander at your sink. Let them steam off for a few minutes to get rid of the excess moisture and avoid having soggy mash.

Potatoes and Swede turnip are drained and left to steam

Use a spatula to lift the mushrooms to a wire rack and let them rest and also steam off for two or three minutes.

Stuffed mushrooms are rested on wire rack

Put the potatoes and Swede back in to the empty pot. Add a little bit of butter and season with white pepper. Swirl the pot gently to melt the butter and mash with a hand masher.

Preparing to mash potatoes and Swede turnip

Lay the stuffed mushrooms in opposite corners of a square plate.

Stuffed mushrooms are plated

Spoon the mash around the mushrooms and garnish with the chopped parsley.

Mashed potatoes and turnip is spooned around stuffed mushrooms