Alcohol is good for this liver.
As you may remember from a previous post, I hate all chicken liver dishes except paté. So, you may be wondering why I’m writing about a liver dish. I’ll admit – I don’t eat this dish myself, except to taste it to test my cooking. I make this dish entirely for my wife’s benefit – she does not share my dislike for chicken liver, this is one of her favorites. If like my wife, you like chicken liver – this post is for you, enjoy.
If you keep kosher, then you will need to prepare the livers accordingly and not as described here (and forgo the butter of course). The method I describe here keeps the livers from becoming too dry but they are still well done – I am not a fan of partially cooked chicken.
Ask the shop where you buy the livers to clean them from fat and connective tissue, this will save you a lot of time.
You can make the livers so their sauce is thicker and you can pour it over the mashed potatoes if you like. My wife likes her mashed potatoes dry so I describe the two options here, choose the one you prefer.
The recipe for the mashed potatoes is the same as the first part of the fancy potatoes described in a previous post.
Ingredients
Mashed Potatoes
- 1 kg potatoes [2lbs] (I prefer "butter" kind)
- 85 gr butter [3 oz]
- 1 tbsp kosher salt
Chicken Livers
- 0.5 kg chicken livers – clean from fat and connective tissue [1lbs]
- 1 cup dry red wine (for thicker sauce – use 2 cups)
- 3 cloves garlic – chopped or crushed
- ½ onion – chopped (optional)
- 2 tbsp canola oil
- 30 gr butter [1 oz]
- ½ tsp ground nutmeg
- salt
- 1 tsp cornstarch (optional – for thicker sauce)
Instructions
Mashed Potatoes
- Peel and clean the potatoes. Cut them into big pieces.
- Place them in a pot with cold water and 1 tbsp of kosher salt.
- Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Let cook for 45-60 mins until you can easily pierce with a fork.
- When ready, drain the water and return the potatoes to the pot over low heat.
- Cut the butter to several pieces and add to the pot.
- Mash the potatoes with the butter until homogenous and fluffy. Take off the heat.
Chicken Livers
- In a medium-sized pan over medium to high heat, pour 1 tbsp of canola oil.
- Pour in the Livers and salt them.
- Turn until browned on all sides. Make sure to brown them to a darker shade than the regular "well done" liver. This will give more umami to the dish, but don't burn them.
- When browned take them out of the pan.
- Pour 1 tbsp of canola oil into a pan over low to medium heat. I suggest using a non-stick pan but it is not mandatory. You can use the same pan used for the livers.
- Add the onion to the pan and cook until it becomes translucent.
- Add the butter.
- When the butter melts, add the garlic.
- If the garlic is crushed, wait for ½-1 minute and add the wine. If it's chopped, add the wine when the garlic's fragrance turns from spicy to sweet. In any case, don't let the garlic brown or burn.
- Add the cooked livers and the nutmeg.
- For a thin sauce – cook in wine until most of the liquid evaporates.
- For a thicker sauce (optional) – cook until about half evaporates, then mix 1 tsp of cornstarch with a bit of room temperature water and add a bit slowly while stirring to avoid creating clumps. Keep adding until you get the consistency you like.
