Liver and spinach

I reckon I'm a pretty wide-ranging eater, but there are certain things I won't touch and, damnit all, I won't be judged for it.

For example, I won't eat raw garlic, roast garlic, jerusalem artichokes, lemon puddings, aniseed or kidneys. And I'm not wild about tongue, either. And the attitude you get from people! It's as if you've announced you're a vegan. At least people probably don't give you shit for being a vegan because they assume that you've got enough problems as it is.

A thing most people don't want to eat is offal and I absolutely defend anyone's right not to want to eat it without being labelled a white-bread eating food weakling. Offal really isn't actually that nice, most of the time. Kidney! ACK! Gag me with a spoon. It's just about tolerable cut up into minute chunks and then cooked for about three days and then put in a pie with gravy and steak and topped off with a slab of buttery pastry. Any more real than that and I break out into a sweat.

But some offal is okay. Lamb sweetbreads: tick. Especially the way Tom Pemberton does them at Hereford Road, with some kind of parsley and barley salad thing. Calves' liver, with bacon and onions and mash (not allowed on my diet alas): tick.

Chicken liver, turned into a pate OR cooked by Giles in a rich sauce of tomato and paprika: tick.

The photo above doesn't really do this dish justice but it's DELICIOUS.

And here's how he does it:

1 packet organic chicken livers, washed and sorted for gross bits of sinew or any green bits (gall bladder! Augh!)

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon paprika

about 100-150 marsala wine, or white wine. Or red wine, really

some lemon juice

a splash of chicken stock (if you've got it)

2 large squeezes of tomato puree or a couple of long squeezes of tomato ketchup

salt

pepper

spinach or salad leaves

some parsley if you've got it

1 - Sweat the onions gently for about 10-15 minutes and then throw in the garlic. Cook that until you start to smell garlic and then throw in the livers.

2 - turn up the heat a bit and cook for about 4 minutes. Then add the paprika, chicken stock, tomato puree, salt and pepper and cook for another 1 minute

3 - pour over the wine and then turn the heat down a bit and simmer for about 4 more minutes with a lid on, stirring occasionally until the wine reduces a bit and you get a kind of tomatoey sauce.

4 - "arrange" (i.e. plonk) some spinach leaves on a plate and then spoon over the livers and any juices left in the pan. Squeeze over some lemon juice and scatter parsley over the top.

Instead of having a brownie afterwards, I had an apple. *SMUG*