Sauteed lambs liver and pancetta

My second post on liver and this one also uses pancetta. The pairing of rich liver with smoky pancetta just works so well. If you wrap these tight enough, they look like little sausages and taste amazing. This dish is part of an idea by Brian Turner and part of an idea by The 2 Hairy Bikers. This will feed two.

300g lambs liver (6 pieces of equal size)
6 slices pancetta
500ml chicken stock
Small glass white wine
Savoy cabbage sliced thinly
1 large or 2 small onions sliced thinly

Add half of the onion into a pan and add the chicken stock, let this simmer, you need it to reduce by half. Add the other half to a frying pan with a dash of olive oil, seasoning and a knob of butter and let it sweat down on a low heat. When this becomes translucent, take it out of the pan and set aside.

Wrap the pancetta around each of the pieces of liver, make sure it's quite tight. Add more oil and butter to the frying pan and give the liver a generous dusting of black pepper. Now saute the liver in the butter on a low to medium heat. Keep turning these regularly so all the sides get a nice browning. While this is cooking, lightly simmer the cabbage till it's al dente. When the liver is becoming firm to the touch (after about 5 minutes) take it out and place somewhere warm.

Add the onions back into the frying pan and raise the heat to medium, now add the glass of wine. Scrape the bottom of the pan. When the wine has reduced by half, add the chicken stock (minus the onion.) Let all of this reduce by half again, until you are left with a rich, slightly salty and tangy stock .Now add a couple of table spoons of tomato ketchup (Heinz of course.) The sweetness of the sauce works amazingly well with the iron tang of the liver.

Add the cabbage to the pan of sauce, then put on a warm plate. Add the pieces of liver and top with the remaining sauce. This goes great with buttery mash potato or just a bit of bread and butter.

Chicken liver, new potato and pancetta

This is an adaptation of a Nigel Slater recipe. It uses the cheapest of ingredients, offal, and yet has an amazing flavour. This is a recipe for 2.

200g Chicken livers
100g Pancetta, diced
300g New potatoes
150 ml Sour cream
Dill
Tbsp capers
Whole grain mustard
White wine vinegar
Rocket

Trim the chicken livers and put them in a bowl, covered in milk (this removes the bitterness.) Scrub the new potatoes clean and boil them in their skins till almost done. While they're still warm, break them up with a fork (don't mash, you still need large chunks.)
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When they've stopped steaming, fry them in olive oil about 5 minutes each side. Be rough with them in this stage because the more they break up, the better. In a separate pan fry some butter in a little oil and add the pancetta. When this starts to colour, add the livers and season (go easy on the salt, the pancetta will add a lot of this.) Cook the livers for a couple of minutes on each side, they should still be slightly pink in the middle.

Make a dressing with the cream, couple of table spoons of dill, tsp of grain  mustard , the capers and seasoning. Add the vinegar a little at a time till it achieves a touch of piquancy. Mix the rocket, potatoes, pancetta and livers and drizzle the dressing on sparingly.