Chicken Liver Ragù from Bocca Cookbook

We love liver. I know quite a few people have an aversion to it. I love liver so much that on my very first date with Jonathan one of my questions was "do you like liver?" I am pleased to say that he passed the test. Liver was on the menu. Happy days!

I have been known to add chopped liver to my beef ragù but never had I thought about making an all-liver ragù. Divine!

Thank you Bocca Cookbook (click here to buy) its not in print anymore but you can by it new and used... I have had the book sitting on the shelf since Christmas but never have I turned your pages. not after reading it cover to cover, I have a list of dishes I want to make.

So on to the chicken liver ragù. The recipe is very easy but takes time: Liver, onion, celery, garlic, wine, rosemary,  parsley, butter and seasoning.

Having chopped all the ingredients (not the liver) I got started.

I turned the heat right up to high, under my new beautiful copper pan from eBay. It was a bargain! I love cooking with copper. Such control. For me, gas and copper are a dream. I have yet to use induction, but I am sure I would be like a pig in the proverbial!

Heat on high, livers lustred with oil and seasoned. It's now time to snap crackle and pop. We need a good colour on the liver. The flavour that comes from the caramelised crispy parts and the dark mahogany of the seared liver will make the sauce sing. A few minutes on each side and we are done.

Now on to the veg.  Toss in the finely chopped onion, celery and garlic. Sweat

until soft and translucent. I took it low and slow and patiently waited about 15mins. It's one of those moment in the kitchen when everything feels just perfect - that smell of onion and garlic slowly sweating in a pan. While they were melting, I chopped up the liver (only later did I find out that dicing it up smaller would have been better). I tipped in the (not so small) chunks of liver in to the mix. Poured over the wine and seasoned to taste.

The mixture needed an hour to reduce. I had to add a very small glass of water to the pan to stop it from frying.

So very hungry and dying to taste this very simple recipe I got the pasta on 10min before the sauce had finished.

To assemble, take off the heat and add the rosemary, more pepper to taste and the parsley right at the very end. 

Toss through some pasta. I used tagliatelle. The tradition is to use flat and long pasta, it looks beautiful but I also tried this sauce with twisty pasta and it worked a dream.

Since popping this picture on my facebook, lots of  people have told me how much they love liver. Well I never! I'm chuffed to find that there are people out there that love offel just as much as I do!