Simple Chicken Liver Stew with Mushrooms
A simple chicken liver stew is my idea of food heaven, featuring peas and mushrooms in a red wine sauce, and all in under 30 minutes!
It is the perfect frugal penny-saving dinner that is plenty hearty enough to fill bellies and maybe even delicious enough to convert offal sceptics!
Chicken Liver Ragu
I love this chicken liver recipe, it is simple, tasty, hearty and dirt cheap to cook.
Admittedly, offal recipes are not exactly the height of food popularity, but I love the stuff.
I have plenty of diverse offal recipes that include classic braised liver and onions, pan-fried lambs liver and onions, pan fried calves liver, peri peri chicken livers, liver curry, devilled kidneys and chicken liver pasta recipes!
The relative explosion of high-end nose-to-tail restaurants over the last decade also indicates there is a change afoot for some.
This recipe is full of big flavours. We have the iron-rich flavour of the livers, some mushrooms for earthiness and bling that up with sweet peas.
Finally, we wrap that up in a lovely red wine sauce.
This is also quick to cook, taking just 25 minutes; chicken livers do not take long to cook at all!
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know when chicken livers are cooked?
There is much written about the safe cooking of food, so I will not rehash that.
The official safe internal temperature for chicken liver is 70°C (158°F) in the UK and Australia and 73°C (165°F) in the US, according to authorities.
There is a trend for cooking them less than this; you can make your own choice. However, please do not rely on how things look, liver cooked to 70°C will still be a little pink inside. Buy a meat thermometer and use it!
Can I use frozen chicken liver?
I have a friend who was excited by this recipe but could only get frozen chicken liver.
They work well but do need slightly longer cooking to tenderise. I am not sure why this is, but if you are using frozen liver, be prepared to cook a little longer.
What wine should I use?
The same old advice applies to wine; first and foremost, if you would not drink it, then don't cook with it.
I usually use either a Pinot Noir or a Gamay in this chicken liver stew. You want a dry red wine with a hint of acidity for the best results.
Serving Suggestions
I treat this simple chicken liver stew more like a ragu most of the time if I were honest.
The images here show it served with mashed potato. But I am just as likely to serve it with a cheesy polenta in a similar fashion to the way that I serve my mushroom ragu.
It is also awesome stirred through pappardelle pasta in the same way that I do with my venison ragu. Reduce the size of the chicken livers by about half if you are going to do this.
If you are not ready to give up on potatoes just yet, then spoon this over a jacket potato.
In fact, by way of a public service announcement, I have just discovered that you can cook baked potatoes in an air fryer, and they are outrageously good.
Equipment Used
I only name-check brands of equipment if I think that they make a material difference to a recipe. But if you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments section below the recipe.
- Hob/Stovetop.
- 30cm or 12" frying pan or skillet.
- Chopping board.
- Kitchen knife.
- A combination of weighing scales, a measuring jug, cups and spoons.
- Small mixing bowl.
- Stirring and serving spoons.
Simple Chicken Liver Stew Recipe
Ingredients
- 350 g Chicken Livers 12oz
- 125 g Small Button Mushrooms 1½ Cups
- 150 g Frozen Peas 1 Cup
- 1 Small-Medium Echalion or Banana Shallot 35g
- 2 Cloves Garlic
- 1 teaspoon Tomato Puree (Concentrate in the US)
- 175 ml Red Wine ⅔ Cup
- 30 g Butter 2 Tbsp
- 1 teaspoon Cornflower
- ¾ teaspoon Salt
- ½ teaspoon Black Pepper
Instructions
- Cut the shallot in half, peel it and then dice it as finely as you can.
- Peel the garlic and chop it as finely as you can.
- Clean up your mushrooms, and if they are larger than bite-sized, cut them in half or quarters.
- Now trim up your chicken livers, removing any sinew and cut them up into 2-2.5cm (¾-1") pieces.
- Heat a 30cm or 12" frying pan over a medium-high heat and add the butter. When it foams, add the shallot and cook for 2 minutes without colouring; stir occasionally.
- Add in the garlic and saute for another minute.
- Throw in the mushrooms, season with the salt and pepper, then coók stirring occasionally for 2-3 minutes.
- Turn the heat up to high, add in the tomato puree and chicken livers, then saute for 2-3 minutes.
- Pour in the wine and reduce by half; this should take 3 or 4 minutes.
- Add 1 tablespoon of water to the cornstarch and mix.
- Reduce the heat to medium. Add the peas to the pan, followed by the cornstarch slurry and cook, stirring for a minute or two.
Tried this tonight over a baked potato, delicious and healthy too! Will be making this regularly 😃
This recipe is absolute ace
Now that's the kind of concise review that I love... Glad you like it Helen 😀
Wow. I love chicken livers but other than liver and onions, what to do? Made this tonight and both my hubby and I really enjoyed it. Definitely a keeper! Thanks for sharing!
So glad you enjoyed it Robin, it's a lovely little recipe that I make all of the time.
I made this recipe ; unfortunately I only had Pino Grigio, However it came out great and was an incredible A very good Comfort food!
Will make this again. Very simple with minimal ingredients!
lol, "slumming" with pinot is fine 😀
Glad you enjoyed it, I love this recipe.
I just made this tonight. I didn’t have shallots so I substituted with caramelised onions and I used stock instead of wine and rehydrated porcini mushrooms as I didn’t have button mushrooms. 10/10! I put it over roast potatoes and parsnips
Great meal so easy to make and a great flavour will make this again, thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it Roger, I love this recipe it's so simple and delicious, I must give it a facelift though 😉
Any idea how this would be done in a pressure cooker?
This really is not a good candidate for cooking in a pressure cooker, getting things going with a saute, and then reducing the wine is pretty fundamental to this recipe. You could do that in a pressure cooker but then all you are left with is a 5 minute simmer, and to be honest it will take longer for the pressure cooker to come to pressure and cook than it would be to leave it in the pan.
Pressure cookers are really not great at short cooking times as they increase the rate of cooking and as such, there is far less room for error.
This was so good I want to eat it once a week for the rest of my life. Really good on the polenta. I was a very happy girl. Only thing I really did different was I used an onion instead of shallot because it's what I had. I did rinse the livers.
So glad you liked it Sue, I love this recipe!
I'm making this tomorrow night so not sure it's too late for a reply but do you wash or soak your chicken livers first? I've usually rinsed but not soaked but I do soak lambs liver. Husband isn't really into polenta but I totally am and I'm cooking *insert evil laugh* ;P
Haha, no I never soak or wash my chicken livers before I use them, I do soak pigs live in milk but chicken livers I leave as they are. I have experimented with soaking for a couple of hours in red wine and it did not work for me, so I keep it now and drink it 😉
Enjoy 🙂
I'm not a big liver fan (some bad childhood experince, I think) but these pictures really make me wanna try it again!
This looks delish Brian! The liver does not steer me away but reel me in! And the sauce with mushrooms on top of polenta, oh my! This dish is all kinds of perfect!
It sounds delicious! I didn't use to like offal when I was a child but I do now. Unfortunately my husband doesn't so it's not something I manage to cook very often at home which is a real shame as I'd love to make some recipes with it.
I love ragu! This dish is so comforting and perfect on cold winter days. Never tried it with chicken liver before, looks delicious!
I think that is often the way, childhood food nightmares are rarely as bad as we remember them to be 😉
I managed to convert my offal sceptic wife and now she loves it as much as me, this recipe is actually a really good 'shallow end' introduction to offal as chicken livers are not as strong as beef, pig or lambs liver.
It is all sorts of good and much quicker a traditional slow cooked meat ragu.
This looks delish Brian! The liver does not steer me away but reel me in! And the sauce with mushrooms on top of polenta, oh my! This dish is all kinds of perfect!
Thanks Cathy, I think so too!