I adore cooking with and eating offal, this chicken liver stew combines them with peas and mushrooms in a red wine sauce.
Chicken Liver that Aint Pate!
I love this chicken liver recipe it is simple, tasty, hearty and dirt cheap to cook. Basically, it is the perfect dish for just after Christmas when we have all spent our pennies and it is dark and cold outside!
Admittedly offal recipes are not exactly the height of food popularity. Although my Pork Faggots recipe proves to be one of the most popular on my site!
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 flavour. 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 thick red wine sauce.
The is also quick to cook, taking just 25 minutes. Chicken livers really do not take long to cook at all!
How To Cook Chicken Livers.
For me, chicken livers need to be quickly cooked and left a little pink inside.
As I explained in my Liver and Onions recipe, liver can have a tendency to err towards boot leather if it is not cooked properly.
As a result, I usually start them off in a hot pan to get a nice colour.
Then turn down the heat and let them cook for no more than 10 minutes.
They retain a little pinkness inside and are beautifully soft and tender.
The recipe follows that same process but we introduce wine into the mix to create a sauce for our stew.
Recipe Hints and Tips.
The first thing to mention is the wine.
A Pinot Noir or Gamay is perfect for this recipe, you want a dry red wine with a hint of acidity.
You can, of course, use any wine you like and it will have a dramatic impact on the flavour of this recipe.
Next up we have the use of frozen livers, I have a friend who was excited by this recipe but could only get frozen chicken liver.
Apparently the work well, but need slightly longer cooking to tenderise. I am not sure why this is, so as a heads up, if you are using frozen liver be prepared to cook a little longer.
Finally a serving suggestion. For me, it has to be a gruyere rich polenta, see my beef osso bucco recipe for a recipe for that.
But it would work wonderfully with pasta or even fried potatoes!
Quick Chicken Liver Stew Recipe
I adore cooking with and eating offal, sadly it is not more popular, this quick chicken liver recipe combines them with peas and mushrooms in a wonderful red wine sauce.
Ingredients
- 350 g (12 oz) Chicken Livers
- 125 g (1 Cup) Chestnut Mushrooms
- 75 g (1/2 Cup) Frozen Peas
- 50 g (1/2 Cup) Shallot
- 2 Cloves Garlic
- 1 Tsp Tomato Puree
- 125 ml (1/2 Cup) Red Wine
- 30 g (2 Tbsp) Butter
- 1 Tsp Cornflower
- Salt and Pepper, To taste
Instructions
- Finely dice the shallot and garlic.
- Cut your mushrooms in half if they are small enough to make them bit size, otherwise cut them in quarters.
- Now trim up your chicken livers removing any sinew and cut them up into 2-2.5cm pieces. That's about an inch for those of you of that persuasion.
- Heat a large frying pan over a medium-high heat and add the butter.
- When it foams add the shallot and cook for 2-3 minutes.
- Add in the garlic and saute for another minute,
- Throw in the mushrooms, season with a little salt and coók stirring occasionally for 5 minutes.
- Turn up the heat to high, add in the chicken livers and saute for 2-3 minutes.
- Season well with salt and pepper.
- Pour in the wine and reduce by half, this should take 3 or 4 minutes.
- Add tomato puree then stir, reduce the temperature to medium and cook for 5 more minutes.
- Add 1 tablespoon of water to the cornstarch and mix together.
- Drop the peas in the pan, followed by the cornstarch and cook stirring for a minute or two.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
2Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 527Total Fat: 26gSaturated Fat: 13gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 10gCholesterol: 1023mgSodium: 430mgCarbohydrates: 16gFiber: 3gSugar: 5gProtein: 47g
Calorific details are provided by a third-party application and are to be used as indicative figures only.
Roger
Friday 27th of November 2020
Great meal so easy to make and a great flavour will make this again, thank you.
Brian Jones
Saturday 28th of November 2020
Glad you enjoyed it Roger, I love this recipe it's so simple and delicious, I must give it a facelift though ;)
msSally
Tuesday 3rd of November 2020
Any idea how this would be done in a pressure cooker?
Brian Jones
Wednesday 4th of November 2020
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.
Sue R
Thursday 21st of May 2020
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.
Brian Jones
Monday 1st of June 2020
So glad you liked it Sue, I love this recipe!
Sue R
Wednesday 20th of May 2020
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
Brian Jones
Wednesday 20th of May 2020
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 :)
Brian Jones
Tuesday 8th of January 2019
I think that is often the way, childhood food nightmares are rarely as bad as we remember them to be ;)