Winner, Winner, Chicken (Liver) Dinner!

Dinner: November 13, 2008
Originally uploaded by whatstepheats

I've been lacking confidence in everything about myself all week - especially my cooking ability. The title of this post is really stupid, too, I think.
In reality, everything I've made has been delicious: the oven-roasted salmon, the asparagus, the roast chicken, the potatoes and brussel sprouts.

But that didn't stop me from worrying yesterday about my first attempt at chicken liver ragu - so much that I cooked a bacon-wrapped pork roast as a backup!

The ragu over pappardelle was delicious, by the way, and very easy to do. I think cleaning the livers was the hardest part; it was not straightforward to me exactly what needed to be cut away.

Whatever I did worked, and that's all that matters in the end I suppose.

To make this, I took a pint-sized container of chicken livers and cleaned them. One of the livers had the gall bladder still attached, which had to be removed. I trimmed the shmutz and blood vessels and hard things off the liver lobes as best as I could. I was struck at the variation among the different livers in size, texture, color - everything.

Anyway, then I sauteed the livers in olive oil with some minced garlic and onion, salt and pepper until they were no longer raw-looking.
I added a splash of red vermouth and a splash of dry red wine and simmered for a couple of minutes. Then I cheated by dumping in a quart of my meat sauce I had thawed from my freezer stash. I suppose it's not really cheating; I'd made that meat gravy from scratch. It just seemed too easy. I then simmered the concoction for about a half hour. It smelled so rich and delicious and tasted even better!

I wanted to make this with dried porcini mushrooms and not have it so tomato saucy. But my man has both an issue with mushrooms and a strong affection for pasta with red sauce, so, you know, I have to please my audience! He's a customer who is worth keeping satisfied, for sure.

Don't be afraid of liver!