This is a good, hearty lunch. If you are ravenous you might like to serve it, in addition to the bright tomato salad, with some roasted new potatoes.
It goes particularly well with a bottle of Jake’s saffron beer.
Recipe for Breaded Calves’ Liver with a Bright Tomato Salad
Serves 1
Ingredients for the liver:
- 120g-150g/4 – 5 oz best calves’ livers – ask your butcher to take off all membranes etc, and slice as thin as possible.
- 4 tbsps approximately of plain flour, seasoned with 1 tsp salt and a generous grind of black pepper
- 1 egg
- 1 cup of Panko breadcrumbs
- Olive oil and a couple of walnuts of butter for frying
- ½ lemon or lime, you don’t need quite this amount – use up any old quarters you have lurking in your fridge.
Ingredients for the bright tomato salad:
- 1 medium tomato
- 2 spring onions
- A leaf or two of mint or sage
- Squeeze of lemon or lime juice (use some of the lemon for the liver)
- 2 tbsps good, peppery olive oil
- Salt and pepper
Method
- Make the tomato salad ahead of time. Core and roughly slice the tomato. Snip over the spring onions – including some of the green. Snip over the mint or sage (which goes well with the liver) leaves. Add everything else. Mix well. Cover with cling film and put in the fridge until you need it.
- Cut the lemon into wedges.
- Warm your plate.
- Put the oil and butter in a small frying pan and begin to warm gently.
- Prepare your production line: put the liver in a small bowl, and the breadcrumbs, seasoned flour, and egg in three other small bowls, the flour nearest to you, then the egg (beat the egg by the way), then the breadcrumbs nearest the frying pan.
- Coat a couple of pieces of liver (depends on size) in the flour, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs. Raise the temperature under the frying pan until the butter begins to bubble and froth. Add the liver (making a note of which side of the pan you put it), and then, quickly, continue your production line until all the liver is coated and in the pan. Turn the pieces so that they become golden on both sides – just a couple of minutes maximum on each side.
- Then it’s a first-in, first-out policy – take out the liver you put in first onto your plate, then the other pieces, checking they are cooked but still pink. Serve with the tomato salad and the lemon wedges.
