The secret's in the deglazing

Made Fegato alla Veneziana for lunch today. I've been ordering it in Roman restaurants lately and it's wonderful, and often the cheapest and most digestible thing on the menu.

Today, faced with a pound of beef liver, I was fed up with my unsuccessful attempts to do it the way my mother did it; floured in a pan with butter. It always seemed to turn out burnt on one side and the flouring stuck to the pan.

The Italian way is soooo good!

Take:

1 pound of beef or calves liver, very thinly sliced and cut into strips
1 large onion, sliced into strips
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 and apple, cored, peeled and sliced thin
about 2 tbs olive oil
1 cup or so of red or white wine
dash of aceto balsamico
1/2 tsp rice flour (optional)
knob of butter


Saute the onions, garlic and apple in a pan with olive oil until soft and fragrant. Pile onto a plate, cover and set aside. Add a little more olive oil to the pan and add the liver but don't cook it too hot. Sprinkle with balsamico, but not too much. Keep the temp low. The liver will release quite a bit of meat juice, let it cook in that at a low heat until it is tender and still slightly pink. Remove the liver while keeping the juices in the pan. Turn the heat up and get the pan and the juice very hot, then add the wine and deglaze the pan with the back of a fork (no teflon in my kitchen!). When the wine has reduced a bit, add the butter. If you want, you can sprinkle the sauce very gently and sparsely with rice flour to thicken. Stir fast. You won't need more than a 1/2 a teaspoon, if that. When the sauce is ready, pour the liver and onion mixture back into the pan, stirring it all round in the sauce until everything is nice and coated and hot.

Eat.

You'll be amazed at how good it is. It will put a completely new idea about liver into your head.



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