I’ve been procrastinating about sharing this blog recipe with you all for some time now as I know that if I mention three certain words I would guess that possibly 80% of you will just reach for your mouse or control pad and head straight out of this blog entry, quicker than you can say…….

CHICKEN

LIVER

CURRY

Ahhhhhh I said it. Is anyone still there?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Phew at least there are still a few of you still curious to find out more.

I think our fear and loathing of liver stems largely from our school days where it was rather unceremoniously dumped on our plates with some watery greens and some white looking mush that vaguely resembled mashed potato. It wasn’t great, I admit – and thats coming from someone who actually liked her school food.

My opinion of liver changed completely when my mother-in-law started cooking chicken liver curry for me. It completely took me by surprise, so much so that I thought that I would try and convert a few of you. A real bonus as well is that chicken livers are so cheap to buy that even if you give this a shot once and you absolutely loathe it (which you won’t) then you are not wasting loads of money. It’s not as if I am asking you to try making lobster thermidor!

Chicken Liver Curry

Serves 4

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 35 minutes

1 large potato, diced

500g chicken livers

1 large onion, chopped

2 inch ginger, grated

2 small fresh red or green chilli (optional), chopped in two

1 large tsp of ground turmeric

1 tsp of ground coriander

1 tsp of ground cumin

1 tsp of salt

5 garlic cloves, kept whole

1 cinnamon stick, broken up

3 cardamom, opened up slightly

1 small tsp of vindaloo curry paste

100 ml water

a few glugs of olive oil

1. Peel and dice a large potato and then fry it gently in some olive oil for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally so that the cubes don’t get stuck at the bottom of your saucepan. Make sure that you are using a pan that is deep enough to hold all the ingredients and some water. After 5 minutes spoon out the potatoes and put to one side.

2. Fry the onions in the pan that the potatoes were in. You may need to add a little more oil at this stage.  After 6 minutes the onions should begin to be turning brown. At this stage add the grated ginger (and fresh chillies if you are using them – I tend not to for this curry) and stir into the onions.

3. Add the chicken livers and let them turn a whiter colour. Do not add any further ingredients until they have become paler in appearance, this should not take longer than 10 minutes. If you are cooking with rice, this is the perfect time to start boiling your rice so that the curry and rice are ready around the same time.

4. Now add the ground turmeric, ground cumin, ground coriander, salt, garlic and the potato to the chicken livers. Stir well, but gently, so that all the spices are mixed up evenly.

5. Add the broken up cinnamon stick, cardamom and vindaloo curry paste. Gently add a little boiling water – I tend to add the water in two stages of 50ml each. You may find that you do not need this much so add a little at a time. It will help soften the potatoes and garlic.

Serve with rice and dal.  I really think you will be pleasantly surprised. Let me know how you get on.