Recipe for liver in a crispy cheese jacket with Italian sauce

I like most offal meals, but liver is a real favourite of mine. This is a brand new recipe concocted by me this week, so I hope you will try it and then tell me what you thought.

The recipe is in three parts, the rice, the sauce and of course the liver.

For this recipe I thought it might be nice to use a more unusual rice from normal so I've used a mixed rice with wild rice seeds. You can see the wild rice in the photograph, that's the dark bits. If you have never tried it, give it a go because it has a different texture and a wonderful sweet nutty taste to it.

This is a pretty straight forward way to deal with rice, wash it to remove excess yeast and then boil it in a pan of salted water.

Chef's tip switch off your pan slightly before the rice is soft; it will keep on cooking for awhile, drain the water, fluff it up and you will have perfect rice. If you cook it until soft, by the time you serve it you will have a pan of mush.

The sauce I decided to use a little Italian mix of herbs; oregano, basil, rosemary.

You need;

1 onion

4 cloves of garlic

1" of ginger fresh root or 1tsp of powdered ginger

1 dessert spoon of white wine vinegar

1 carton of passata, or three or four tomatoes blended into a really fine liquid.

Salt and pepper

Red pepper and green pepper [optional] chopped fine.

Chop the onions, garlic, ginger, and peppers quite fine.

Warm a frying pan and put your chopped veg in without any oil for about five minutes on a low heat until things begin to sweat.

Agitate the pan and keep things moving, and now add a few drops of light olive oil and stir. Add seasoning; add white wine vinegar…keep stirring.

Add herbs and turn down the heat to a very gentle heat.

I'm using calve's liver, which melts in your mouth and has a wonderful flavour.

Wash the liver and then in a dish cover with milk, add a little salt. Leave in the fridge for a few hours if possible overnight.

Grate your favourite cheese, I used some hard Spanish Manchego with a little parmesan and mixed it into some home made bread crumbs.

You need a dish with beaten egg and a dish with all purpose flour for dipping.

I double dipped the liver, first in the egg; making sure everything was well covered. Then dipped it into flour, and then back into the egg. Finally into the breadcrumb mix.

So now every thing comes together; the rice is cooked and fluffy, the sauce is giving off the most fantastic smells and your liver is ready to go into the pan.

Heat your pan add a little oil, I like groundnut oil for something like this because it is nice and light.

When the oil is hot, carefully place the liver in. leave it to cook for three or four minutes before moving it. The first side should now be turning crispy, turn each piece over as the cheese begins to melt and cook until golden brown.

Serve the rice with a topping of your tomato sauce with Italian seasoning and your liver on a warmed plate.

Eat and enjoy