Lamb Liver, Onions, and Mushrooms

First, a nod of appreciation to my ex-husband, Doug, who made *really* excellent liver and onions and who introduced me to liver (my own mother wouldn't touch the stuff unless it was safely labeled as pate). I tried to get Phil to try this for a long time, but with no success because his childhood experience was not so positive. But with our new commitment to whole foods and organs and trying "old" things in general, he tried it again.

This was a full lamb liver (shown in the picture) weighing 1.4 pounds. The recipe reflects half that amount, because I reserved half of the cooked liver to make a liver-rice ring mold for tomorrow. The mushrooms and onions represent the full mis en place minus spices and fat for frying for tonight's dish.

Recipe:

Liver, Mushrooms and Onions (with thanks to Doug)
Serves 2

3/4 lb liver (I used lamb)
1/2 lg yellow onion
4 - 6 md white mushrooms
Salt, pepper and spices to taste

Slice the liver approximately 1/2" thick. Slice the onion into 1/4" rings. Slice the mushrooms 1/4" thick.

Heat a griddle or grill and generously grease with fat or ghee. I just used the griddle from breakfast bacon, so it had a lot of nice pork fat already on it.

Saute the mushrooms and onions until limp and fragrant. Remove to a bowl.

Add more fat to the griddle if necessary so that there is a generous coating (but not a pool) on the griddle. I added about 1T of ghee.

Lay the liver slices on. Saute 1-2 minutes on each side (no more than 4 min total) until they are just barely done. Picture above shows them ready to remove (again, this shows the full 1.4 lb of liver on the grill). Remove to a plate.

Put the onions and mushrooms back on the grill and saute them while scraping vigorously. In essence, you are deglazing the griddle with the mushrooms and onions. Remove them back to the bowl. Picture below shows the onions and mushrooms after the second cooking.

Put the liver on individual plates and cover with the onion-mushroom mix. Serve hot.

Eating notes:

"More liver, please!" is Phil's request, and I am happy to oblige. A simple dish, simply cooked, and really good. I seasoned it only with pepper and (mixed in with the onions and mushrooms) a little bit of salt. It has more texture than spleen, which almost tastes like pate even in its natural state. But it definitely is not muscle meat. The trick is to just barely cook it. Too much and you'll have the shoe leather that turned Phil off for decades. Done right, even the kitchen gods approve (Kitchen Goddess Nadja shown; later, she made short work of the griddle as well, but of course we didn't get that ultra-cute picture on camera!).