Power salad of chicken livers and sherry with orange and fresh mint

I’ve cooked this warm salad several times now and it gets rave reviews, it makes a great starter or a light lunch. Even if you think you don’t like liver, chicken livers are mild tasting and full of good fats for brain and liver function. Always use organic because, of course, the liver is the place where toxins are processed.

The key to this salad is preparing everything ready to serve the livers straight from the pan when they are just cooked and a tiny bit pink in the middle. There are lots of ingredients but it’s not a lot of faff…

Ingredients

For the sauce

• 2 garlic cloves
• 20g pack flat-leaf parsley, leaves only
• 3 tbsp blanched hazelnuts or pistachios from a 100g bag
• 1 tsp hot smoked paprika
• 1 tsp chilli jam
• 4 tbsp olive oil

For the salad

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• small knob of butter
• 450g pack chicken livers, cut into bite-size pieces, sinews removed
• fresh chilli, to taste, finely chopped
• 125ml glass Oloroso sherry
• juice ½ lemon
• 120g bag rocket salad
• head of broccoli
• half an avocado
• a few cherry tomatoes
• remainder of the bag of nuts
• half an orange
• fresh mint
• sherry vinegar & extra virgin olive oil to dress the leaves

Method

• Put all the ingredients for the sauce into a food processor, then whizz to a rough paste.
• Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/ gas 6. Put the remaining hazelnuts onto a baking sheet, roast for 5 mins until lightly toasted, roughly chop, then set aside.
• Add the olive oil and butter to a large frying pan over a medium-high heat. Quickly fry the livers in 2 batches until browned, about 2 mins per batch putting them to one side to cool. Then add the chilli and sherry to the cooking pan, then bubble for a few mins over a high heat. Stir in the blended sauce and allow it to thicken and heat through. Splash in the lemon juice, then season to taste.
• Prepare the salad by piling up the rocket and adding raw broccoli chopped into tiny florets, cubes of avocado, halved tomatoes, the rest of the nuts, slices of orange and some torn mint leaves.
• Dress the salad leaves with a little sherry vinegar and olive oil.
• Spoon the livers and sauce onto serving plates, sprinkle with the toasted chopped hazelnuts, then scatter over the dressed salad leaves and serve straightaway.