Warm Chicken Liver Salad with Pear and Soy Dressing

Name: Warm Chicken Liver Salad with Pear and Soy Dressing
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 40 min
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Chicken liver 350 g; Ripe pears 4-5; Soy sauce 2-3 tbsp; Flour 3-4 tbsp; Vegetable oil 3-4 tbsp; Salt, black pepper, dried herbs to taste

Read any cookbook and you might think a salad is a cold dish: vegetables, lots of greens, mayonnaise, usually served as an appetizer.

In the modern world a salad has long been more than a trivial starter. Next to the familiar favorites you can find quite unusual, often exotic, combinations of ingredients. Although they say that in the Middle Ages salads were much simpler: greens, onion, garlic and olive oil. Very much like those great vitamin-rich green sauces, isn't it?

There is no need to limit yourself to the usual mixes of chopped vegetables as appetizers. Try learning to make warm starters, using not only vegetables but also completely unexpected combinations. In Chinese cuisines, for example, cooks boldly combine seemingly incompatible foods and get sweet-and-sour, sweet-and-hot and so on. And the dressing is most often vegetable oil, vinegar, soy sauce.

Warm, filling starters are hard to call salads. They are more like main dishes ready to eat: meat, fish or seafood is mixed with cold vegetables or even fruit. These dishes need no dressing, or very little of it. As a rule, warm starters are quite piquant.

Take a salad with pears, for example. Pear is an autumn fruit. The pears that grow in summer are too juicy and sweet for slicing into dishes. I remember how as kids we happily ate pears from my grandmother's garden, getting sticky with sweet juice and fighting off annoying wasps. A winter pear is much larger, firmer and not so juicy.

Today we made a very tasty warm salad: chicken liver, ripe autumn pears and a soy sauce dressing. A hearty dish with an original, pleasant taste. With all the variety of recipes for this dish, trying to guess and choose is practically pointless, as it will always be excellent.

More with meat

Olivier SaladClassic Olivier salad with doctorskaya sausage or pork, potatoes, eggs, pickles and peas. Step-by-step recipe with tips for the perfect festive salad.

Tbilisi SaladGeorgian Tbilisi salad: boiled beef, red kidney beans, bell and chili peppers, toasted walnuts, cilantro and khmeli suneli with a light wine vinegar dressing.

Krill Meat SaladKrill meat salad with rice, corn, cucumber, egg whites and a light mayonnaise dressing. A quick festive appetizer – step-by-step recipe with photos.

Warm Rice Salad with Pork Belly and PeppersWarm rice salad with crispy fried pork belly, bell and chili peppers, celery, lime, herbs and cherry tomatoes. A Mexican-style side or taco filling.

Chicken Liver PâtéHomemade chicken liver pâté braised with onion, carrot and celery, then blended with butter. A smooth, creamy spread for sandwiches that keeps in the fridge.

Ingredients

2 servings

Chicken liver 350 g
Ripe pears 4-5
Soy sauce 2-3 tbsp
Flour 3-4 tbsp
Vegetable oil 3-4 tbsp
Salt, black pepper, dried herbs to taste

Step-by-step recipe

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Lately chicken offal has been sold by weight, fresh, never frozen. It used to be quite a problem to buy a kilo of chicken livers. Now you just have to walk to the store. We usually buy the packaged, chilled kind in vacuum packs. Very convenient.
Unlike a layered salad with cod liver, for a chicken liver salad the liver has to be prepared first. Rinse the chicken livers, removing any remains of bile ducts, membranes and blood clots. Then cut the liver into medium-sized pieces. I think if you cut each liver into four parts, you won't go wrong.
An important point: pat the liver pieces dry with a paper towel. Otherwise, after coating in flour you can end up with dumplings, and the salad will be full of dough.
Season the liver pieces with salt and pepper to taste. By the way, the dish can be quite spicy. It is good to add 1-2 pinches of aromatic herbs: dill, basil, savory. Stir and leave for a few minutes.
Peel the pears with a sharp knife. A sharp one is better, otherwise a lot of juice will run out. Cut each pear into thin slices and remove the core.
A little digression. The warm salad will be even tastier if there are twice as many pears as chicken liver. Each pear weighs 150-200 g. For 350-400 g of chicken liver it is best to take 4-5 pears.
Coat the dried liver in flour and put it in hot oil in a frying pan. The heat should be medium.
Fry the chicken liver until golden brown and turn it over. Fry the other side and turn it over once more. Fry the liver until done, checking for pink juice inside. By the way, we sometimes make an amazing liver cake or liver pancakes from liver, I recommend them!
Put the prepared pear slices in a deep bowl. Put the slightly cooled fried liver on top and pour over 2-3 tbsp of good soy sauce. Mix very gently. A chicken liver and pear salad should consist of separate pieces.
Divide the warm chicken liver salad among plates and serve while it is warm.
This liver salad is perfect for breakfast or as a starter for a good dinner.