How to keep chicken livers intact

liver

I am trying to duplicate the chicken livers as made in South Africa (eg the Mozambique paprika livers Nando's has), but in my first attempt the livers appeared to partially disintegrate into an unappetizing ca-ca looking mush, yet with still some pinkish bits present.

Ideally they would be separate chunks, nicely browned on the outside and cooked through on the inside.

I threw them in with sauteed onions once the onions had cooked through so the pan was not extremely hot.

Is there a trick to this? Hotter frypan and just cook the livers first? Does washing the livers help? I did clean them to remove the fiber bits but didn't wash them particularly.

Update: Hot pan, washed and dusted with flour did the trick perfectly. Nasty spitting of hot oil- I think that's covered in another question.

Best Answer

As you note, the recipe I was able to locate for Nando's spicy chicken livers (with tagliatelle pasta) did the trick. While that version calls for veg (marrow/zucchini) and pasta, here are the directions for the chicken liver and sauce.

Heat 5 Tablespoons of olive oil or butter over a medium heat. Add the chicken livers and sauté for 4 minutes. Add one cup of Nando’s sauce to the chicken livers and allow to cook for another 2 minutes, then remove from the heat.

In announcing the new Mozambican Paprika flavor, Nando's head of food, Pascale Sobiecki, revealed that the recipe contains

coconut, lime, lemon, garlic, tomato, onion, parsley and rosemary and, of course, paprika – no less than three different kinds, one of them smoked.

Because it’s Nando’s, there is a touch of African bird’s eye chilli – but only a hint. On the Nando’s PERi-Ometer, Mozambican Paprika is slightly hotter than Lemon and Herb (which also contains chilli, incidentally), but milder than our Mild flavour.

Until it's available, you might have some fun trying to create your own version of the sauce.

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