Lambs fry

Braised lamb liver with bacon & mushroom.

This old school Tasmanian, Australian and New Zealand classic bistro dish is more often than not frowned upon in culinary circles and foodies alike. But how could a dish that served our forefathers so well have had such a fall from grace? This I have asked myself many times since researching its origins and embracing it upon my menus.

It ‘ain’t hip to eat classical, country Australian pub grub’ is why for mine, but anyway. Here is a rendition of one of my most profitable and popular dishes.

Ingredients

600g fresh Lambs fry

350g celery (1/3 bunch)

400g brown onion (2 units)

200g carrot (2 units)

250g rind on bacon

200g button mushrooms

30g fresh garlic

400ml ‘Royal reserve’ tawny port

1/2 bunch of picked thyme

1 litre dark beef or chicken stock

Grapeseed oil

Salt

Pepper

Apparatus

Cutting board

Chefs knife, sharp one

Medium size bowl

Submersion vessil for your lambs fry

Large, heavy based frying pan

3-5 litre heavy based pot

Colander

Method

Take your delightful slab of lamb fry and submerge it in water with a couple of pinches of salt, then rest for an hour so in the fridge.

While your waiting for your lambs membrane to loosen up for easy removal, peel and dice your onion, clean and dice your celery, chop your mushrooms and take the top and tail of your carrots, slice them whole vertically, then do the same with your halves, then dice to required size. You are looking for roughly a 1cm square cut for all vegetable, while be aware that these ingredients will shrink by roughly one third once cooked if you feel like changing it up. Finely chop your garlic, slice your bacon into strips, then chop your thyme up also.

Heat up your heavy based pot, place in your carrots and onions, and cook until translucent. Add your celery, thyme, mushrooms and garlic. Cook mixture through until all ingredients show a thorough caramelization. Rest pot until required.

If you are a gun like me, your pot of vegetables will be patiently waiting for the star of the show buy the time you can peel away the livers membrane! After your set hour has elapsed, drain the water from your lambs fry, place it onto your board, and peal the membrane from your lambs liver. If find it easy to trim some of the end points of my lamb, so I can get a decent grip on a good portion of the membrane, for which should then peel away easier. The bigger the piece of membrane you can get hold of to begin with, the easier this process will be.

Once you have removed the membrane, carefully cut out the undesirable arteries that are present on the thick part of the lambs fry. Now slice thick, long pieces of the lambs fry, place them into your soaking tub, and fire up the large frying pan on full throttle.

Once smoke starts to caress its way out of your dry frying pan, drop in a small amount of oil, then add enough lambs fry to only half fill the pan, and make sure the strips are laying flat on the frying pans surfaces. Turn the liver over after roughly 30 seconds, or until a good amount of caramelization is present on the surface of the liver. Place your now sealed meat into a colander, then wait until your frying pan heats up again, and repeat the process until all the lambs fry is sealed. If you go to hard and put to much fry in the frying pan at one time, then your frying pan will cool down before caramelization occurs, which will then just stew your meat and you will essentially be wasting your time with this step. Caramelization equates to flavor, so don’t be impatient!

Now get some heat back into your burnt liver fragmented frying pan, and repeat the process with your bacon. While this process is underway, start getting some heat back into your caramelized vegetables. Throw your bacon strait into the vegetable pot once heavily caramelized. Once the bacon has assimilated into your pot of vegetables, pour your port into the frying pan, and bring the port up to a boil and watch it come to life with some bustling flames. Once the flames have burnt out, scrap up all the little bits of caramelized goodness from the bottom of your frying pan and add the reduced port to your pot of vegetables. I always like to cook the alcohol out of my liquors when I use them in cooking, as you get a more natural flavor that isn’t compromised by the bitterness of the alcohol content. Specific alcohol flavor does have its uses in many dishes, yet not for me in this particular dish.

Now you have your vegetables, port, bacon into the warm/warming pot, add your strained lambs fry and stock into the pot and bring up to a simmer. Allow the pot to simmer for around an hour, then season it to taste, and allow to rest until required. Serve with mash potatoes, green vegetables and a nice piece of your favorite buttered bread.

#Pro tip: Stews always taste better the next day. My nans stews and my step mums nans stews were always better the next day. I would go to crazy lengths a we fella to get out of eating stews growing up if they were made day (never go out of it though), yet would deploy similar tactics to get a hold of some over the days after my nans created their classical family braises. Its always been the same deal as a chef, and likewise with this little gem. You can rest for a day or two for a more assimilated concoction.