GRILLED LIVER BRUSCHETTA WITH PICKLED RED ONIONS

Before I start off in this carnivorous journey, here's wishing everyone around the globe a very very HAPPY HOLI. May your life brighten up with the colors of Spring. For me, its yet another year, when I am away from colors, though the weekend Holi Mela(Fair) at the Hindu Temple seems like a tempting idea. Playing with colors and all also biting in to some quintessential Holi food like Gujiya and Thandai.Well, the man is cooking dinner tonight, so I thought of writing about another meal which he had whipped up. just about some time back.

 Coming back to my carnivorous amour: Grilled Liver Bruschetta with Pickled Red Onion. Hubby came up with his own version of a meaty bruschetta.Just to add some extra punch, he added pickled onions rather than the regular one. Well, I had pickled them earlier for a salad, but they went on to be a part of his creation. Needless to say, it was a much better use, than my salad. We love Bruschettas as an appetizer, during our Italian meal nights. But this time around, we decided to spin the table a bit. Make the appetizer into an entre. We did not even have any fancy Italian bread at home, so had to  make do with regular white bread.

 The grilled liver had been browned to perfection, and was soft at the core. The pickled onions added the right crunch along with a slight tang.The flavour which defined the dish and brought all its mryiad components as one dish was surely the grated lemon zest. A touch of Parmesan Cheese and some Cilantro leaves added the rustic touch to the Bruschetta. On hind thought, I feel, the Parm could also be replaced with some  crumbly Feta, for those who like bolder tastes.for now, let me not to mess with the man's recipe. One thing is to be kept in mind, when one cooks with any kind of organ meat, that it needs to be marinated in some ginger-garlic paste at least for an hour, to reduce the gamey flavour. And the marinade should be discarded while cooking the meat.

GRILLED LIVER BRUSCHETTA WITH PICKLED RED ONIONS: 


Ingredients: 
Chicken Liver: 1 lb
Ginger- Garlic Paste: 2 tbsp
Red Wine Vinegar: 1/4 cup for pickling the onions
Butter
Parmesan Cheese: 1/2 cup: Grated: for garnishing the bruschettas
Cilantro leaves: a handful
Dried Oregano: 1 tbsp
Lemon zest: 1 lemon zested
Lemon juice: juice of 1/2 a lemon
Olive Oil: 2 tbsp and some more for drizzling over the bruschetta.
Sugar: 2 tbsp
Red Onion: 1 medium sized one, sliced.
Salt: to taste
White/Brown Bread Slices: 6. Feel free to use any bread that you might have at home.

Procedure: 
Marinate the chicken liver in ginger-garlic paste, lemon juice, some lemon zest and a dash of olive oil for at least an hour.

Pickle the sliced onions in the vinegar,salt and sugar for a few hours. You can even pickle it a day in advance in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

 Add butter to the grill(or a pan) and add the liver pieces to it. Try and discard the marinating liquid, as much as you can, though some of it will hit the grill along with the liver pieces.

Brown the liver pieces, by stirring them frequently and carefully. Make sure that the liver chunks do not break, while you are cooking them. Season it with salt and dried oregano.

Once the liver has been properly browned and cooked, keep it aside in a  plate.

 Add the sliced pickled onion to the grill and add some cayenne pepper to it. Cook till it retains some crunch. Make sure not to add the pickling liquid.The onions would have an inherent tartness to it, for the pickling process. Keep them aside in another bowl.

Meanwhile toast the bread slices in the oven. We just cut the slices by half, though you can be creative with it, on how you keep the bread slices. Peel a garlic clove and cut it slightly on the top, and then rub the garlic clove on the toasted bread. Repeat it for all the bread slices. You might need around a few cloves of garlic to complete the process with all the bread slices. This helps in building the flavors.

Place all the bread slices on a baking dish. Layer them first with the grilled liver and then add grated Parmesan cheese.

Build on the layers of flavor with some lemon zest. On hind thought I feel, the man should have added the lemon zest over the layer of pickled onions, as that would have made it prettier.

Top it with the spicy and pickled onions and drizzle some olive oil. Bake it in a preheated oven at 350F for around 5 minutes.

Top it with cilantro leaves  torn off the stem and serve hot.

 If you are not too fond of pickled onions, then you can alternate them with normal raw red onion slices, and rather than Parmesan, you could add crumbled Feta cheese to bring about some of the tartness. Its all about experimenting with flavors after all.

Bon Appetit !