Rioja reserva 2000, wonderful with the ragu, but then, it's a great dish to marry to any wine?

Two finely chopped onions sweated in butter, then adding similarly chopped celery, three sticks, though here I differ from Simon in that I don't feel the need to peel the celery. A large carrot, as above, and a couple of cloves of garlic. Add the mince a little at a time, on a brisker heat. Then add the liver. I should have chopped this finer as the ox doesn't disintegrate like chicken. On a high heat add some dry white wine, a little at a time, though even a South African viognier failed to ruin it. Some nutmeg, salt and pepper, then 100-200ml of passata. Cook down until the juices have nearly gone, over 30mins or so. Then add 200ml of milk, and don't bullshit around with semi-skimmed, there's cream to follow with SH's recipe. Then it's time to slow down. As Simon says, just let the sauce slowly blip, for a few hours, stirring regularly. I didn't add cream, since the beef was nicely fatty. Shona got some Cipriani Tagliardi, thin squares of pasta, from Sainsbury's impressively. This is the very thing Simon recommends, and very fine it is too, though liable to stick together. Lots of parmesan, and not to forget to dress the pasta, infact caress it with the sauce, it shouldn't be a cow pat exuding orange grease. Oh yes, SH also adds parsley at the end, but I didn't have any. This ragu can also be used to make a wonderful lasagne of course.

Heavyweight Of The Offal World

William Sargent

I learnt to cook because of hunger. It’s hard work maintaining a body mass index of around twenty, but unlike the size zeros, I’m aiming upwards.

The real impetus to cook started at university. Having been exposed to decent food at home, I needed to fend for myself.  Returning from Northern Pakistan with not one but two intestinal parasites, I really needed to eat.  It was Simon Hopkinson’s weekly tutorial in the Independent that inspired. It is difficult to imagine how I would cook today without this guidance.  Having become somewhat more enthused with food than study, a friend and I set up a Gastronomic Society, aka the Gastronauts - exploring the frontiers of taste, ahem. We may not have succeeded in reducing pot-noodle sales from Willy Low’s supermarket, but I did meet a lifelong friend, Herr Baron Von Knapp, who taught me to put a handful of chopped parsley in a dish, not a Delia-style teaspoon. Generosity in a meal means an awful lot.

The gastronaut imagery appeals though a climbing analogy might be more apt; the quest for gastronomic peaks. I am insanely driven in search of that perfect dish, nirvana on a plate. The best peaks are those attained via an unpredictable twist in the path, a kind of free-form improvised cooking. I may or may not be following a recipe at all, but have some plan in my head, then suddenly an ingredient leaps from the cupboard, or perhaps the sauce should be reduced separately. Of course sometimes it goes tits up, but then that’s half the fun.                                                       

Through an ad in a newsagent’s window selling beef I met a similarly driven man.  In his day job George is a deep sea engineer - his quest for a good steak led him to buy 100 acres of prime pasture, and he raises organic slow-grown pedigree Aberdeen Angus in what used to be his spare time. Thank God for the Georges of this world. We now eat a lot of beef, and derivatives thereof.  

I recently ate a very satisfying plate of ox liver and onions at Aberdeen airport caff which rekindled my interest in this overlooked giant of the offal world. Having pestered George for a number of months and missed a few opportunities due to logistical issues and competition with George’s cats, success at last.  So, three bloody kilograms of ox liver. What to do with this then? The recipe books are unenthusiastic, warning of the intense flavour which requires leaching out by various bizarre rituals. I’m not sure where this treatment of offal arises, but I’ve never found it to make a jot of difference to sweetbreads, kidney, or for that matter, oxtail. Just a quick rinse, and a dab, no more.

First, a stew with dried peas, evoking school dinners and the airport caff.  I don’t think the dinner ladies will have used winter savory, but they could perhaps have advised me to keep it drier in order to achieve that intense livery gravy that must evolve from sitting on a serving counter for hours at eighty degrees. I think next time a slow braise, osso bucco style, with the peas mushier.  Then a ragu inspired by Simon Hopkinson’s recipe, which is a true alchemy of meager ingredients, and would not be the same without a livery contribution. Although he specifies veal mince and chicken liver, I’ve successfully used venison mince and liver, so why not beef mince and ox liver? This particular outing was rich, earthy, and satisfying.  However, the real stand-out effort was yet to come.

I had a burning desire for a really robust terrine and my Le Creuset terrine dish was screaming out louder than its orange enamel to be used. Again, recipes are thin on the ground. My Time Life book on pate and terrine making belongs to that wonderful group of food books that teach rather than parading lifestyle choices. I do love a ridiculously focused cookbook, and this is one such superb beast, with wonderful illustrations, and a plethora of lip-smacking recipes. Unfortunately it is in a loft five hundred miles away. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall states his recipe is suitable for livers of all beasts, but for sakes of purity and texture, I didn’t want to put in any mince or eggs. A lot of liver terrine recipes use egg, but I don’t see the point. It’s going to set either way. Simon Hopkinson gives a very simple recipe for chicken liver pate involving no breadcrumbs or egg, but loads of butter, and it was in this ultra-liver-fest direction that I really wanted to go. 

I do find breadcrumbs help to absorb and thus retain some of the juices that might otherwise overflow from the cooking meat. I was keen to use beef fat for flavour, and the obvious candidate was the beautiful buttery grassy suet I rendered down from a carrier bag of perinephric fat courtesy of George, but any good suet would do. George’s suet is as soft as butter, however I thought a mixture of fats would be less likely to result in a granular texture in the finished dish. I also wanted to use some dried ceps, beef and ceps being a particular favourite. We had a good mushrooming year in 2006, and I have some superb bug-free specimens in the cupboard.  The ceps I placed at the bottom of the terrine dish, but next time I might put a ‘seam’ through the middle. Note I didn’t soak these in water in the usual fashion since their ability to soak up moisture once more reduces the juice excess and makes for a more intense cep hit.

A very robust terrine

Oven set to 120C

1 oven tray as deep as the terrine dish

1 2l terrine dish, lined with cling film if you wish to turn out the terrine

1.5kg ox liver

2 cloves garlic

1 handful / 50g dried boletus edulis (Penny Bun/ Ceps/ Porcini)

125g butter, clarified

125g suet

1 handful of breadcrumbs

salt and coarsely ground black pepper to taste

100g pork back fat or very fatty streaky bacon

Chop the liver into cubes, divesting it of any tough and fibrous vessel walls etc. The slab I had came with the falciform ligament (I presume, I’m only a human vet), which was wonderfully laden with fat like a rope strung with mussels. This I kept aside. Put the chunks of liver through a fine mincer, which gives a smooth texture and removes connective tissue. Put through the garlic with the liver, followed by the breadcrumbs. The latter help clear through the mincer, lessening the car crash mess inside. Melt the suet and butter and pour into the mixture, stir well. A shot of brandy wouldn’t go amiss here. Season with salt and crushed pepper, the odd pepper explosion is particularly suited to liver. Nutmeg and mace might be good too.  Pour the mixture into the dish, putting the ceps in first or halfway up as you fancy. Leave a finger’s breadth gap at the top, or else liquid will escape as it expands. Give the dish a couple of whacks onto the surface to remove any air.

I sliced the falciform ligament in half to produce two ‘rashers’. These were the perfect length to form a fatty lid. If using back fat slice thinly and place a layer over the mixture, or just use bacon. Fold over the cling film, if used, and place the lid on the dish. Place in the baking tray and fill the tray with boiled water to come just over half way up the terrine dish. After an hour, give the mixture a prod to get a feel for what it’s like when undercooked. It will have some give. Top up the water with more from the kettle and keep prodding every twenty minutes until it has a springy rebound. Remove and cool.

 As with most things, it is best left until the day after.  I served this with pickled shallots and oatcakes as table nibbles, but it was also sublime on thick brown toast. George seemed impressed, as did our nine month old Rory, who had a look in his eye that made a father proud.  The final ox liver chapter lurks in the fridge. Fergus Henderson’s Nose to Tail Eating, a bible for offal enthusiasts, gives a recipe for dried salted pigs liver. Though no weight is given for the average pigs liver, I imagine it is similar to that of a human. My remaining chunk was a kilo or so, a little underweight if my theory is correct, but it just had to be done. Having had its moisture well and truly extruded by a super salty, sugary peppery bath, it now lies wrapped in muslin. If peaks are conquered, I quite fancy a go with a soy sauce based brine. We shall see.