When the sun starts setting early, the body starts aching for some more substantial food, and salads no long have an appeal. it is time for an earthy dish, with one of the most nutritious, flavorsome, and yet vilified, organ meats: liver. It is also a very cheap meat that and cooks extremely fast. To add to the Autumnal feel of this dish, there is also cabbage and parsnip. All in all a very healthy and flavorsome dish.
Variations
Instead of the hearts and liver, you can use just one of those, or replace them with giblets. Additionally, spicy it up with more piri-piri and serve it as a snack with a beer (or two) and friends. This variation is very popular in Portugal.
The parsnip fries will go well with other dishes, specially roasts. You can also experiment with other spices or herbs, for instance Rosemary, instead of the paprika.
And how to pick the best Chouriço you ask? Actually, for this dish the best chouriço is not what you are looking for. The best one is mostly meat, and very little fat, which excellent as a petisco (appetizer or Tapas). For this dish however, you want one with fast which will release the nice spices into the sauce. We call it “Chouriço corrente”.
Inspiration
For the stew the starting point was a classical Portuguese giblets snack which I replaced with liver and hearths because my SO is not fond of giblets. The cabbage was a serendipitous experiment one day that there was some left over in the fridge.
There are plenty of parsnip fries in the interwebs, but this is one of the simplest ones. My version is pretty much the same - without the extra sauce - and adjusted for my oven.
- Servings: 4
- Prep Time: 30 mins
- Cook Time: 40 mins
- Total Time: 70 mins
Ingredients
Stew
- chiken hearts and livers: 1000 g, frozen
- Savoy cabbage: half, diced
- Onion: 1, chopped
- Garlic: 2, chopped
- Butter: 2 tablespoon
- White wine: 3 dl, or lager/IPA/bitter beer
- Water: 2 dl
- Chouriço: 70 grams, cubbed in small chunks
- Tomato paste: 6 tablespoons
- Bay leaves: 3
- Piri-piri: to taste, can be replaced with dried chilies
- Salt: to taste, can be replaced with dried chilies
Parsnip chips
- Parsnips: 6, about 500 grams
- Olive oil: 1 tablespoon
- Paprika: to taste, about a teaspoon
- Sea salt: to taste
Directions
Parsnip fries
- Preheat oven to 190ºc.
- Peel the parsnips - a potato peeler will do - chop the tops off, and cut in fries.
- Mix the parsnips with the olive oil, paprika and salt, and lay in a roasting tin covered with baking paper. Roast for 25 minutes, turn them and roast for another 10 minutes. Mind you times may vary depending on your oven.
Red Curi Squash mash
- Thaw the the liver and hearts, wash with cold water, remove extra fat, dry with kitchen paper and cut the livers in half.
- In a pot, fry the livers in butter for about 5 minutes in medium heat until they are half-done. They will finish cooking later in the stew. Removed them from the pot and set aside.
- If needed add some more butter to the pan, and gently fry onion and garlic. Also add the bay leaves.
- After about 5 minutes, or when the onion is translucent, add the chouriço frying it for a little bit to release some of the spices and fat, and then hearts mixing it all together. Add some salt and the chilies/piri-piri, cover the pot and fry for 5 minutes.
- Throw in the tomato paste, wine and water, mix it all up, cook for another 10 minutes and then add the cabbage. In the closed pot the cabbage will wilt during the cooking. Let it cook for about 15 minutes.
- Add the livers, mix it all up so it can gain extra flavor from the sauce and cook for another 5 minutes.