How to cook lamb liver (Kaleji) ? 6 Tips to keep liver juicy and soft.

1. The Science behind Mutton, lamb, beef liver

Liver is soft and tender tissue with 70% water. When you cook it for long with salt, it quickly releases all its water and gets tough and chewy.  So the best way to cook liver is reducing cooking time to 5 minutes in total. Lastly, never add water while cooking liver. You may add tomatoes or yogurt that releases water while cooking.

2. How to clean liver before cooking?

Liver has a thin membrane on it. Always remove that membrane and then cut into small cubes. Sprinkle a little salt on raw liver and leave it for 15 minutes. Then wash it thoroughly removing all blood veins.

3. How long to cook lamb Liver?

Whatever method you use the cooking time will not exceed 5 minutes. In which you cover and cook on medium or slow flame for 3 minutes, add salt and cook for another two minutes. Remove from heat. Cover and rest for 10-15 minutes. This resting will give liver time to settle all juices and seal it completely. The steam trapped in pot also completes remaining cooking of liver.

Right before serving heat on high flame with quick stirring to burn any excess water and it helps searing (bhonofying) as well. Enjoy the soft yummy mutton liver (Kaleji).( Do not re-heat for long.) This is best way to cook liver. This method keeps liver tender and juicy.

4. How to get rid of odor of liver?

For the odour of liver that bothers many, fresh liver is good and doesn’t have strong odour. This is similar to fish which get smelly as it gets old. The salt that you add before washing helps remove the odor.

Among st spices fresh garlic can cut the odour apart from it, fresh herbs like fenugreek, green coriander have strong aroma that also helps undermine any bad odor.

5. Why do you soak liver in milk before cooking?

Some people soak liver in milk to cut the typical liver odour. This helps because milk has ability to absorb all bad odor. Similarly, soaking fish in milk is also a common practice which help reduce fish odor. (As I always cook fresh liver and not frozen with fenugreek, I don’t soak in milk.)

In fact, if you burn the bottom of pot and food has a burnt odour. Adding milk can overcome that odour too.

I find it very interesting that if milk is burnt itself and has burnt odour. There no way to fix it and it’s so bad.

6. How to fix a hard lamb liver (Kaleji) ?

If you cooked liver longer than 5 minutes and the liver is hard. You can cook it for 30-45 on very low flame with little water. This will again turn the liver soft but not as juicy as it would if cooked for only 5 minutes. This works if making a Liver stew where the gravy keeps the liver juicy.

Hope to find the post interesting and helpful. Please share your opinion in comment. Happy Cooking!