Lamb Liver with Sage Butter

Name: Lamb Liver with Sage Butter
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 4 min
Total time: 19 min
Yield: 4
Ingredients: 500g Lamb Liver; 16 fresh sage leaves; 125g salted butter; 1 tbsp sunflower oil; 3 tbsp plain flour; flaked sea salt; black pepper

By Valentine Warner

A lamb liver recipe is a real joy, offering rich, velvety flavour with minimal effort. My favourite go-to is to pat the liver dry, dredge it lightly in seasoned flour, and fry it briskly in foaming butter with a fistful of fresh sage leaves. Achieve a light browning on both sides, keeping the inside beautifully pink, then spoon over the hot butter and celebrate the succulence of fresh lamb liver – simple and utterly delicious. There’s something about the simplicity of cooking lamb liver that makes it so rewarding. When done right, the liver stays tender, almost creamy, with just enough savoury crispness from the sage and butter to enhance the natural richness. It’s a dish that’s equally at home as a quick midweek meal or as part of a more indulgent spread.

Serves: 4

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 4 minutes

Ingredients

500g Lamb Liver
16 fresh sage leaves
125g salted butter
1 tbsp sunflower oil
3 tbsp plain flour
flaked sea salt
black pepper

Method

Slice liver into long 1cm thick pieces
In a frying pan melt the butter with the olive oil until all is foaming and only just taking on a light brown colour.
Dredge the liver in the flour and pat off any excess.
Lay the liver in the butter and begin to fry, the slices should not be densely packed and so do in 2 batches if needs be.
Add the sage leaves and shake between the liver slices so that they fry in the butter.
When browned flip over and season heavily with salt and pepper while finishing the raw side.
The cooking should take little more than 3-4 minutes in all as the liver wants to be certainly pink (but not raw) inside.
Take the lamb to a warm plate or onto toast and spoon over the butter with crispy sage leaves.

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Valentine Warner

Valentine Warner is a chef, food writer, broadcaster and business owner with a deep-rooted interest in nature, travel and provincial food. He describes his cooking style as “International Grandmother,” blending a strong sense of storytelling with an infectious love of cookery.

Val has a deep respect for ingredients, both wild and cultivated, and an instinctive ability to turn whatever’s available into something hearty, wholesome and satisfying. A firm advocate of native food sources, he shares common ground with Swaledale in championing meat that is flavourful, ethical and high welfare.

Originally trained as a portrait painter, Val has authored five cookbooks, run his own catering company, and is co-owner of Taqueria, a well-loved Mexican café in West London. He is also a partner in Hepple Distillery in Northumberland and Holmen Lofoten, a hotel on Arctic Norway’s Lofoten islands.