Pork liver meatballs with lemon basil
Lemon basil is in season, so I use it with every meat/fish dish, even dessert. Now it’s the term of liver meatballs with lemon basil. Liver is very healthy and was recommended to me as a diet food. (not fried of course, boiled baby! So I used to make the best out of liver boiled or not:. My Mom is cooking the liver pie using the same idea, but meatballs are faster to cook, easier to serve and then eat (while you need to cut the pie, here you just take the stack of meatballs and voila! put it on your plate without any worries to break it while cutting:-).
For the recipe you need:
1 pound of pork liver;
1 big onion (or 2 small);
1 carrot;
1/3 cup of fresh lemon basil;
Salt;
Pepper;
2/3 cup of mayo or less.
Carefully wash the liver, peel the carrot and onion(s).
Mince liver and one onion (or half of the big onion). Grate the carrot. Mix grated carrot, minced liver and onion. Add salt and fresh ground pepper(according to your taste, for me 2-3 pinches of each are fine). Preheat frying pan and the maximum heat, and then turn it to medium. Start pouring the mixture on the frying pan with the spoon. The mixture will be the same consistency as the pancake mixture. (So imagine that you are frying little pancakes After the liver meatballs are golden from one side, turn them and fry on the other side. With well preheated frying pan it will take about 3-4 minutes for each meatball to fry on each side. (But don’t let your liver meatballs burn or be overcooked, because they may become bitter) ***Trick from Helen: you may pre-soak the liver in milk before mincing it, so that it would become sweeter and lose the bitterness***
When you fried the first 5-6 meatballs put the on the plate and cover with a little bit of mayo. I just take the knife and spread the mayo over the top of each meatball. (Don’t add too much of mayo, because they will become too greasy !). hen you fried the second batch of meatballs put them on top of the first layer of meatballs (as shown on the pic).When you see that you are finishing with frying your liver meatballs, finely chop the onion and fry it on the other frying pan until golden brown. Cover your last layer of meatballs with mayo and put the fried onion on top of each meatball stack. Decorate each stack with fresh basil.
Serve with mashed potato or rice.
***How to make this recipe healthier: Use the light mayo. ***
Enjoy!