Liver in Seasoned Sauce

I make this lampang lumbuk today with heart instead of liver. Liver is ‘hati’ in Indonesian. Hati means not only liver, but also ‘heart’. I could not get any liver this weekend and my husband is allergic to chicken liver. But my supermarket has a beef heart for sale, so why not? 😉 If it means the same in Indonesian I dare to try it.

Liver is a pretty fat meat and heart is very lean. That’s why I add some pork belly (bacon) to the dish to add some extra flavor.

The sauce is rich in flavor. I think every meat will taste well with these herbs and spices.

Liver in Seasoned Sauce #155 translated from Beb Vuyks Groot Indonesisch Kookboek, page 155.

Ingredients

• 1/2 kg of liver, any kind
• 1/3 block santen (coconut cream)
• 5 tablespoons of coconut flour
• 1/2 l of water

Herbs

• 2 tablespoons of chopped onions
• 1 teaspoon sambal ulek
• 2 teaspoons of ketumbar (coriander powder)
• 1 teaspoon of jinten (cumin)
• 1/2 teaspoon kencur (kaempferia galanga)
• 2 salam leaves (Asian bay leaves)
• 2 jeruk purut leaves (kaffir lime leaves)
• pepper
• salt

1. Cut the liver into coarse slices.
2. Rub onions, sambal, ketumbar, jinten, kencur, pepper and salt into a paste and mix with the coconut flour.
3. Dissolve the santen in the water and add the spice mixture.
4. Bring to the boil and add the slices of liver, the salam, and the jeruk purut leaves.
5. Let this cook until the meat is tender and the spices with the coconut flour have formed a thick sauce.

My heart weighs 250 grams. I buy 250 grams of bacon. Together I have 500 grams of meat, just like the recipes states.

Beb uses in many recipes coconut flour, but when she writes down coconut flour she means ‘grated coconut’. You can also buy coconut flour (a great alternative to wheat flour), but that is really flour (to bake cookies for instance) and that is not what you need here.

Ketumbar is coriander powder and jinten is cumin. Kencur (kaempferia galanga) is a root that looks like laos (but tastes even better and stronger).

I use my emersion blender to mash the herbs and spices into a paste. The emersion blender makes my bumbu (herb mix) extra fine. This way it mixes well with the coconut cream (santen).

You can also a mortar and make the paste by hand.

I place the onions, sambal, ketumbar, jinten, kencur, pepper, and salt together in a plastic jug and mix everything with the stick mixer in half a minute.

Now I add the grated coconut to my bumbu paste and add this mix to my water in the pan.

I warm this up together with the leaves (salam and jeruk purut) and the santen (coconut cream). I heat this until the santen is almost dissolved.

Now I add the meat. The heart needs about 10 minutes. Bacon too. I simmer everything a little longer so the sauce reduces well into a thick sauce.

It is not the most beautiful recipe in terms of appearance, but certainly very tasty. The herbs (especially the jinten and kencur) make this liver in seasoned sauce into a very flavorsome dish.