How did I get this chunk of lamb liver and what can I do with it? It all comes from working in a place with many multiply-talented young people. My young colleague Michelle arrived in AA with a PhD on top of her medical degree and early success in the lab, parlaying it all into her position as one of the rising research stars in rheumatology.
But for all her laurels, she grew up on a farm in little Mesopotamia Ohio (pop’n 3,034 2020 census), east and south of Cleveland, 220 miles or so from Ann Arbor. Her husband, Mark, had similar origins. After a couple years up here, they decided to pursue their roots, buying a small farm west of town. It quickly became a going concern – EMMA Acres (1) – with produce consisting of eggs Michelle sold in clinic, to vegetables from Michelle’s garden, to all manner of animals Mark raised and had butchered. Some of their products are sold in local establishments, like Biercamp on South State (2), which honored their contribution to their artisan meats by hanging this poster of them just inside their doorway.
Mark’s freezer is full of various parts, but you couldn’t beat those whole animals. For the last several springs, we’ve bought our own lamb, gathering the butchered parts from Jerome meats in the Irish Hills, for whom a big part of their business is dressing deer from local hunters.(3) I got to dictate the butchering of my animal, so those lamb racks included the whole half of the chest, making for an impressive dish from my Pit Barrel Cooker (4). Jerome’s asks if you want certain cuts, and I always opted to take the offal. So, for each of my lambs, I have a heart and a liver. They’ve sat deep in my freezer, but lately I’ve found some recipes that might put that liver to use. Now, I have no taste for liver, with that 1970s song wrapping it up for me (5). But it’s all in the preparation, isn’t it?I approach all new recipes as a challenge, realizing others have gone before. Thinking that with enough spices, even liver might be tasty, I went Googling and found 3 that looked promising (6,7,8). As is my habit, I compiled what looked like the tastiest touches and incorporated them into my own recipe. One of the recipes called the dish by its Hindu name: Kaleji Masala. My Google translate puts this in English a “Kaleji Masala”(!), but did produce the name in native script कलेजी मसाला. So, see here what I came up with. By any other name, it’s pretty tasty.
Most ingredients are readily available locally. Pastes of ginger and garlic require some effort, well worth it if you use a lot of these aromatic vegetables in your cooking (9). Ghee – a.k.a. clarified butter – is also worth the preparation effort to produce a cooking fat with an extremely high smoke point (10).
They sell garam masala in the Asian section of most grocery stores, but it’s easy to make and I keep some on hand using the following recipe.
You’ll notice than none of these recipes use “curry”. Realize that “curry” is a British affectation to describe the spices flavoring the wonderful food their native cooks were bringing them as they occupied the subcontinent (11). That said, many of my favorite recipes call for “curry powder”. I have 3 recipes from which I make my own. Here’s the one I’m using these days.
Like Garrison Keillor used to say about Powder Milk Biscuits – in the big blue box – with the dark stains that indicate freshness. Heavens, they’re tasty! Has your family tried ‘em? (12)
From ingredients to taste treat, it’s all in the organization:
In can be hard to tell one dish from another by their appearance in the wok. I found this very tasty, Kathy not so much. She found it too hot in spice (dial back those Thai chilis next time), and the consistency of liver a bit off putting.
It’s hard not to love Indian food. My first exposure was back in medical school when I took a date to Old Town to a restaurant whose review I’d just read that said their fare was the best thing “this side of heaven”. Gaylord of India was the only Indian restaurant in Chicago then, and is still around (13). I agreed with the critic’s assessment and have been addicted ever since. I strayed from trying to cook any myself, as all the recipes I came across seemed impossibly fussy. Maybe as I settled down with a job, a house, and a wife, I got more adventurous. I found a slim paperback by Madhur Jaffrey, a onetime Bollywood star who had become a spokesperson for Indian cooking. Her simply titled book “An Invitation to Indian Cooking” was a godsend and sent me on a journey through the dishes of the subcontinent that continues to this day. I recommend it to anyone who’s curious about this cuisine. Amazon says it was published in 2011, but my copy came out in June 1973. You can get it used for 10 bucks on Amazon (14). It would be money well spent.
Indian food isn’t necessarily “healthy”. Sure, there are a lot of vegetarians on the subcontinent and Ms Jaffrey has a cookbook for them (which I have) (15). But they still love their fats, which is probably what leads our nutritional overlords to turn up their noses. Now that we know that fat can be good for you, maybe this will all change (16).
Even though the secrets of Indian cooks go back millennia, that doesn’t mean they can’t be adapted to modern times. In my researches for this blog, I came across a new book I just purchased. Michelle was the first to introduce me to the wonders of the Insta-Pot, which I finally bought and use frequently. I can’t wait to test it on my favorite cuisine! (17).
Regardless of how you cook it, this food is well worth the effort to prepare. And, since the Hindus eschew alcohol, you won’t have to worry about a wine pairing. Me, I like beer. As Google Translate says अपने भोजन का आनंद लें!
References
- EMMA Acres Farm. Local Harvest 12/15/25. https://www.localharvest.org/emma-acres-farm-M51437
- Biercamp. https://www.bier-camp.com
- Jerome Country Market. https://jeromecountrymarketllc.com/
- Rack of Lamb. Pit Barrel Cooker Co. https://pitbarrelcooker.com/blogs/food/rack-of-lamb
- Phillips H. #01PPI: I HATE LIVER. YouTube. https://youtu.be/-bUsb-e-mvE?si=F3-fNyKudKbvK3yN
6. Priyanka. Spicy Lamb Liver Curry. Flavorquotient.com. https://flavorquotient.com/easyrecipe-print/2758-0/
7. Hanif S. Lamb liver masala fry. Cookpad.com 10/5/23. https://cookpad.com/eng/recipes/17103848
8. Cooks F. Kaleji Masala | Liver Curry. Fatima Cooking 7/8/24. https://fatimacooks.net/kaleji-masala-liver-curry/
9. Ike B. garlic* paste. WordPress 2/14/21. https://theviewfromharbal.com/2021/02/14/garlic-paste/
10. Ike B. ghee whiz! WordPress 11/6/23. https://theviewfromharbal.com/2023/11/06/ghee-whiz/
11. Uyehara M. The Real Story of Curry. Food & Wine 9/14/22. https://www.foodandwine.com/cooking-techniques/real-story-of-curry
12. Radio Heartland. “Powdermilk Biscuit Theme” – 9/22/2012. YouTube https://youtu.be/hyJAalspaKA?si=zcBK5pyQZH0dekCe
13. Gaylord Fine Indian Cuisine. https://gaylordil.com/about-us/
14. Jaffrey M. An Invitation to Indian Cooking. New York: Vintage Books (Random House), 1973. https://a.co/d/0ikphqzk
15. Jaffrey M. Madhur Jaffrey’s World-of-the-East Vegetarian Cooking: A Cookbook. New York: Knopf, 1981. https://a.co/d/08NZphsK
16. NIH News in Health. The Skinny on Fats 3/19. https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2019/03/skinny-fat
17. Pitre U. Indian Instant Pot(R) Cookbook: Traditional Indian Dishes Made Easy and Fast. Berlin: Callisto 9/19/17. https://a.co/d/092YG1fe
Bob Ike's blog 
Nice recipe except for the hepar. I too like Indian cooking. Sent from my iPhone
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