No Milk Soak — Just Wash, Pat Dry, and Don't Overcook: Ryuji's "Negi-Shio Chicken Liver"

Many people think liver isn't something you eat at home, but Ryuji says it's actually pretty good. The izakaya staple of rare, butterflied liver topped with green onion sauce is delicious too, but there's an easier-to-eat approach — that's the starting point for this episode.

On this day, he had bought two kinds of chicken liver. According to Ryuji, liver develops off odors when it's exposed to air or water, so vacuum-packed liver is preferable if you can get it. The vacuum-packed one has a deeper red color, which he says means it hasn't been exposed to air and hasn't oxidized. He used about 351 g this time, almost all of it.

Ryuji also says that whitish liver is a sign it has stored fat, and that it's good liver. When it gets even whiter, it's called "white liver."

Ryuji stresses that "with liver, prep is 80% of the job." By the time the package is opened, drip has already come out.

Chicken liver sold in stores often has the heart (hatsu) still attached. He says that even in his home prefecture of Chiba, many shops sold hearts and livers together. Seasoning the hearts separately is a hassle, so this time he uses them together. The hearts are sliced in half horizontally. The fatty part is what yakitori shops call "hatsumoto."

It's important not to cut the liver too small, because smaller pieces overcook. Ryuji explains that cutting it as large as possible makes it harder for the heat to reach the center, giving you liver with a fluffy, near-rare texture like sous vide. The liver is divided into a large lobe and a small lobe, so he cuts the small ones into two and the large ones into roughly three, making them all bite-sized.

As for the source of the odor, Ryuji says "basically, what smells is the blood," and that there's little odor beyond that.

When a staff member asked whether he didn't need to soak it for hours to remove the odor, Ryuji brought up the milk-soaking method. Half-jokingly, he says he doesn't keep milk on hand, so he blocks every recipe that tells him to soak liver in milk so it never shows up again. The milk has to be thrown out after soaking, and the recipes never say what to do with it. In Ryuji's view, it's the worst option from an SDGs standpoint too — a method from an era when people were less mindful about not wasting things than they are today.

Instead, he rubs and rinses the liver under running water. Using a colander and bowl, he massages the liver while running water over it, and dark clumps come out of the blood vessels. These are coagulated blood. Any bits of blood that remain after rinsing come off if you tap the colander. There's no need for salt water or anything like that; plain water is fine. He also removes the blood clotted around the hearts.

He says that repeating this three to five times, changing the water each time, removes quite a lot of it. Soaking the liver in water, however, is a bad idea, because the umami of the chicken liver leaches out — which is why Ryuji says "washing" is best. He added that yakitori shops go through this every time, and it must be a lot of work.

Even so, the great thing about chicken liver is that it's cheap — around 100 yen per 100 g — and highly nutritious, Ryuji notes.

The rinsed liver is spread out on paper towels, covered with more paper towels on top, and pressed to remove moisture. Ryuji calls this step "extremely important," explaining that it's how you make liver good enough that even people who dislike it can eat it. Pressing draws out a lot of liquid, and if it's left behind, the liver will smell gamey. "Water is the enemy" is a phrase repeated throughout this episode.

You can remove the fat from the hearts if it bothers you, but he says it's fine to leave it. Just as hearts taste good when well cooked, this fat is delicious too, so Ryuji recommends keeping it rather than throwing it away. Only the visibly red parts are removed. That completes the prep, and Ryuji says that if you remember this, you can make any liver taste good.

It had been quite a long time since he'd made a liver dish, and Ryuji was in high spirits, saying it's fun to work with ingredients he doesn't usually use and that he might end up making several dishes.

When he lightly seasons the liver with salt and pepper, moisture comes out again within tens of seconds. This is due to the osmotic pressure of the salt, and he wipes it off once more. Ryuji explains that chicken holds a lot of moisture, so it's good to draw it out, and that chicken steak also tastes better if you salt it beforehand and remove the moisture. Some say not to salt, but Ryuji's position is that with chicken, it's better to do so.

Next, he adds about 2 tablespoons of katakuriko (potato starch) (for 350 g of liver) and rubs it in. The starch forms a light coating, giving you liver that's coated on the outside and very tender inside. A springy texture is everything with liver, and he says the starch also helps slightly prevent heat from penetrating to the center. If the surface is wet and sticky, the starch won't coat evenly, so the earlier drying pays off here too.

If you want to be more meticulous, it's good to separate the hearts and livers. The hearts are the part you want to cook through — they taste good even when cooked thoroughly, and they're fattier. He says the hearts make up about a quarter of the total.

About 90 g of naganegi (Japanese long green onion) is finely chopped (Ryuji says he really should have cut it first). Scoring it accordion-style before chopping helps it cling to the liver more easily.

The reason for going with negi-shio is that pairing liver with green onion tones down the "liver-ness" a bit. Still, Ryuji himself admits that it may not work for people who truly hate liver, and positions it as a recipe that people who find liver "so-so" can enjoy. Plenty of green onion is good — he says it can be as much as a third of the amount of liver. Since he's not using garlic this time, he puts in this much green onion.

He adds about 1½ tablespoons of sesame oil to the frying pan. He says the aroma of sesame oil goes well with liver. The heat is medium-high. There's a lot of meat this time, but what matters most is the doneness, and Ryuji says that's almost everything.

Overcooking brings out the off odor and makes the liver dry and crumbly to the point of being inedible. Also, the aroma compounds in liver are water-soluble, so any moisture brings out a lot of odor. That's why stir-frying in oil is best, and Ryuji explains that carelessly adding something like sake will bring out the odor. As for the common advice that "you have to cook it thoroughly," his answer is that you do have to cook it, but you mustn't overcook it.

He starts by stir-frying the hearts. They take longer to cook and taste better once their fat has rendered, and hearts are tasty even if they're cooked a bit more. Then he adds the liver and stir-fries until the red parts are gone throughout. While a little redness still remains, he judges that "it's about time," and this scene is shown uncut. From there, the residual heat finishes the cooking.

He adds the green onion and turns off the heat, then seasons with 9 shakes of umami seasoning, about half a teaspoon of salt (because he's a drinker, Ryuji says), plenty of black pepper, and finally a drizzle of sesame oil for aroma, tossing it all together to finish. Ryuji calls this doneness the culmination of years of instinct, declaring that it's "not a bit more, not a bit less."

He cuts a piece of liver on the cutting board to show the cross-section, calling it "the ultimate doneness for liver."

Tasting it, Ryuji says the green onion and black pepper are the key, and that he deliberately left out garlic. He says it's the kind of "zero odor" state people often talk about on TV. The smaller pieces are the hearts, and they were outstanding too. The potato starch coating the liver brings everything together, and you can eat it as is, or squeeze some lemon over it if you like acidity. Squeezing lemon over it makes it even easier to eat.

When the liver-hating staff member tried it, they were reluctant at first, but said it was "really easy to eat" and "has no odor at all," adding that it's better with lemon. Another staff member said they had an image of chicken liver as dry and crumbly. Ryuji responded that any restaurant serving crumbly chicken liver is either using old liver or doesn't know how to cook it.

Finally, Ryuji listed two tips: choose liver that hasn't changed color, and don't cook it any further than he did here. The more liver is cooked, the more odor it develops, so finish it at medium. He also confirmed, however, that it wasn't raw.

Ryuji believes that unless you truly can't stand liver, you'll find this recipe delicious, and that an average person would definitely say it's good. He wrapped up by saying it's worth trying even if you're not too keen on liver, and encouraged viewers to make it with a beer in hand.