Artist’s Palate: Polly Morgan’s chicken livers with pear

Polly Morgan’s chicken livers with pear
’Touch Me’ rug, £195 per sq m, by Stepevi. ’Mami’ small bowl, £16.50, by Stefano Giovannoni, for Alessi. ’Whitework No. 30’ Irish linen cocktail napkin, £65, by Gayle Warwick
(Image credit: Stephen Lenthall)

That offal (in this case, chicken livers served rare) appears in contemporary taxidermist Polly Morgan’s favourite recipe should not be much of a surprise. For the artist’s work includes, among the stunning coiled snakes on plinths and members of the finch family slumped around picture frames, Myocardial Infarction (2013), featuring five lovebirds feasting on a resin heart, its blood dripping down a white display stand. After all, someone whose freezer may, at times, contain four years’ worth of garden birds, a cormorant and a chimp, and who knows how to skin a baby giraffe, is unlikely to be fazed by a hint of pink in the middle of her chicken livers.

Ingredients
Conference pears
Butter
Salt
Chicken livers
Lettuce
Basil
Sour cream

Method
Chop the pears (minimum of four) and fry in butter and salt. When reduced and mushy with a crisp edge, start to sear the livers. Serve rare, with pear on the side, on a bed of lettuce and basil and a dollop of sour cream.

As originally featured in the June 2016 issue of Wallpaper* (W*207)

INFORMATION

Photography: Stephen Lenthall. Interiors: Benjamin Kempton. Entertaining director: Melina Keays