Waste not, want not: Fergus Henderson on cooking with offal

Nature has always been writing a menu for us. Asparagus, oysters, game birds, hares – whatever the time of year, there is something to enjoy. The seasons are fantastically clear and the fresh local ingredients are too good to pass up. The fact that I cook British food is not down to jingoism. I'm British and so is my cooking. People joke that I'm 200 years out of date and I don't mind that, but the ingredients don't change over 200 years – the animals and plants are the same – so why do you have to find a new way of cooking every few months? Back in 1994, during an economic depression, we opened a room with whitewashed walls specialising in serving offal – great idea! It's amazing we got off the ground, but we held our nerve and carried on.

Offally delicious: Henderson's guide to his signature dishes

Kidney: You can't beat devilled kidneys, dusted in a strong flour seasoned with mustard or cayenne pepper. They're like jewels. When you fry them in the pan, they tense up so they squeak when you bite into them.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Liver: Liver is strange because it's the largest filter in the body, so really it should be a collection point for nastiness, but it's actually sweet and delicate. As well as calf's liver, it's worth trying venison and goat. I like to fry liver very quickly on both sides and serve it very simply – my temptation is always to go with beetroot, to emphasise the sweet and earthy nature of liver, plus the red juice mingles with the juice from the meat. It's a very grounded dish.

Heart: It's really lean - there's a little resistance on first bite and then it's gently chewy after that, with lovely delicate flavour. I'll slice fried duck hearts thinly into a salad or braise them. Once, when I was in a taxi, the driver said: "You're that geezer who does all that offal, aren't you?" He proceeded to give me a recipe for stuffed lambs' hearts with bread, onion and wine in stock. Cabbies are very good for offal recipes because lots of them used to work in the meat market at Smithfield.

Marrow: Marrow is an elixir – as Anthony Bourdain says, it is butter from the gods. About a week before we opened St John, we were asking ourselves: "What dish will really put us on the map?" I went to see La Grande Bouffe (the 1973 film about a debauched orgy of food) and the first dish Marcello Mastroianni and Philippe Noiret were served was a huge pile of roasted bones. It was extraordinary – a real "hallelujah" moment for me. The dish we came up with has not been off the St John menu since we opened – veal bones, which the customer scoops out with a lobster pick onto sourdough toast with sea salt, then a parsley, caper and shallot salad on top.

Brain: The brain burger came about because Scott Collins from MEATliquor, the burger restaurants, suggested doing something to raise money for Parkinson's UK and I'm always in favour of that out of self-interest! (Henderson has been living with Parkinson's disease since he was diagnosed in 1998.) We had a conversation and agreed that a burger is one of the most iconic, soothing foods and brain is a very soothing offal as well, so it seemed a match made in heaven. It is deep-fried in panko crumb and served in a potato-flour roll with cabbage and sauce gribiche. After the MEATliquor promotion, we also put it on the menu at St John Bread & Wine.

Fergus Henderson was speaking at the launch, in his restaurant St John Bread & Wine, of the autumn/winter 2016-17 Montague Burton Collection, a seasonal selection of distinctive but affordable tailoring from the British high-street menswear specialist Burton Menswear; burton.co.uk

FERGUS HENDERSON is known as the pioneer of nose-to-tail eating. He opened St John, near Smithfield meat market in London, in 1994. In 2009, Michelin finally recognised him with a star (the sparse, canteen-like dining room put off the guide, before pressure from fellow chefs won out); stjohngroup.uk.com