Sorry, boastful as it sounds, but it really is that good. I don’t often exclaim out loud over a meal, but this really was amazing, and I wasn’t the only one who thought so.

I can’t take all the credit – it’s based on a recipe from Nigel Slater’s Appetite, a food book (not quite a recipe book – he’s deliberately non-prescriptive about the way you cook things) which everyone everywhere should own. I just tarted it up a bit , primarily by adding meat and booze, the two essential ingredients of most meals made in my kitchen.

This is not a strictly “authentic” risotto. Italian food purists would likely have a lot to say about its deviation from the norm. But hey, as long as they sit around sulking about it that leaves a second helping for everyone else…

I should point out (as well as asking you to excuse my dodgy Italian) that this isn’t actually Antonio Carluccio’s recipe for calf’s liver, but it’s something I cook from time to time which, for me, recaptures my favourite dish from long hung-over lunches with my friend Max in the Islington branch of Carluccio’s restaurant.

What’s that? Calf’s liver? Yes. Fegato is calf’s liver.

Living in California, the pervasive attitude of horror that Americans have towards offal is a source of endless amusement to me. Even more amusing is the peculiarly American euphemism “variety meats”, which leaves me with a mental image of a beefsteak in a top-hat singing vaudeville tunes.

Liver, done just right, has a fantastic melt-in-the-mouth texture and a distinctive, rich flavour which is hard to beat. It’s also full of nutrients.

Anyway, this is how I capture the London/Italian way of serving it.

Okay, Okay, so the title is a little boastful, but whenever I cook it people fall in love with it and beg me for the recipe. So here it is; you can stop begging now.