Figatell Valenciano

Figatell is Valencian, especially from the comarques around La Safor and La Marina, and it isn't just a sausage without a skin. It is pork and liver minced together with garlic, parsley, pine nuts, and a whisper of warm spice, then wrapped in tela, the lace of pork caul fat, and grilled until the outside browns and the middle stays juicy. That caul is what makes it figatell and not just a patty.

The method that decides it is the heat. Medium, steady, patient. The caul has to render and cling before the centre dries, and the liver has to cook through without turning chalky. Blast it over hard fire and you get a scorched outside with a sulking middle. Cook it gently and it eats the way it should, rich, clean, and a little sweet from the pine nuts.

If you're far from Valencia, ask a butcher for pork caul fat, sometimes called lace fat. No hace falta haber pisado España. If you truly can't get it, cook the mixture as small patties in a little olive oil, but know what changes: you lose the lacy casing, some of the juiciness, and a good part of the dish's character. Pork liver is the liver to use; chicken liver makes it softer and milder, a compromise, not the same thing.

Figatell belongs to esmorzaret, the Valencian mid-morning meal that can make a sandwich look like a serious piece of work. Tuck it into crusty bread with allioli if you like, or eat it from the grill with bread beside it. In the Margin beside this one I wrote only: lower heat than your nerves want. That is enough.