Lasang Pinoy 9: Chicken Liver Hawaiian

Lasang Pinoy 9 which is hosted by Cia of Pabulum focuses on internal organs of animals (offal). Offal is discarded by some people as refuse. Filipinos love to eat internal organs of animals like gizzard, liver, spleen, kidney, heart, intestines and even the blood.

There are many of my favorite recipes wherein we use offal, like bopis, papaitan, batchoy, kare-kare, adobong atay/balun-balunan, igado, liver steak and my entry for this LP event which is the chicken liver hawaiian. Some pinoys cook kare-kare with oxtail and tripe only, and some cook it with ox feet and tripe. In our family, we cook kare-kare with oxtail, ox feet, tripe, and ox intestines.

Since I was a child, I really loved to eat liver. I usually asked my mom to cook fried ox liver for me. My mom was the one who influenced me so much with my preference for liver because I always saw her eating it that time because she had anemia. Her doctor advised her to eat liver, sweet potato tops, and bitter gourd (ampalaya).

I remember also that my brother hated liver so much. He had a yucky feeling with liver-eating; he told me he usually thought of aswang every time he saw me eating fried liver. But when we were studying in Quiapo, that was from 1979-1982, we found this restaurant at the last floor of the old Good Earth Emporium. This restaurant served the most delicious liver sandwich I ever tasted. As proof of its deliciousness, my brother finally ate liver. We really tried to save our allowances, so that every Friday we could go and eat to that restaurant. We used to order liver sandwich and milk shake. After the closed down of Good Earth Emporium, my brother stopped eating liver.

I went to Carriedo about a month ago because I heard that Good Earth Emporium is open again. But I was really disappointed when I found out that the old restaurant is not there anymore. And the new building looks like 168 Mall in Divisoria not the Good Earth Emporium before.

Enough of my reminiscing, I would like to share this chicken liver recipe which I got from Kitchenomics. I’m a loyal user of Del Monte products that’s why I usually try all of the recipes I got from the net, booklets, and recipe books.

Chicken Liver Hawaiian

Ingredients:
½ kilo chicken liver, cut in half
1 can (439 g) Del Monte Fresh Cut Pineapple Tidbits, drained (reserve syrup)
3 medium saba bananas, sliced and fried
1 medium carrot, cut into strips
1 tbsp. cornstarch, dissolved in 1 tbsp. water

Procedure:
Marinate liver in 1 tbsp. soy sauce, pineapple syrup, ¼ tsp. pepper and ¼ tsp. iodized salt for 30 minutes. Drain and reserve marinade. Fry liver in oil until light brown. Set aside.
Stir-fry carrot in 2 tbsp. margarine until half tender. Add ¾ cup water, 1 tbsp. brown sugar, ¾ tsp. iodized salt (or 1 ½ tsp. rock salt), ¼ tsp. pepper and marinade. Simmer for 10 minutes.
Add fried liver, dissolved cornstarch, banana and Del Monte Fresh Cut Pineapple Tidbits. Continue simmering for 3 minutes.

Baked Milkfish in Teriyaki Sauce

We went to my sister-in-law’s house in Paranaque last Sunday. It was her son’s 6th birthday and at the same time, a family get-together. We had Italian-style spaghetti, roasted chicken, fresh vegetable salad, and baked milkfish (bangus) for lunch. We really loved the taste of the baked fish, and from what I learned from my sis-in-law, she used teriyaki sauce for this recipe. She was quite busy at that time that’s why I didn’t have a chance to ask her what some of the ingredients in this recipe are.

Since I bought a big milkfish last Monday (about a kilo/piece), I decided to bake the fish. I will just name my recipe as “Baked Milkfish in Teriyaki Sauce” since I just invented this recipe inspired by my sis-in-law’s version of baked milkfish.



I deboned the milkfish, removed the scales, and cut it into four. I placed it in a square pyrex dish. I added some salt and pepper, crushed garlic, diced onions, basil leaves (the one from McCormick), few drops of sesame oil, and 5 small sachets of teriyaki sauce (this teriyaki sauce I got from an eyeball (EB) I attended last year courtesy of Sysu). I baked it for around 35 minutes at 350˚F. Before serving, I put some onion leeks.

What can I say with my experiment? Well, we loved it so much. It’s really delicious, actually more delicious than my sis-in-law’s version (hehehe, so boastful of me). But I think I will do some justice with this recipe if you will also try to cook it. Enjoy eating!!!

Food Trip: UVA

Internet helps me to find some of my friends online. I found my long-lost bestfriend from the net. She lives in Los Angeles, California. She is 3 years my senior but we became very closed to each other when we were in high school. For me, she is the older sister I never had. She came to visit us last February. The last time I saw her (prior to the visit) was more than 25 years ago. I really missed her a lot and I was very very happy to see her again.

We met at Galleria, Makati. I hugged her so tightly when I finally saw her. I could say that she still looked young. We laughed a lot reminiscing our old days together; talking about our teenage experiences, our crushes, etc. Some of our conversations about our present life situation were already discussed from a hundred and one phone calls (uber) from her before her visit.

One of the restaurants she wanted to visit here is UVA. She has a TFC channel in the US, and one time she saw UVA being featured in one of the channel's lifestyle show. What stucked in her mind is the "chocnut ice cream" of UVA. So we went to UVA to have lunch, that's in Greenbelt 3 (restaurant strip of Greenbelt).

UVA's interior has a Filipino touch. They used tables made of wood. Upon entering the resto, you will see a table in the center full of different wines. The place is not brightly-lit, some drop-lights adorned the ceiling.

This bowl of different fried foods is being served before our main course arrived. It is composed of garlic bread, fried thinly-sliced camote and banana.


We ordered this UVA salad. It has lettuce, white cheese, seedless grapes, and walnuts. I would say that this is the best vegetable salad I've ever tasted. I really love the slight saltiness of the white cheese (kesong puti), the sweetness of the grapes, and the sourness of the dressing. Plus the fact that the lettuce were very crispy and the walnuts so crunchy. The right combination of flavor satisfied my palate. I think they used lemon juice and some olive oil for dressing.



My friend ordered this "pesang lapu-lapu" which was wrapped in a banana leaf. The aroma of the fish permeates once she opened the wrapper. The food was really delicious.

I ordered callos. It was served with yellow rice and ensalada made up of onion, tomatoes, coriander, and some sigarillas (I don't know the English term, sorry). I actually didn't enjoy the taste of the callos. I think they should add more tomato/tomato paste. UVA's callos was bland.

We also ordered bagnet. It is served with tofu, mung beans soup, and white rice. The bagnet was delicious and crispy also but still incomparable with the genuine Ilocos bagnet.

We didn't forget to order the famous "chocnut dirty ice cream" of UVA, unfortunately, I forgot to take the picture of it. It tastes like the real chocnut, only creamy and cold.