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.