Mom's Chicken Liver with Red Onion

Asians - notably Singaporeans - love chicken liver (and pig's too)! Liver has a lot of iron, minerals and vitamins a growing kid needs and helps to replenish the body's red blood cells.

Too much of it, however, is bad for adults as liver is high in cholesterol. Nevertheless, we think kids and those recuperating from a surgical operation will benefit from eating chicken liver.

Asians love their liver in congee, hot pot, and stir-fry and has turned cooking it into an art.

Many years ago, Add and I were in Songkhla when we chanced upon a road-side stall that cooked dishes to order, just like our zhi-char stalls. Except there was no menu; you simply told the cook what you wanted and how you wanted it: stir-fried, steamed, etc.

We ordered 3 dishes - small squids (2-inches) stir-fried in a flavorful sweet-sour, none-too-spicy chili sauce; stir-fried pig's liver that simply melted in our mouths, sweet and juicy; and aromatic sambal kangkong - simply a must-have for us whenever that's available - served with steaming hot rice.

All the dishes were extremely tasty! The cook was very skillful in his wok technique because the 3 dishes we ordered needed an extremely fiery hot wok and had to be cooked just right.

Those of you who had tasted those dishes would know what we mean: few seconds too long in the hot wok would make the liver or squid tough and rubbery. Too short and they would be mushy and unpalatable! Likewise for kangkong - the cooked veggie had to look fresh and green, not limpid or wilted!

Even after 30 yrs, we still couldn't forget that street stall in Songkhla. The squid dish - oh my, we never tasted anything so extraordinary! To this day - after we tried and failed to locate that particular roadside stall few years ago - we could not find another squid dish quite like it. *sob*

OK, enough reminiscence!

ADD today decided to cook one of our son's favorite dish - Chicken liver with Red Onion. This is a dish that requires a very hot wok and quick stir-frying with a few deft strokes.

Ingredients:

Chicken liver, 1 pack (about 200 gm), cut to bite-sized chunks
Read Onion 1, sliced
Fresh garlic, 3 cloves, chopped
Sliced small green chillies (not bird chillies), less spicy.
Dash of Tiparos fish sauce
Sugar to balance the fish sauce

Method:

1. Fry the chopped garlic in a little oil in a wok on medium-high heat until slightly brown and fragrant - about 1-2 minutes.

2. Add sliced onion, fry for a minute. Add green chillies, cook fully, to the wok
3. Add the chicken liver and fry until cooked. Eyeball.

4. Finally add a dash of Tiparos fish sauce, add sugar to balance the taste. Dish out onto a plate.

Note: Our Rinnai hob burns extremely hot, and therefore our timing may differ when you cook with your hob. So, use your judgment on the timing when you stir-fry. Do not over-cook the chicken liver.

Serve with freshly cooked jasmine rice, soup, and another meat or fish dish.