When you know how good liver is for you, you’re always looking for ways to eat more of it.
As a former Texan (not native, but I moved there when I was seven), I love Mexican food. I’m the kind of person who always orders “extra jalapenos” for my nachos.
If you’re like me and you love spicy food, you’re going to love this recipe.
I didn’t have a recipe for this — I just made it up based on what I ate at Zarela in New York City. The result was almost as good. Not quite! But still very good.
If anyone has any ideas to make this recipe better, please post a comment.
Higado Encebollado: Mexican Liver & Onions
Equipment Needed:
Cast iron skillet
Ziploc bag or glass baking pan
Ingredients:
Beef liver, organic, grass-fed (1 pound)
Bacon, organic, nitrate-free (1/2 pound)
Yellow onion, cut into large pieces (1/2)
Pickled jalapenos — I really don’t know of a good brand I can recommend; all the brands I saw at Whole Foods had either soybean oil or corn oil or sunflower oil — I chose what I guessed to be the lesser of the evils, sunflower oil in Goya; I need to pickle my own jalapenos (1 can or jar)
Worcestershire sauce (1/4 cup) — I used Whole Foods organic
Directions:
1. Put the liver in a Ziploc bag (or a glass baking pan). Add 1/4 cup Worcestershire and the juice from the can of pickled jalapenos.
2. Put the bag into the fridge and let it marinate for about 4 hours (I suspect it may need to marinate longer; I need to tweak this recipe).
3. Put a cast iron skillet on the fire at medium heat.
4. Put the bacon in the pan and cook until done. Remove and set aside on a plate.
5. Add the onions to the pan and saute until they are soft.
6. Add the liver and saute 1-2 minutes on each side. Do not overcook or you will get that gross liver taste. It should still be pink on the inside.
7. Plate the liver, garnishing with bacon, onions, and pickled jalapenos.
Serves 4.
Disclosure: cmp.ly/4 and cmp.ly/5
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
That’s exactly how I make mine…..bacon, onions, iron skillet, cooking order and all. I just don’t handle spicy very well.
What I’m looking for is something mushy and wet to accompany it in the summer. Mashed potatos are too wintery for me. What did they have at Zarela?
I cook liver that way as well, without the pickled peppers.
Hmmmm, wonder if you could use fresh peppers with this? I have some kung pao peppers in my fridge and we were planning on having bacon and eggs for supper. I think I may cut up some liver to go with it. My mouth is almost salivating now haha!
Hi, Erica,
Sure you can — but you do need to marinate the liver in something — this recipe calls for the juice from the pickled jalapenos.
Do you like liver?
The more I eat it, the more I like it.
Was looking and looking at the title of this post and realised what looked funny to me…
its Higado, not Hidalgo, which is a common man’s name…so you’ve essentially got “Onionized John” instead of “Onionized Liver”
You know what? I checked and rechecked that more than three times to make sure I got it right.
Can you tell I am dyslexic? (I am!)
Thanks Noemi!
I’m going to try this recipe Ann Marie! I got some pastured beef liver at the farmer’s market today with this in mind. Thank you! I’ve never cooked liver before, but my husband is Peruvian and he is already used to it. He is going to be happy if this turns out well.
I wanted to let you know that I made this for my mother-in-law and husband last Thursday. I used La Costeña brand of canned pickled jalapeños which doesn’t have any type of oil in it. I let it marinate in the refrigerator for 24 hours. It was the first time I had ever tried to cook liver and we were all surprised and pleased with how good it was! Thank you for the recipe and the tips. The next time I will slice the liver in thinner pieces though.
Oh I’m so glad!
I like the idea of slicing the liver more thinly — is that how your MIL does it?
I want to try marinating mine longer next time.
Maybe I will do it Wed night since Seth is going out of town. I always eat liver when he is away…
PS: I just made a fabulous gazpacho — Seth gave it 2 thumbs up (that is rare). I will post the recipe soon.
PS: Sorry to keep adding comment after comment — LOL!
Can you ask your husband and MIL about maca? I mean, since they are from Peru? Do they know about people taking maca in Peru? Just curious…
Well, the marinade was so delicious and they wished that the liver had been sliced thinner so that more of the surface area would have been in the marinade. Since I just left it the thickness that the butcher had cut it, my MIL said for me to slice it next time and it would be perfect. She really liked the recipe though. Jalapeños are Mexican but similar to some ahí peppers in Peru, and it was the first time she had tried them. She makes her own version of Hígado Encebollado with vinegar and tomatoes.
They don’t have any insight into the wonders of maca. They just know that it comes from Peru and that it works like Viagra. LOL.
LOL! Well it hasn’t worked that way for me (yet)… but it has cured my PMS.
hello,
I personally wouldn’t use the canned jalapenos or their juice for marinating. For a marinade I would use fresh squeeze lime juice, an orange squeezed too, lots of cilantro, garlic, and green onions, salt and pepper and maybe some nice spanish paprika and ground cumin too.
Pickled jalapenos recipe on chow link address below here:
http://www.chow.com/recipes/10805
Paula Pereira’s last blog post..Purple Potatoe Salad with Garlic Scape Pesto
Oh sorry I forgot to add extra virgin olive oil in that marinade also!
Paula Pereira’s last blog post..Purple Potatoe Salad with Garlic Scape Pesto
Hi there this is avery interesting recipe. im from colombia and we eat lots of higado but the recipe is called the same but it is very different..but i have to agree with you higado is very good for you. thank you for sharing
made this tonight & it was very good. probably marinated 8 hours. I did cook 2 minutes per side, but was brown inside & a little mushy – so will lower the time cooked next time I make this. I thought it would be too spicy for me, but it was good! (though I didn’t actually eat the jalepenos)
Jessie – Thanks for the report! I’m glad you liked it.
my sister has dyslexia but she can live a very normal life eventhough she can’t read that much,*:
there are many famous persons with dyslexia and it is not a debilitating disease. Tom Cruise is known to be dyslexic *:`
I stayed up late on Thursday going through all the S&T classes that I’d missed, and when I found this I knew it would be on the weekend’s menu!
. The bacon was for him a step in the right direction, but the peppers made it a home run. I didn’t marinate the livers, I did cut them in half and I tossed them in a flour/breadcrumb/pepper/ground dulse coating before frying in duck fat and coconut oil. My two-year-old packed down more than her third of the livers. I served it with a light salad (sorry Megan, no mash – but what about parsnip puree, or grated sauteed kohlrabi with sour cream?). The servings looked small but we walked away full.
I made this yesterday out of 200g chicken livers I picked up for a song at the market. My husband was nauseated when he saw them on the cutting board and asked if that was dinner for *everybody* (yes, it was)
This is the best liver I’ve ever made! Great recipe–thank you for sharing this! It was not spicy at all from the jalapeno juice marinade and I even gave the liver to my 12 month old!
Wonder: could I use the liquid from lacto-fermented jalapenos to marinate the liver?
Quick way to pickle jalapino peppers is to sliced them into the juice of dill or sweet pickles. I got a lot of peppers last summer and had no idea what to do with them. My granddaughter finished off a jar of dill pickles so instead of tossing it out I sliced the peppers into it. Store in fridg.
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