RECIPE AT THE TOP #9: chorizo + chicken liver tacos
taco night has never been easier 🌮
Yes! Here is the recipe: AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE. Blurb comes after — what a concept 🤯
CHORIZO + CHICKEN LIVER TACOS
Ingredients
2 pounds ground chorizo (Mexican style is ground, Spanish style is cured)
1 pound chicken livers
avocado oil
corn tortillas (La Tortilla Factory is my favorite)
cilantro, chopped
white onion, diced
hot sauces of choice
Directions
Heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium high heat until hot but not smoking, add the chorizo and cook until browned. Turn off the heat and set aside.
Remove the chicken livers from their packaging and place them on a plate lined with a paper towel, then pat dry the tops of them with another paper towel.
Using the same skillet that the chorizo was cooked in, reheat it over medium heat and add enough avocado oil to just cover the bottom with a thin layer of oil. Carefully put the chicken livers on the skillet (see note below) and cook 2-3 minutes per side, or until browned and slightly crispy, but not entirely cooked through yet. Turn down the heat as needed to prevent charring the livers.
Without turning off the heat, remove the livers and place on a large cutting board. Add the cooked chorizo back into the skillet and turn the heat down to low to gently reheat the meat.
While the chorizo is reheating, chop up the livers on the cutting board to pieces on the smaller side of bite-size.
Add the chopped livers back to the skillet with the chorizo and heat until fully cooked through, about 3-5 minutes (depending on how fully they were cooked through the first time)
While the taco meat is being kept warm, heat your tortillas according to the package instructions. Start with 2-3 tacos per person.
Spoon the chorizo/liver meat onto each tortilla. Garnish with cilantro and white onion, drizzle with your favorite hot sauce. Pair with a Mexican lager, a Jarritos, or your favorite bubbly beverage.
Notes
If you have a splatter shield, use it! The chicken livers like to spit hot oil at you, and you need to protect yourself. Wear an apron, too. And maybe a face mask.
For the La Tortilla Factory tortillas, I like to use my smallest cast-iron, heating it over high and gradually turning down the heat as the tortillas char faster and faster and brushing each side of the tortilla with a light layer of avocado oil
If you really want to out-do yourself, take a page from my book and constantly have some kind of pickled red onion or pickled red cabbage on hand (they go on everything, really) and some crumbled queso fresco (feta also works in a pinch 😉)
And take it to the next level with some homemade table salsas — my favorites are this salsa negra and these red and green taqueria-style salsas from La Piña en La Cocina. This woman has never steered me wrong.
Tell me if you like having the recipe at the top of the post!
If you’ve been with me since the beginning of Lovingly Made, you know that my love of liver is real. Read more about that here:
unsung heroes of food - liver lovers unite!
LIVER?? This might be a ballsy early issue of Lovingly Made, but I beg you to hear me out on this one. It was going to happen anyway, so I’ll just step up on my soapbox now.
Stumbling upon this particular combination of meats in the dark depths of my brain has changed my life, y’all. The chorizo is the driver of all the flavor in this recipe — due to its heavy seasoning, there is no need to use anything in your spice cabinet. Even salt.
For those who are skeptical of adding liver to their diets, I highly encourage you to try this recipe. The flavor is almost completely hidden, although this could be due to the particular chorizo that I source. I told the vendor that I source my meat from at the farmers market about this recipe, and she was very excited because she was needing to get more iron, especially for her kids. She came back to me the next week and was raving about this recipe. And she absolutely despises liver, so 💁🏻♀️
Whenever you happen upon some chorizo (and some chicken livers), pick some up and see if it works. If not, try a different brand or source and make it again. I mean, you can’t really go wrong — it’s chorizo.
And this meat isn’t just for tacos. Oh no. It is the ultimate filling that goes in burritos, rice bowls, quesadillas, etc. It pairs nicely with my Mexican version of beans and greens, so go ahead and make a giant batch of that and call it a week.
SARAH’S SATURDAY FARMERS MARKET HAUL
Purple peppers, garlic scapes, and flat iron steaks — these are the things that make me happy. Big ass bags of basil, carrot tops, fennel fronds, arugula, and more for some fantastic pesto action. As the spring season comes to a close, I’m starting to realize how much I appreciate living in this little nook of the Midwest that brings forth such great color and flavor during the warmer months. There is a real flow to the seasons that makes time slow down just a little bit, and that does not go unnoticed from me these days. Have I mentioned that I have a 3-year-old? 🫠
June 14
produce: purple bell peppers, zucchini, sugar snap peas, garlic scapes, rainbow chard, fennel, arugula, 2 giant bags of “cosmetically challenged” basil ($52); carrots, strawberries ($28.84)
protein: whole chicken, whole cut-up chicken, pork shoulder, flat iron steaks ($139.09)
total spent = $219.93
other ingredients on hand, from last week or in freezer:
beets
chard
tuscan kale
garden herbs: parsley, oregano, mint, rosemary
potential recipes, off the top of my dome:
sides/quick veg ideas:
roasted beets w/goat cheese and garden rosemary
roasted carrots with cumin + sumac and honeyed goat cheese
zucchini ribbon and fennel salad with red wine dijon vinaigrette
grilling:
greek lemon chicken (we did this last week, it was so good we’ll do it again)
flat-iron steaks (simply seasoned with s+p, use some leftover steak sauce from a former marinade to enhance flavor)
mains:
crockpot pork with mexican beans and greens
It has recently occurred to me that I’ve been writing this newsletter for almost a full year!
In celebration of that, I am pondering what I can do for all of you lovely people who have chosen to read my recipes and wandering thoughts that I’ve graciously been sharing with you. I have a few ideas, to be announced next week as the anniversary approaches, but a little brainstorming from my audience would be very informative for me. I’m always wanting to know how to make this newsletter more useful for you!
I would really love to hear what your favorite things have been in this space and what you might want to see more of!
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for being here.
❤️ Sarah