Spicy Plum Sauce with Chicken Livers-Gan Ga voi Sot Man Tim

The purple plum/Italian plum is in the season now.  This recipe I adapted from Cooking Light "Farmer Market Cookbook." It tastes fresh and superior from the bottle plum sauce.  This is going to be a winner with chicken and pork too but don't take my words for it.  The sauce can be made in advance and chilled in the fridge for a few days.  This can be served with rice and veggies here as a meal or an appetizer with toast.

Make 2 serving as main dish or 4 appetizers

1 container chicken livers (about 1 pound), rinsed and drained well.
1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
1 garlic cloves, finely minced or crushed
1/4 teaspoon  Vietnamese five spice
A generous pinch of each: sugar, salt, ground black pepper
1 recipe of Spicy Purple Plum Sauce
2 cups of cooked rice or 4 slices of toast  and veggie (lettuce, herbs, cucumber, tomato, etc.) to serve

Green onion and red pepper for garnish (optional)

1. Trim excess fat and connective tissue from chicken livers.  Separate liver into lobes.  
2. In a 10-inch skillet/ grill pan/or pan, heating oil over medium high heat until simmering.  Stir in garlic until fragrant, add livers.  Make few quick stir, spread livers around the pan. Sprinkles five spice and a generous pinch ( use 3 fingers) of each salt, ground black pepper and sugar over livers.  Stir a few more times and arrange livers in a layer. Cover and reduce the heat down to simmer on medium or medium low about 4 minutes.  Turn to the other side, cook about 3-4 minutes more until livers cooked through and still lightly pink at center.  Remove the lid.  If there is some liquid accumulated,  turn the heat up to high and stirring until all the liquid evaporated.  Remove from heat. 
3. Add 1/2 cup of Plum sauce into the pan.  Stir to coat all liver pieces.  Serve with extra plum sauce on the side.

Spicy Plum Sauce:

1 pound ripe, soft purple plum

1 star anise

1 inch cinnamon stick

2 garlic cloves, mashed

1 Table grated ginger ( fresh or frozen)

4 cloves
1 small red Thai chili, thinly sliced

1/2 cup water

3 Tablespoon sugar 

2 Tablespoon soy sauce (Tamarin soy sauce is used here but any regular soy sauce can be used)

1. Add all ingredients into a medium saucepan.  Bring it to boil over medium high heat.  Turn the heat down to simmer ( medium or medium low), cover and cook about 15 minutes. 
2. Discard anise and cinnamon.  Use a coarse sieve or food mill to remove and discard the peel. 
3. Return the mixture back the pot.  Cook and stir constantly over medium heat until reduce to 3/4 cup.  The sauce should  be thicker than syrup and still be able to drip down from the spoon.
4. Store in the fridge a few days.