Hey y’all!
Thanks for coming back to the website! I hope everyone is doing well. I haven’t written much about the recent precautions the world has been placed in. I definitely have my opinions however I would always defer to experts when it comes to recommendations. I am a big advocate of using health, wellness and nutrition to prevent illness and ameliorate disease state symptoms. I thought that it’d be fitting to post a recipe for one of nature’s most nutrient dense foods - liver!
Chicken liver is more mild and makes a delicious pate. When developing this recipe, I even thought I could eat the chicken liver without blending it up! It was fantastic, however I love eating liver pate on crackers or dehydrated vegetable chips. Below my recipe is a recipe posted by a friend of the Ferme Reveuse farm. It is a more traditional pate recipe, if you’re feeling fancy.
My recipe was an effort to make pate with fewer ingredients yet still keep it tasty. Since I’m having a hard time going as frequently to the grocery store as I’d like, I am relying on bacon fat here for binding instead of the traditional butter. I gotta say that I’m happy that I had kept my extra bacon fat for something! I was in a pinch since I needed to cook the liver I had in my fridge but didn’t have an appropriate cooking fat.
I really hope you enjoy this recipe.
Chicken Liver Pate
Makes about 500ml, paleo, gluten free, dairy free
1 Package Ferme Reveuse liver (or 500 grams), cleaned and trimmed of any discolouration and cut into 3 cm pieces
½ cup bacon fat, divided (alternatively use butter or tallow)
1 small onion, chopped finely
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp dried thyme
2 tsp dried sage
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1 bay leaf
¼ tsp salt, plus more to taste
80 ml konjac or brandy
In a large cast iron pan, heat up ¼ cup of your bacon fat over medium heat.
Add onion and sauté until softened, about 3-5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add garlic, rosemary, thyme, sage, nutmeg and bay leaf and stir for 30 seconds.
Add liver to the pan. Season with salt. Brown on one side for 3 minutes and flip. Cook on the other side until cooked through. To see if it is cooked, cut one in half and continue cooking if you see any blood if you press down the liver. It is cooked even if it is a little pink in the middle but doesn’t have any raw blood come out of it.
Add brandy and cook until the alcohol smell has evaporated out, about 2-3 minutes.
Remove from heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes. Taste for seasoning.
Place contents of pan into a food processor. Pulse a few times and then blend until smooth, scraping the sides down with a rubber spatula every so often to ensure a smooth pate.
Heat up remaining bacon fat in a small clean pan just to melt it.
Scoop the pate into small ramekins or mason jars (4, 125ml jars or 2 250ml jars), smooth the tops down with a butter knife trying to get any air pockets out. Pour remaining melted bacon fat over the pate. This prevents it from oxidizing in the fridge. This pate freezes well.
Linda’s Chicken Liver Pâté
Linda Thom
Grande Diplomée
École Cordon Bleu, Paris
45 grams butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
30 mL shallots, finely chopped
1 small tart apple, coarsely chopped
45 grams butter
500 grams chicken livers, cleaned & halved
60 mL Calvados
30 to 60 mL 35% cream (e.g. whipping cream)
150 grams butter
5 mL lemon juice
5 mL salt
1¼ mL pepper (20 grinds)
100 grams clarified butter
Optional:
15 to 50 mL truffles, finely chopped
In a frying pan gently cook the onions and apples in butter for 3 to 5 minutes, add the shallots and sauté for 1 minute more. Remove to a blender or food processor and purée. Leave in beaker of machine.
Add 45 mL of butter to the pan. Over high heat sauté the chicken livers, stirring, until lightly browned but pink inside.
Flame with the Calvados, shaking the pan to ensure complete burning of the alcohol. Add to beaker of machine and purée, adding 30 mL of whipping cream if using a food processor, 60 mL if using a blender.
Work the purée through a sieve. Cool completely.
Meanwhile, cream 150 grams of butter. Mix into the cool purée with the lemon juice, pepper and 5 mL salt. Taste and adjust the seasonings if necessary. Fold in the chopped truffles, if using.
Turn the mixture into your clean, dry mold. Press out air bubbles with a spatula and smooth the top as level as possible. With strips of paper towel carefully clean any smears from sides of mold above the paté.
Cover with clarified butter (cool but still liquid).
Chill at least 4 hours before serving. The flavour is best if the paté is allowed to mellow in the refrigerator for a week.
Note: Don’t attempt to unmold this paté. Allow guests to serve themselves. Accompany with crackers or slices of French bread such as a baguette or a ficelle.
