Chicken Liver Pate

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About this Recipe

Smooth & buttery with a hint of thyme and brandy. I love good pate, with crusty bread or old fashioned melba toasts. Traditionally served with a Cumberland sauce, this sweetness is a great idea, but I prefer a robust tomato chutney, or even honey in the comb, for texture, delicious. My friend Dan, also a chef, takes some slices of white bread, cuts the crusts and rolls them out with a rolling pin. They become very flat indeed and then you put them under the grill. Fast melba toast.

I love liver (and here I’m mostly talking about lamb’s liver and calves liver) and am aware of it being a slightly Hanibal Lectorish thing to say. Still, I don’t mind saying it. Love it fried in bubbling butter, having dipped it in seasoned flour. Serve it for the tea, pink of course, with brown bread and a grilled tomato and a pot of Barrys. In our house it wasn’t a tradition to have it with onion gravy. I think I only learned that when the Gastro Pub phenomonen gripped the British Isles. But it’s good with onion gravy and a bit of mash. I once had an argument with the guy from Michelin about how to cut liver, I still think he was wrong. He wanted it cut, thinly, in fine slices along the length of the liver. I prefer thicker slices, cutting the liver straight down in the thinnest part, you know that shape, its the way we buy it from our butchers here in Ireland. He still gave that restaurant it’s Bib Gourmand!

Ingredients

• 225g Chicken Livers, rinse them in cold water
• 225g Butter, softened
• 4 tblsp Brandy
• Bunch of Thyme, pick off some of the leaves and chop them. You’ll need about 1 tablespoon. In the summertime Thyme is less woody so you can use stalks too. Keep back some unchopped stuff for decorating and if the little flowers are on them all the better.
• 1 Clove of crushed garlic
• Salt & Pepper

Method

Using a medium sized frying pan, say the VIKING VSCO 511, melt a couple of knobs of the butter, when it’s bubbling throw in the chicken livers and cook over a medium heat for about 5 minutes. You don’t want to cook them fully through, leave them a bit pink, but not too pink either, you’ll work it out. If you over cook them your pate will be grainy and dry, no matter how much butter you use.

Make sure you bring the butter to room temperature, if both the butter and the liver are at the same temperature you’ll not split or crack the pate. Pulse in the mixer, (don’t leave it on too long, as the heat from the mixer will tend to split the mixture too).

Once blended and smooth, divide the smooth paste between ramekins. Leave them in the fridge for a bit, and then pour over some clarified butter. This will protect and preserve the pates. To make clarified butter melt some butter, you can do this in the microwave, and all the white stuff goes to the bottom of the jug, these are the salts, the top liquid will be golden and clear, this is the clarified butter. Pour off the clarified butter and throw away the waste salts. This liquid has a higher flash point than butter and is great for frying too.

Pour a little of this clarified butter on the top of each pate ramekin, as this cools, stick a piece of thyme in the top for decoration. These will last for about four or five days in the fridge, but always serve at room temperature.