This Christmas, my extended family decided to do a Secret Santa rather than purchasing gifts for everyone. We secretly drew names and our tasks for getting a gift for that specific person was set.
I drew my Uncle and I immediately was stumped as to what I could get him. After a bit of thought and inspiration from Lorraine's Last Minute Christmas special on tv, I decided to make him some of his favourite food: pâté.
It wouldn't have occurred to me that this would actually be a very easy thing to make, but it really, really was. I generally followed Lorraine's Chicken Liver with Garlic and Brandy method, but I adjusted it slightly to my taste.
Ingredients:
500g chicken liver
2 cloves garlic
1 green onion
1 Tbs + 1/2 tps thyme
3 Ttbs Brandy/Cognac
5 Tbs heavy cream/whipping cream
1/3 tps salt
pepper
1/3 tps all spice
1/2 tps ground ginger
Butter for seal (optional)
Heat some butter in a large pan. Cook onion, thyme, and garlic until it's soft. Take of heat and put into food processor.
Add more butter to pan and cook the livers until brown on outside but still slightly pink inside (not uncooked pink, just light pink. This part made me nervous as I was reading about the dangers of food poisoning with this, and who wants to give that as a gift? Don't worry, my mum was a willing guinea pig and she didn't get sick.)
Then add to the food processor.
Add remaining spices and cream to processor and blend.
Heat brandy/cognac in pan (it will reduce as the alcohol evaporates), add to processor and adjust spices to taste.
Spoon or pour into tight seal jars. If you are making a butter seal, melt the butter in the microwave and pour on top of pâté. Let cool completely and store in the fridge.
If you do try making the pate yourself do leave me a comment below and tell me how it went! I'd love to hear.
Ooooooh, I never thought it could be this straight forward as well - how did it compare to shop ones?
ReplyDeleteI think it wasn't as fancy as what you can get in the store (being my first attempt, I didn't want to complicate things) and chicken liver is a bit stronger than goose liver or other options out there, but the cream cuts the livery taste. I played around quite a bit with the taste once it was blended. I think if you aren't afraid to play around with the flavouring, this is a great one to try out.
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