calf's and chicken liver pâté

2021-09-22

Another attempt at that elusive perfect pâté.
First try was a near-disaster, much too coarse, but recoverable.

The 2nd time turned out much better, probably my best attempt so far.
But it is obvious by now that the oven is not the best way to get the desired pink pâté result, even though it results in a longer shelf life than semi-raw liver has.

Mind you. The taste is not bad at all, it's just that it has such an unpleasant grey color throughout.

My next few kitcheneering experiments with liver will be:

Pan-fry briefly with pink liver center and then blend.
sous-vide and/or low-temp oven-cooking.
(Why didn't I think of that before? I've cooked red pork after all. )

INGREDIENTS

This is what you need for 20+ servings:

1/2 lb. calf's liver
1/2 lb. chicken liver
3-4 sticks butter
I used a mixture of duck fat and lard.
1/2 onion (2 shallots)
1-2 garlic cloves
2 tsp. dried or shredded fresh parsley
1/4 cup calvados / cognac or other

Pic1: good texture, but all grey

Directions

Sauté the shallots, thyme, parsley in some butter.
Flambé the vegetables with calvados or other liquor before adding them to the blender.
Or if you like the pâté a bit boozy, just add it directly to the blender.
Add this and raw chopped liver to a cup blender and skip to Pic9.

2021-09-22

Pic2-4: food processor not recommended.

I tried to use my food processor for this, with a poor result.
The texture was looked good before cooking, but ended up too coarse, almost like a meatloaf.

Pic5-7: optional

The standard recipe add up to half of the liver weight in butter or other fats.
- Adding fat to the mixture will bind it and help it set when refrigerated.
- It also adds flavor. See: duck rillettes, which is a bit like a muscle meat equivalent of this pâté.
The great disadvantage if you add more: it turns your liver pâté into a calorie bomb.

Pic8+9: my cup blender purees to a much smoother texture
Pic10: filling the terrine

I recovered from the previous by blending the mixture in my cup blender, which does a much better job. The added fat helped to smoothen the mixture. The color is already grey-brown throughout, because it has already been cooked.
If you skipped the 2 previous stages (why cook it twice if you can get away with just once?)
- you will have in your blender chopped liver and some sautéed vegetables.
- Blend and you get a reddish-pink mixture like in Pic2.
- Cut half of the butter into smaller pieces and add them while the blender is running.
- Fill ramekins and/or a terrine.

Pic11-13: bake

Bake au bain-marie for 90 minutes @ 280 ºF.
This will turn the meat mixture a greyish-brown color throughout.
Next time, I'll try 3 hrs. @ 170 ºF. and/or sous-vide at even lower temperatures to see if I can keep it pink.

Pic14-16: compressing the terrine

Place the press on the terrine and weigh it down. I used a large cup with water.
This should compress the pâté, make it denser.
It should also push enough of the fat out of the pâté to cover the entire surface.(Pic16)

Pic17-19: served on crackers

This was the result: a very smooth paste (yeah!) that looks a dull brown-grey throughout. (oow)
The taste is very similar to Braunschweiger liverwurst, with a slight sharpness added from the liquor.
Enjoy. I'm going to get some more right now.

See also: Deming, NM gardens, animals and more and avemariasongs.org

See also: Deming, NM gardens, animals and more
and avemariasongs.org