Baked Chicken Liver Paté
If there’s ever a starter that I’ll order more than any other, it’s chicken liver paté. It’s perfect for an anytime snack. I devoured tons of it when I was on my GI diet years ago despite the fact that it’s heavy on butter and cream – and I lost weight. Wahoo! And come Christmas, I usually have a few tubs of it in the freezer ready to be called upon. Now, I’ve made it myself a few times using a recipe that calls for the livers to be fried but still pink in the middle {hello? how does that work when the livers are so small?} and then blended into oblivion with cream and a modest amount of butter resulting in a very smooth paté. But yesterday, I decided to cook it the Neven Maguire way according to his Home Chef cookbook. Neven’s recipe calls for the raw livers to be blitzed with cooked shallots and booze, butter, cream and thyme – and FIVE eggs {yes, five eggs}. The mixture is then sieved smooth and baked in a bain marie, cooled and refrigerated.
Now, I’ve never used a bain marie before. And of course, I’m no sooner filling the bain marie but the doorbell goes and the kids are looking for drinks… I set the timer for an hour and then examined my efforts. The finished paté is supposed to have a bit of a wobble. Hmmm. Mine was raised in the middle and seeping butter. I decided to put it back in for another few minutes and the paté came out looking better. After a few minutes resting, it had collapsed to an even level but the sides looked a little bit over done as they shrank away from the sides of the tin. It certainly didn’t look like Neven’s but then the pictures in his book are of the paté in individual ramekins covered with clarified butter and looking fab. I’d made mine in a 2 lb tin.
I don’t think mine ended up like Neven’s for three reasons: I’d had to bin the garlic because there were some strange little flies hanging around the tub, I didn’t have fresh thyme and I didn’t have a clean sieve. You see, we’d installed two larder units this weekend and my kitchen is like a hell hole of disorganisation – what the very larders were supposed to sort out ;). I didn’t mind at the time not adding garlic but on tasting the paté this morning, it definitely needs it. I used dried thyme instead of fresh. I didn’t get any taste of the herb and well, what can I say about the clean sieve – I was happy yesterday to go with a ‘country’ paté!
So, would I make this recipe again? Well, yes I would. It makes a great quantity, perfect for large-scale entertaining but next time I’d make sure to have all the ingredients ready along with a sparkling sieve! Enjoy.. Xx P
If you would like to try this recipe, Neven’s book is available to buy on Amazon.
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Salt, Pepper and a Dollop of Cream 