Chicken Liver Pate

Chicken Liver Pate on a Baguette.

One of my favorite things to eat is pate with crackers or toasted bread with some wine. I also love it in Banh Mi (Vietnamese Sandwich). To me, that’s one of the elements that makes that so unique and tasty. Anyway, in the past, I’ve usually had a few store –bought pates, either from a specialty store or from Safeway. But more recently, I’ve seen how it was made, and it didn’t seem too difficult. So when I had the chance to try it for our French Bistro theme, I jumped at the opportunity.

So we bought chicken livers from two different places: Whole Foods and Najiya Market. The ones from the Najiya Market were free range chickens at $3.99/lb. The texture, as I was deveining, seemed a little tougher than the ones from Whole Foods, which were $2.99/lb. But the Najiya ones had less veins for me to remove. I suppose chickens that actually run around probably have a little tougher texture to their meat.

I forgot to pick up Brandy when I was out, and this being the last night before the group dinner, I had to make do. So I dug around in our “cellar,” or closet, and got a cognac. This was a better cognac, so hopefully it’ll taste extra good. I also started a second batch for our group dinner, since the pate would need to sit and chill in the refrigerator, and I would need to seal it with some sort of gelatin to stop the pate from oxidizing prior. So I worked in tandem on two sets of pates, with the latter substituting Scotch Whisky for the missing Brandy.

After processing the mixtures in the food processor, I put the still liquid, but viscous meat sauce into a few bowls to settle. I then made a chicken broth gelatin and poured it on top of the pates to seal them in. As of this writing, I haven’t yet tried the pates as they should taste (chilled), but I did try some in liquid form as I was seasoning. They’re in the refrigerator now solidifying, and I’ll give them a taste tomorrow afternoon prior to our first group dinner.

I’m curious as to how the Scotch will taste versus the Cognac. Also, a note: the Cognac one was cooked more medium, whereas the Scotch one was cooked with a little more caramelizing on the onions as well as more searing on the livers for a more “grilled” taste, I think. We shall see tomorrow.

The ingredients.

Adding scotch to the livers. The other batch was cognac.

The livers bathing in scotch. Some consider this a dream!

Adding the livers to the onions.

After straining out the cognac, we save it for later.

Adding thyme to the livers and onions.

The livers are browning.

Adding the cognac back into the mix.

Into the food processor after the mixture cools.

Adding cream to the food processor.

Finished processing!

Packaging the pate into a container.

The day after, with a chicken broth gelatin seal.