Wei Wei's Recipes Collection: Chicken Liver Pate

18 Apr 2011

Chicken Liver Pate | Reluctant Gourmet

Ingredients
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 small garlic clove
½ pound chicken livers
1 fresh rosemary sprig
1 fresh sage sprig
1 ounce of unsmoked bacon, finely chopped – (pancetta if you can find it)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
½ onion
1 tablespoon of Port
1 tablespoon cognac
1 teaspoon white truffle paste (you can substitute ¼ teaspoon white truffle oil
Loaf of Italian bread, sliced thin and toasted
1 – 2 tablespoons of oil to make the Crostini

How to Make at Home
Start by heating up a sauté pan (frying pan) over medium high heat and adding 2 tablespoons of butter. Add the garlic and sauté for a couple of minutes until golden. Watch it carefully;, you don’t want to let it burn.

Add the chicken livers, bacon, rosemary and sage. Stir and let this cook for about 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper.

Reduce the heat to low and add the onion. Sauté for 25 to 30 minutes until the onions are soft and the chicken livers are cooked.

Off heat, add the port and Cognac. Raise the heat to medium-high and return the pan to stove. The recipe says to simmer until the liquid is reduced by half but I found it reduced to nothing right away. Remove the pan from the heat and let it cool.
Take out the sprigs of rosemary and sage and transfer the liver mixture to a food processor. Add the remaining butter and truffle paste. Puree this mixture until smooth.

Chef Vetri suggests straining the puree through a tamis or fine-mesh sieve into a bowl but we don’t. Why? Well…..it takes more time, it is very messy and we like the texture of pate without straining it. I’ll have to try straining it and see if there is a difference.

I put the pate into a ramekin, covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated for at least one hour but you’ll want to take it out 15 minutes before serving.