I’m in a few FB food groups, and boy oh boy, it’s internet drama at its finest in there. I’ve had to remove myself from some of these groups because nosey me spent way too much time reading the adult arguments and fights that ensued due to incorrectly titled recipes that apparently bring disrespect and dishonor to all those who came before them.
I mean, all food is a mixing pot in general. I understand its important to uphold authenticity, but I’m pretty sure how a stranger makes pho from who knows where, that you’re probably never ever going to meet in person, shouldn’t make a person so angry. Trying to control something you can’t control (how other people make pho and what other people call as pho), is something that will make anyone miserable because its just not possible. But anyways, point taken passionate foody people of FB, this recipe is titled, French inspired pate.
This is because I have no idea what French pate tastes like and well, there’s a lot of butter involved so it’s Frenchy? haha quick and easy tho. I kid you not. Follow along and see for yourself!
Ingredients: Shallots, garlic, salt and pepper, chicken livers, good quality butter, and maybe some corn starch and maybe some cognac (I’ll elaborate on the maybe later). This recipe is going to use 1/2 pound of chicken livers.
People usually clean and de-vein and do all sorts of things to prepare the chicken livers to make sure they get a smoother pate. I don’t really care, and I think the pate is amazing anyways without the hard painstaking work I hear others do in order to get their livers all prim and primed. What I do instead, is cut the livers to be similar in size to cook more evenly.
PREP: Slice up your shallots and mince your garlic (however much or little you want). Cut your livers to similar size. Make sure your butter is either melted and cooled down or room temperature
Step 1. Melt a pat of butter and saute your shallots for 1-2 minutes. Once your shallots are fragrant and wilted down, add your minced garlic. Saute for another 1-2 minutes until the garlic becomes very aromatic.
Step 2. Add in 1/2 cup of water and bring to a boil.
Step 4. Throw in your chopped chicken livers and saute for about 3 minutes until the center of the livers are slightly pink. Once they’re slightly pink remove from heat immediately and cover for 1-2 minutes.
Step 5. Using a slotted spoon, remove the livers, shallots, and garlic and place in a food processor adding 1 and 1/2 sticks of butter.
Step 6. Pulse until mixture is combined. You can pulse until the mixture is smoother or more coarse, it’s up to you to decide chef. Season with salt if your butter isn’t salted. Add pepper if that’s your thing.
Step 7. Move your mixture to ramekins or whatever your choice of container is. Refrigerate overnight, If you’d like to preserve this to make it last a little longer, add some melted ghee to the top of the pate. Seriously can’t get easier than this than to buy at the store.. haha 🙂
**Ghee is just clarified butter so if you don’t have ghee, melt some butter on the stove and continue stirring the butter until you see milk solids condensed on the bottom. Removing these milk solids (white part) and only taking the ‘oil’ is the same thing as ghee.
Optional: add in a few teaspoons (one at a time please) of cognac to the pate. Makes it more Frenchy haha 🙂
If you like a thinner more mousse like pate, after step 4, add a teaspoon of dissolved corn starch in some water to your liver/water mixture and move this whole water/cornstarch mixture to a blender (water included). If you find that its still too thick you can always sprinkle in some more cornstarch to your mixture while it’s still hot, but keep in mind that once its cooled, it gets thicker.
The first time I made this I actually made 1 pound worth of chicken livers and added 2 cups of water. I then pulsed the mixture in a food processor, returned the runny mixture to the stove and very quickly mixed in 3-4 tablespoons of cornstarch until I got a nice thicker mixture. I had to this quick because I didn’t want the livers to overcook. If you have globs of cornstarch that didn’t dissolve and your panicking, add everyone to a blender and blend your worries away. The pate came out super yummy and smooth and no one was the wiser that I was freaking out with a super runny pate mixture in the process of making it.
This is amazing with some home baked bread. Check out this recipe for focaccia. Bon appetite everyone!