The organic chicken livers from Pamora farms are wonderful, and used them in the sauteed chicken liver recipe of Kylie Kwong. So I decided to make some chicken liver pate as well — and the results were incredible for so little effort expended. I made a pretty nice chicken liver pate early last year, recipe here. A reader pointed out that it the first recipe was done with a Russian/Eastern European method of cooking, by simmering the livers in water and continuing with the recipe. So this time around, with top quality livers, I decided to try a French style/version of pate, which calls for sauteeing the livers in butter with shallots and herbs, adding a splash of brandy and blitzing it all in a food processor with more butter…
I used this recipe of Emeril Lagasse as my guide, though I added butter and sealed the pate with clarified butter. Essentially, the process has you slowly sauteeing or caramelizing the onions, then just cooking the livers till done, flavor with brandy or cognac and blitzing this in a food processor until smooth. I added butter to make it richer and possibly smoother. Don’t forget to add salt and pepper liberally. I didn’t have green peppercorns so I omitted that from my version.
The results were delicious. The pate was flavorful and yet smooth and rich from all the butter. It had an appealing, slightly pink color and spread nicely on slices of toasted baguette. Excellent with the acidic flavor of cornichons. We brought little ramekins to several friends over the holidays for appetizers and we always went home with cleaned containers… At home, I sometimes just toasted some sliced baguette, slathered them liberally with paté, and ate this for lunch with a green salad or maybe some tomato soup on the side. The pate should keep several days in the refrigerator if sealed with clarified butter on the surface.
27 Responses
MM ang aga magising! hehe It’s 4:10 pm Eastern time. Nasa trabaho pa ako gising ka na.
satomi, sometimes, Marketman doesn’t sleep… heeheehee. :)
this can also make great, easy gifts to give away when wrapped nicely
This really merits a big WOW! I am a big fan of liver pate. I even make patol to the canned and bottled ones. But your homemade pate looks so heavenly I’d try my luck again in making some. Where did you buy those organic livers? Are they available at Terry’s? I work several steps from their store in Pasong Tamo. Maraming Salamat!
I have to do this one !!!! This coming chinese new year holiday is the best time to do it.
BTW have anyone tried a cod fish liver? I had it in one of a japanese sushi restaurant here in Singapore and I like it. I believe it will be good as a pate…but then again finding a cod liver will be tough though.
looks delicious and not that hard to make..thanks MM–now, go to sleep….
So which version of the pate did you like better MM? I’m guessing whichever has the more butter? lol
I’m slightly averse towards eating chicken liver but my departed mother loved it! She specifically loves it in adobo. I’m all for the health benefits of the liver but I’m not totally sold on the taste of solid chicken liver. Perhaps in pate form but all that butter… might just cancel out the healthy eating objective.
i do essentially the same thing but instead of butter, i add cream since butter solidifies in the fridge and you end up with tiny hard streaks or nubs. cream retains the consistency of the pate and even enhances it. i also put melted butter as sealant on top, just so it does not dry out.
MM, will duck fat work on this?
Speaking of baguettes, any idea where to get high gluten flour here in the PH? I miss the really crusty kind, the local baguettes don’t have the right texture IMO.
ka fredo, good bread flour is extremely hard to find in the Philippines, or at least it seems so to me. Hit a bakery supply store to get primera flour, which seems better than grocery all purpose flour… but better yet, if you are willing to experiment, places like Metro Grocery sometimes have supplements to increase the gluten content? of flour… but I haven’t used them myself… kalayo, I have never made pate with duck fat instead of butter… it would be rich and but not sure about the flavor… millet, good cream sounds like a good idea… Diane, definitely the one with butter. It was sinful but delicious. Actually with all that liver, the butter doesn’t seem to overwhelm the palate, but having made it myself, I knew it was THERE. :)
hmmm have lots of that here on the cruise ship…different kinds but yours looks much better specially with the clarified butter on top…perfect on a toast
usually Metro Grocery carries Red mill brand of flour which i believe also comes in high gluten form… heard that the secret to crusty bread will be the steam produced in the oven (helps in caramelizing the crust) which is perfectly done by most professional ovens (they have built in water spritzers). Some people try to imitate it by placing an oven proof dish with some water in the oven while it is being preheated.
MM! I’m a sucker for Pate! I’d even settle for liver spread when i need a pate fix hehe! :)
dear MM, so amazing the things you think of making! i never liked pate until i tried one with bits of truffle in it.it was great! in the absence of truffles, i was thinking that maybe a little truffle oil will also make it more interesting? just a thought.
MM, re your reply to Diane, both versions contain butter, don’t they? Which one do you prefer: this one or the Eastern European (boiled) one?
EJ, you are right, that was a dumb answer, I meant the one sauteed in butter and blitzed in butter… :) This one.
Hi MM :) I did check out the items in Market Market for the gluten when you mentioned it before when I was making cinnamon rolls, and I really wasn’t sure if it was an additive to flour. It looks like what you use to make vegetarian meals. I may be wrong, but there didn’t seem to be anything that mentions adding it to a dough :)
I tried making pate once, and stupidly substituted margarine for the butter since that’s we had at home. The pate ended up tasting too buttery, in the fake kind of way. But we still ate it anyway :) I think I want to try this version, with real butter too. :)
looks delicious :) i love liver. spread ;)
I love liver pate. I remember our office giving them as Christmas presents some years ago…prepared by one young entrepreneurial couple who are members of our CEO’s Christian group. We got so many positive feedback of thanks from recipients. I’m so “inggit” at those who could prepare it themselves…and saying it’s easy to prepare. Maybe I could try a simple recipe. Mr. Marketman, I can cook a mean callos (that’s from my friends’ remarks). Maybe I’m not hopeless wrt chicken/duckliver pate’? :-)
You didn’t answer the question as to where we can buy/order Pamora Farms chicken liver. Is it available in Santi’s or any del
‘
Ditas, Pamora farms has a booth at the Mercato Centrale market, but the last 8, yes, 8 times I checked (four of which their sales staff had earlier told me they would have stock), they had no chicken livers. So frankly, I have never purchased livers from them again and am surprised by how erratic their supplies turned out to be given the volume of chickens they presumably produce… :(
Hi MM, do you think it will be alright to use normal (non organic) chicken livers in this recipe?
Eileen, yes, it should be, but from a trusted source is best.
hi mm, last year i had the privilege to be a trainee in one of the most famous Filipino-Spanish fine dining restaurants here in Manila, the name is Ilustrado Restaturant (located inside Intramuros, Manila). It was my first time to be in REAL kitchen. I mean the big one. The reason i was there was that my brother in law and I was planning to open a restaurant in Los Banos, Laguna. We wanted to have a feel of the real working kitchen. And also I was privileged that the Chefs in the restaurant was very generous in teaching me there recipes, one of them was their famous Paella and baked eggplant in puff pastry ( this is a champion!). I thought it was hard to do, but it was super easy. and also there liver pate, but theirs has a different cooking procedure though.
But i think yours would me more tasty!:)
I am a very big fan of yours and now also ms. betty q.
by the way Mr. MM, have you been to Davao City? Im actually from Davao City but im working in Manila. But I will be very pleased to accompany you if you plan on visiting Davao. :) ill let you try the famous chicken inato w/ their eat-all-you-kan-on(unlimited rice) at Penongs restaurant, WAY MUCH BETTER THAN MANG INASAL! heheh
Hi where do you get your clarified butter? Thanks
Trisha, it’s very easy to make it at home. Google it for instructions. :)