Chicken Liver Paté

Paté had been on my food-to-try list for a while and I've been having some great paté recently. A simple recipe came up in the latest Vogue Entertaining that looked worth a try. The only modification I ended up making was to marinate the livers in a little brandy for an hour before cooking and throwing in a few green peppercorns. Chicken livers are no fun but I enjoyed making the quatre epicés. Took me back to fussier days in cooking and and a reminder that it's worth the effort for the aromas tossed up. It also resolved misnomer problems with this blog where I decided to call it. Spiceblog on a whim without thinking that I'm more of a herb person. Still, the name does scan well.

The paté was well received. It's very understated leaving the cloves to dominate. A little more brandy may not have done any harm.

Anyway here's the recipe

One onion -sliced thinly; and one clove of garlic - chopped. Both cooked over a gentle heat in 40gm of butter until soft and slightly browned. Put in blender but hold on blending just for now.

300gm of chicken livers - trimmed of their connective tissue. Marinated in a little brandy for 30 minutes - impatience prevented longer. I messed up a tad and seasoned the livers with 2tbs quatre epicés* and a sprinkle of salt just after adding them to another 40gm of butter rather than before pureeing. Cooked for five minutes or so on a medium heat, stirred often - should be cooked but pink in the middle. Add to the blender.

*quatre epicés 4 parts peppercorns and 1 part cloves - ground; 1 part ginger powder; one part grated nutmeg.

Increase the heat in the pan and add 1/4 cup of brandy cook for three minutes scraping the pan to "deglaze". Halfway through I added a teaspoon of green peppercorns. Add to the blender.

Now you can blend until smooth. Put in ramekins with a layer of butter poured on top and then refrigerated for at least 2 hours.

Served with toast.