uhhm chopped liver? ABC Radio and Chicken Liver and Mushroom Pate

Gah! On the radio yesterday and given my state beforehand, I was amazed it worked out to more than 6 minutes of

meep...Anthony are you OK?...meep.

Room, other person, yellow foamy thing in front of me, and the invisible audience. Settled after a minute or two, garnering reviews from family members of "polite!", "well spoken!". Bernadette Young, the presenter, was very kind. Had it been Liam Bartlett , I may have run off in tears as he probed further into the feasibility of my bold plan to pipe sunshine from Madagascar. The interview was: Sting fades out; what's a blog, what's on your blog, lamingtons, what are the bloggies, good luck see you if you win, fade out to Neil Young (which isn't bad, had the music been the other way round...).

Now there was probably a hundred other things I could have mentioned but given it's a local radio program what I regretted most was not mentioning the local blogging commmunity. They're all on the Perth Blogs Wiki and those involved in the marvellous initiative the Perth Blognite last year, and not forgetting my fellow WA nominees Karen Cheng and Nikita Kashner. This still leaves a wealth of talent sitting on the right column there, so go have a look. And if you haven't tried this blog thing before, give it a go.

Now, on to more familiar ground. Since the ABC continues to get the squeeze, I thought it'd be nice to take some food along in case they were hungry. I chose another slight variation of this Chicken Liver Paté recipe.



Paté is good. It uses the bits that other folks leave behind (too good for cats), it's usually just bought but home-made tastes so much better, and it's easy. If you can use a frypan and make a smoothy, you can make pate. It's also a good platform to test minor variations in flavours and there's something special in the way the onions collapes into golden softness, the way the livers dissolve in the blender, and the release of freshly ground spices. Three parts-

Onions
One white onion, the whites of two spring onions, and one garlic clove all thinly sliced and fride until soft with 40gm of butter. This time I also added a chopped field mushroom for a different flavour in stead of green peppercorns. Add it all to the blender but don't blend yet.

Liver
400gm of chicken livers, connective tissue cut off and marinated in brandy for an hour. Fry in another 40gm of butter, turining often until just pinkishly cooked in the middle. Add to the blender. Add a splash more brandy to the pan and deglaze the residue by scraping with a wooden spoon over heat. Add to the blender.

Spices
A scaled back quatre epicés of 2tsp parts peppercorns and 2tsp of cloves - ground and one tsp grated nutmeg. Put this in the blender and blend until smooth and refrigerate for at least two hours.

The taste is a little muted and those not enamoured with liver could, easily double the spices. Delicious with James Squire Pilsner, medicinally administered once safely home to sooth jangled post-interview nerves.