Pop5 - The 5 Most Popular Recipes Right Now..
04 January 2012
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This will, quite possibly, be the least bacony thing I post on this blog. It's certainly the least bacony thing I have posted thus far. That, however, does not mean that it doesn't have a fair old bit of bacon in it; what it does mean is that the bacon flavour isn't quite as dominant as in some of my other recipes.. I actually contemplated not posting the recipe up for that very reason, but at the end of the day it was just too darn tasty not to. For the true baconoholics out there I will do my best to create more pure-bread bacon pâté in the near future, so stay tuned for that if this isn't quite hardcore enough for you. That said, this is cheap, easy to make, and insanely tasty - so I'd definitely recommend giving it a go. You could always serve it with a rasher or two if you wanted to. Now, the main ingredients for this are bacon, butter, and chicken liver - not very photogenic subjects, unfortunately, but I went ahead and snapped a couple of pics anyway for your viewing (dis)pleasure. I wasn't able to get even a half decent picture of the actual cooking process though, which means you will have to make do with my explicitly detailed explanations of the process. Yikes..
Don't those livers look lovely? I bet you'd give your left hand and two knuckles on your right to sink your teeth into them right now. No? Yeah me neither - but they do end up tasting yummy once you're done, and they actually smell quite nice when you're frying them as well. I'm yet to try one on its own, though, for some reason I can't bring myself to eating them until they're ground up to a fine mush. Anyway, here's how everything's done:
Pâté ingredients
(Makes 1 big old bowl)
- 400g of Chicken Livers
- 170g of Butter
- 150g of Bacon, cut into 4cm strips
- 1 small Onion, in chunks
- 3 Garlic cloves, roughly chopped
- 6tbsp of Whiskey - I used two varieties, one will do. You could also use brandy or even cognac.
- 1tbsp of fresh Thyme leaves
- Lots of freshly ground black pepper
- Optional: a few Gherkins, chopped into small chunks (I used about 4-5tbsp)
Method
1) Once you've prepared your ingredients, grab a frying pan, place over medium heat, and add about 20-30 grams of the butter to it. Once the butter has melted, chuck in your chicken livers and fry until they're golden/brown all around - they will still be red in the middle, which is not a cause for concern.
2) Once you're livers are nice and golden transfer them to a food processor, and add a bit more butter to your pan if needed before lowering the heat and chucking in your onion, garlic and fresh thyme leaves.
3) Fry until the onion turns translucent, then add pepper and finally whichever booze you choose to use (if any). Quickly transfer to the blender.
4) The final step is to add your butter to the blender. Technically you don't need to melt the butter first, especially if you have a decent blender, but I find that it makes life a lot easier if you do. Either way, add the remaining butter to the blender and whizz it all up. Transfer to a bowl and set aside to cool, then refrigerate.
5) Optional: If you choose to add gherkins, mix them in using a spoon (or whatever you have at hand - I wouldn't recommend using your fingers, though) either after blending or once you've transferred the pâté to a bowl.
The pâté will keep for a couple of weeks in the fridge if you keep it covered - though the top may get slightly discoloured. If you want to keep it for longer, or just stop the top discolouring, you can cover it with clarified butter. As for serving, I personally love it on a slice of rye bread with a slice or two of strong cheddar. Yum.
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