Chicken Liver – How good can it be…….

The Recipe

0.3kg/300 grams of chicken liver

1 yellow onion (sliced thinly)

3 cloves of garlic

Fresh thyme

1 inch thick cut of salted butter (to cook with olive oil)

150g (to melt the butter)- use salted butter

Cooking cream ( two spoons )

A bunch of walnuts only if you want fancy (let’s say around 5 )

Black pepper and salt

Dash of brandy

Preparation Style

1. Clean up the chicken liver by taking out the unwanted fats and veins if any. Put some salt and vinegar into water and rinse the liver a few times to clean it off. Final rinse with normal water and dab with hand paper to dry it

2. Splash of olive oil and some butter into the pan with the onions. Sweat the onions a little until it’s a little translucent then add garlic in

3. Splash of brandy into the onions and garlic and flambe it

4. Add chicken liver and slowly cook until it’s a little grey with a bit of pink at the side then add salt. Stir and constantly check to ensure you don’t overcook the liver. Add cream in and continue to stir and taste. Add more salt in if needed.

5. Thyme leaves and black pepper in and continue to stir for a few more seconds and switch off to cool.

6. Once it’s warm, blend it until smooth and creamy

7. 150g melted butter (use salted)

8. Put creamy smooth chicken liver into jars/bottle and add melted butter on top to seal the pate. Refrigerate for at least 1 day before eating. Remember, once you break the seal when you dig into the pate, you can only keep it for max 2 days.

9. For decorations : you can add chilli flakes, thyme sprigs, whole walnut or anything you fancy after you pour butter to seal the pate. When it’s cold it will create a nice décor for your pate!

Honestly, chicken liver was never one of those recipes that I would ever think of until covid lockdown. I had it in one of the French restaurants and thought "hmmm...how difficult was it to make this mousse?" With much idle time on hand I watched YouTube and decided to attempt doing it. I did some alterations by adding walnuts in but the rest are pretty much as per normal. You can do this within 30 minutes so give it a try and I tell you it doesn’t taste weird at all.

It looks fancy and you can serve it to your guest prepared way ahead of time and it is cost efficient too! So wait no more and give it a go!