Stéphanie, who is a great cook and who is used to organising large dinner parties, managed to convince me to make this fantastic recipe. Use one of your nice terrine dishes as it will be served on the table.
Stéphanie's French chicken liver pâté
6 November 2020
: Makes one full large terrine dish or 2 if of medium size
: 15 min
: 1 hr 45 min
: 36 hr
: easy
Place your order at your butchers to have best quality and extra fresh meats. Prepare the terrine a day ahead and it is best when eaten the day after it’s cooked. You can use pork net instead of bacon strips it is just as good and if you don’t have Xeres wine, use Port wine or Pineau.
Ingredients
- 1kg chicken livers
- 200g fresh pork belly cut in 4 slices
- 200g sausage meat
- 200g thin bacon strips to bard the terrine dish
- 4 laurel leaves
- 6 to 8 fresh thyme stems, double the quantity if dehydrated
- 10cl Cognac or Armagnac
- 5cl Port wine or red Pineau
- 5cl Xeres wine
- 20g fresh chopped garlic
- 40g fresh chopped parsley
- ½ tsp grated nutmeg
- 2 tsp sugar
- 20g salt from the mill
- 20 black pepper turns
- A little Espelette chili and thyme buds if you have
Directions
- Step 1 Use a small kitchen knife and prepare your livers by delicately removing the green gall bladder traces in between the two liver lobes as they taste bitter. Cut the livers in small bits. Cut the pork belly in strips 1cm wide on 2cm long. Pour all of it in a large bowl, add the sausage meat and all the marinade ingredients. Mix well with fork let it marinate all night.
- Step 2 On the following day, cover the bottom and the sides of the terrine dish with the thin bacon strips and fill in with the marinated meats. Cover with the remaining of the bacon strips to fully surround this mix and place the laurel leaves and the thyme stems on top. Cook in the preheated oven to 220° in a double boiler. Lower to 210° after 15 minutes and let it cook, lid off, for another hour and a half. The top of the terrine should then have a nice colour. Bring out the terrine from the oven and from the double boiler and allow up to 3 hours to cool down at room temperature. Before putting it in the fridge for a few hours, cover with Saranwrap (plastic film) and load the top with heavy objects such as jam jars, heavy cans, anything that will put weight on the terrine. Before serving, and if you have the feeling that the bacon strips have not entirely melted, you may remove the pâté from the dish, discard the fat left over and delicately put the terrine back in. It will look nicer if you have cleaned the dish before placing the pâté back in. Please, note that as a homemade dish, it may not be so easy to cut nice and regular slices, but I can assure you that it is delicious. Serve with gherkins, pickled onions and fresh or toasted bread. If you have des crackers de graine as shown on the cover photo it will be an even greater combination!
