Every year on Christmas Eve, my extended family gathers and eschews a full meal in favor of a massive spread of appetizers. It usually ends up being a huge hodgepodge of different dips, finger foods, and snacks. The one constant every year is my father’s tourtiere, a traditional French Canadian meat pie. It’s always the star of the table.
This year I wanted to challenge myself. I was inspired while watching the Food Network, as I usually am. This time it was a recipe for chicken liver pate that Anne Burrell was preparing. I had never made my own pate before and was eager to try. I was attracted to the recipe because it had such big flavors. The pan starts with oil, garlic, anchovies, and capers before sauteing the livers.
I have to say that I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into with this recipe. It’s not that it was a difficult recipe. Quite to the contrary, it was fairly simple. The difficulty came in dealing with the livers. I had never prepared livers before and I had never had a lot of liver growing up. I was not ready for the level of creepiness that the livers have.
I mean, they are slimy little organs, they have a distinct odor (which only gets stronger when you cook them), and they come in their own strange juice. I don’t know if I was just being a baby, but I was getting nauseated working with the squishy little things. Anyhow, the end product turned out okay, and the balsamic onions were great.
A couple notes on the recipe. I would definitely have added more anchovies to begin with. I used about two and a half and they weren’t enough. The livers themselves have such a strong flavor that they tend to overwhelm everything. I also added some spices to mine to try to kick it up. I stirred in some thyme and sage and I think it added a little something.
Would I make this recipe again? Probably not. I think if I were to try pate again, and I would need some time to get over my new liver phobia, I would try a different recipe. Have any that you can suggest?
Clacked by Bob Degon
on Jan 01, 2009 @ 18:47 EST5EDT
I tasted Bob’s pate, and thought the flavors were perfect, but I didn’t care for the texture. To me, a pate should be thicker, spreadable like peanut butter. This recipe turned out a bit soupy.