Chicken Liver Paté

Well it’s 6:27pm and I’m due to go help a friend set up for a party later, so I should eat, but there isn’t much in the fridge except the sheep milk ricotta and the Mennonite bacon. This means pasta of course. If it wasn’t for pasta I’d likely starve. The bacon is sizzling now. That bodes well.

But it was a hell of a day for cooking. I was going full tilt by 7:25am with the shallots and the livers for the paté. It’s a recipe from my apprenticing days and as soon as the brandy hit the pan I had one of those amazing moments of olfactory memory. It’s always a thrill immediately to feel transported right into the hot summer of 1997 when I made this paté every other day. I can hear Chef Steve telling me to “use a shitload of Dijon and buzz it while it’s hot”. We used Frangelico then but in the interim there has been some unpleasantness between Frangelico and me, so I chose Marsala. Hurray, another use for the Marsala! That bottle of Marsala sits in the pantry and I imagine it just sighs to itself while an endless stream of other liquor bottles take up residence and get drunk relatively quickly. A suitor came over and made zabaglione with it at the beginning of April and I haven’t cracked the bottle since.

Once the liver paté was done, I had dried beans and lentils to cook and present -- kidney beans in a salad, barley (pot and pearl) as lemony side dishes, soup mix (ack) as soup and split peas as dal/soup. Second olfactory transport moment of the day, back to the hippie cafe in 2001. That soup (boil split peas; melt a shitload of butter, sizzle in some curry powder and honey and add to peas. Done.) saved my behind on numerous occasions when the realisation that we were About to Run Out of Soup hit me 10 minutes into the lunch rush. Great soup, and the work crew loved it. There were cheesecakes again today, to check out how different bricks of cream cheese behave in application. Blimey, it’s a whole trip down memory lane, what with having made that recipe about 800 times from 1997 to 1999 at the Italian takeaway. Nothing says Italian like New York cheesecake. The day continued in a similar manner till quitting time, a blessing to be busy during these trying times at work.

Still, all that said, I hardly feel like cooking right now. I’ve been to the chiropractor and the eyebrow shaper and the cobbler (seriously, his name is Rocco and he just fixed my favourite Miz Mooz mules). But I’ll put an egg yolk in my favourite pasta bowl, whisk in a big gob of ricotta with a bit of cooking water, snip the non-slimy leaves of parsley over it all, add a shitload (the word of the day I guess) of pepper, the crisped bacon and the pasta. A glass of rose from what remains of last night’s Frustration bottle and I should be just fine, once again sustained by Italy’s best.

Chicken Liver Paté
Cook 4 big, thinly sliced shallots very slowly in at least 1 stick of butter. Once they are totally translucent add a smashed clove of garlic and about 750 g of chicken livers. When the livers are cooked, splash in about 1/4 cup of brandy or Marsala and a good glug of 35% cream. Cook the liquor out a bit then add a big gob of Dijon, a tiny pinch of allspice, salt and a shitload of pepper. Buzz it in the food processor until very smooth, taste for seasoning and press it through a fine mesh sieve and into a serving bowl. Chill at least 4 hours.