madbaker | Next week will be a non-meat recipe.

But this week's Resolution Recipe is meaty: Pate Grandmere.

1.25 lbs chicken livers
1 lb boneless pork shoulder butt, diced
1 ounce kosher salt
1 tsp black pepper
2 bay leaves
2 sprigs fresh thyme
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup chopped shallots
2 Tbsp brandy
2 slices white bread, crusts removed, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup whole milk (I used half and half)
1/4 cup cream (I used half and half)
2 large eggses
1 Tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/4 tsp nutmeg

Toss the liver with half the salt and the black pepper, 1 bay leaf, and 1 thyme sprig. Toss the pork in another bowl with the remaining salt/pepper/bay/thyme. Cover and refrigerate separately for 8 hours or overnight.

Freeze your bowls and grinder blades. Heat a 12" saute pan over high heat, and add the oil; the pan should be just smoking. Add the liver without crowding, discarding the bay and thyme. Saute until it's developed a good sear - the better the crust, the better the final flavor. Transfer to a tray and chill in the fridge. Add the shallots to the hot pan and saute until translucent, about 30 seconds, then deglaze the pan with the brandy, stirring up any bits of liver and shallot stuck to the bottom. When most of the brandy has cooked off but the shallots still look moist, transfer to a bowl and chill.

Heat the oven to 300. Combine the bread, milk, cream, and eggses in a bowl and stir to blend. (This is called a "panada".) Set aside.
Discard the bay and thyme from the pork. Add the chilled liver and shallots, along with the panada and parsley. Grind this through a small grinder die into the bowl of a standing mixer set in ice. Careful with the liver as it may squirt out the grinder.

Using the paddle attachment, mix on medium speed for about a minute, until the mixture looks sticky. Line a terrine mold (I used a bread loaf pan) with plastic wrap, leaving enough overhang on the two long sides to cover the filled mold - moistening the inside of the mold first will help the plastic wrap adhere to the corners. Pack the terrine tightly with the ground mixture, avoiding air pockets. Fold the plastic wrap over the top of the terrine and cover with the lid (or aluminum foil).

Place the terrine in a high-sided roasting pan and fill the pan with very hot tap water (about 150 degrees) to come halfway up the sides of the mold. Put the roasting pan in the oven and bake until the center of the pate reaches 160 degrees.

Remove the pate from the oven and the terrine from the water bath, and set a weight of about 2 pounds on it. Allow to cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until thoroughly chilled overnight.

What worked: This was really good (if you like liver, as the wife and I do). The livers came from hippy chickens. It was incredibly good as the base for poached hippy eggses (from the same chickens, hah!)

What didn't: Starting the cooking process at 8 PM was not the way to go as it took a couple hours to bake and then even longer to cool to room temperature. A genuine terrine pan would help with some of that. I didn't mix the meats enough and so they broke a bit in the mold and wept out some fat, making it a bit crumblier than I'd prefer.

Will I make it again? We have a fair amount of it sealed up in the freezer to go through first, but absolutely.