Head cheese: pate pate.

[madbaker]

This week's Resolution Recipe: Pate Maison.

2 lbs chicken livers
4 oz unsalted butter
1 oz onion, diced (I also added several cloves of garlic.)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp white pepper
1 1/2 oz brandy
4 oz cream
4 oz bacon (I used house-cured, of course)

Sweat the livers in a heavy skillet in 2 oz butter (I used less). After three minutes, add the onion and garlic, salt and pepper. Cook until the livers are just off-pink. Set aside and hold warm. Line a 1.25 quart mold with a single layer of the bacon slices and chill. (I used a standard bread loaf pan, which was about the right size.) Puree the liver and onion mixture in a food processor.

Gently warm the remaining butter. Add to the livers with the brandy and cream; mix again to assure uniformity. Pour into the well-chilled mold and place in a water bath reaching to 1" from the top of the mold. Bake 45-60 minutes at 325 until the pate sets. Shake gently to observe the texture; a metal cake tester should come out clean. Remove from the oven and water bath. Cover and chill for at least 12 hours.

Unmold, plate, and garnish for presentation.

What worked: relatively simple and elegant. I used hippy chicken livers and this tasted like good, high-quality commercial pate.

What didn't: this is a half recipe and I mistakenly did not halve the brandy. The pate was too wet and took some extra time to bake; then it did not unmold as easily as I would have liked.

Will I make it again? Yes. While the smoothness is nice, I think throwing in a few chopped truffles and some green onion for texture/flavor variation would improve it.

In other Saluminati news, I cut down the fermented pork sausages that have been hanging in our oubliette for a couple weeks. They didn't ferment sufficiently, I suspect, but the smoking and drying went well. The Bactoferm good mold worked brilliantly - I did a couple dips before hanging, and they all had thick powdery coats when I took them down.

What I'm reading: Michael Z Williamson, Do Unto Others

Comments

[ysabella-dolfin.livejournal.com]

Why do you think they did not ferment properly?

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

A little low on humidity, definitely not enough warmth. It was probably 45-50 in the oubliette the day I started them. I need a better-controlled place for that sort of thing (and I suspect the wife would rightly be underwhelmed with me hanging them from the shower for a day).

[ysabella-dolfin.livejournal.com]

The biggest problem with the shower is there is a ton of natural molds in there. I think the ideal thing to be to have a sous vide set up that you could cryovac them, then do the 90 degree water bath for 24 hours. If I get a sous vide set up soon (which I will very likely do) we could do a batch that way?

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

I like the sous vide idea!

[ysabella-dolfin.livejournal.com]

I think we could really control temp that way but we would have to make sure the sausages were not too long to cryovac/fit in the sous vide set up.

[albionwood.livejournal.com]

They dried properly in two weeks?? Mine have been hanging for over a month and are still nowhere near dry. I need an oubliette...

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

Here's (http://madbaker.livejournal.com/593310.html) the recipe. They lost 13% in two weeks, yes. It doesn't feel like it right now but it is drier here than chez you...