Easy Smooth Chicken Liver Pate

Prep: 15 mins

Cooking: 15 mins

Difficulty: medium

Serves: 4

Ingredients

To buy:

400g best quality fresh chicken livers, cleaned

1 shallot or half a small onion

4 sprigs thyme

4 sage leaves

100ml good splash of Madiera wine or brandy

20ml double cream

1 loaf ciabatta

Store-cupboard essentials:

200g unsalted butter

sea salt and freshly ground pepper

1 whole nutmeg

CUT the livers into equal sized pieces. Dice the butter. Peel and very finely chop the shallot or onion. Pick the leaves from the thyme sprigs.

PLACE a medium frying pan on a low to medium heat. Add a knob of butter and then add the shallot, thyme and sage leaves.

COOK for around 5-10 minutes stirring until the shallot has softened but not coloured. Turn up the heat to high and add the livers (with a little more butter if it’s looking a little dry). Moving quickly, fry the livers for around 2 minutes until brown on the outside but still a little pink in the middle. Tip the livers straight into a food processor.

LEAVING all the cooking juices in the pan, return to the heat and add the Madiera wine or brandy. Allow to bubble away until you’re left with around 2 tablespoons of lovely smelling cooking liquor.

POUR the juices into the food processor along with the double cream, a good pinch each of salt and pepper and a good grating of fresh nutmeg. Give everything a good whizz. Scrape down the sides of the food processor with a rubber spatula. Add 75g of butter and whizz again until smooth.

COVER the dish with cling film and pop in the fridge for 20 minutes to firm up.

MELT the butter in small saucepan on a low heat, add a scraping of nutmeg. Remove the pate from the fridge and pour the butter over the pate.

PLACE the pate back in the fridge and leave to set for a few hours.