Over a year ago we culled some year old lambs plus the old ram. He was a big boy. He made lots of bags of meat which almost filled the freezer up, but now most of it is gone. All except a couple of bags, one of which looked like a humungous lump of liver. I have often come across that humungous bag but, feeling disinclined to tackle it, I have pushed it to one side, allowing it to slide to the bottom most part of the freezer. And then the day came when I could no longer put off the task of defrosting, and then finding a use for, this chunk of liver because space was needed for further cullings.
....so what to do. Well, half of the liver I cooked up with a tomato and onion sauce. This we had for lunch. Shame, though, to give the other half to Bools and Gus, our willing demolishers of anything edable. Couldn't freeze it again. So, what to do.......
It sat in the fridge for a day or so. Then a thought popped into my head. 'Paté' the thought said. 'Difficult' was my response back, followed by, 'Complicated, not particularly fussed about bothering with making that'.
But the thought stuck. An Internet search was done. Three recipes I found, none of which I felt was do-able for various reasons, so what I did was made my own recipe from them.
So what I started of with was some left over lambs liver, quite strong in taste because of it coming from a ram of unknown age. And here is a thought: the ram was not a lamb, therefore it's wrong to call the paté 'Lambs Liver Paté'. But I have never heard of mutton / sheep's liver paté, or, in this case, ram's liver paté!
So, starting again, this is what I used to make the paté:
'Lambs' Liver: 450g. What I started off with was some liver left over from a ram of our flock. This I sliced up into small pieces, taking out a bit of tube and some some thin white bits. Recipe said 450g, but I didn't weigh what I had.
Bacon: 5 rashers. Quite thickish rashers would be best, but here in SW France we can't buy anything other than whisper thin slices of bacon, which cook into hard little strips when cooked. But the recipe said 'bacon' so this is what I bought. This I cut up into small pieces as well.
Red onion: 1.Didn't have one so used an ordinary one. This was chopped up into small pieces as.
Garlic: 2 cloves. Crushed and cut into pieces.
Parsley: collected from the garden, and chopped up small.
Lemon: 1. Juiced.
Spring onion: From the garden, washed, chopped finely.
Seasoning: Salt, pepper, and anything else you fancy.
- I put the onions into a frying pan in which I had recently cooked some bacon for bacon sarnies. Thought the bacon flavour would contribute to the overal flavour. One of the other recipes said 'Add butter', but I didn't as was short of butter. Added sunflower oil to the pan instead.
- Over a low heat let the onions cook until they were almost translucent.
- Added the liver and bacon, plus a little more oil. Cooked mixture for a minute or two, stirring frequently. Added more oil as the mixture looked a little dry.
- Added the garlic. Cooked mixture further until satisfied that the liver was cooked through. Checked this by cutting a piece of liver open to see if the pinkyness was gone from the interior. It was. Gave this bit of liver to Bools, who had been 'helping'. There is never any dropped food left lying on the floor for long with him and Gus around. By the way, liver gets tough if cooked for too long, like leather in fact.
- And here is where the fun started, because I had to convert the cooked mass in the frying pan into a paté-like texture.
One of the recipes said, 'Use a hand blender', another said, 'Use a food processor'. I have neither of these. A sieve was also mentioned. Got on of those. Tried to push the liver, etc through the sieve, but no, it did not work. So here is what I used:
..... my cheese grater. I picked up some liver mixture in my fingers and rolled it over the finer side of the grater. It took ages, and I made a mess, as you can see. Chipped fingernails also happened. I think, however, that I managed to retrieve the chippings.
A cup of tea was required to give me the energy to carry on.....
....and here is what I ended up with:
- into a bowl the mix was put. Now the fun started. Seasoning time. Lemon juice, spring onion, parsley, salt and pepper were added. Had a taste. Wow! But the liver was still too strong for my liking, so I added some more lemon juice and salt. Hubs strolled through the kitchen, curious to know what I was up to. Gave him a little bit of the paté to try out. Wow! It was all I could do to stop him from munching his way through the entire bowl.
- into a lidded container the paté was put, then in to the fridge it went.
Supper time:
.....homemade paté, homemade apricot jam (made June 2011), on homemade bread. Yummy.
Now I do not want to come across as someone who is a dedicated foody person, but the food on that plate, although simple, was quite delicious. I never knew paté was so easy to make despite the lack of equipment to get the liver mixture into the texture of paté, although I still managed to do so. Bread making is easy once you get into the rythm of it, and jam making is quite easy as well. For none of these do I have equipment, except for the basic tools. And I have learnt that good food, tasty food, is simple and easy to make.
And here is the recipe again in brief:
450g Lambs Liver (or thereabouts), cut into pieces
1 red onion (or normal onion), chopped into small pieces
5 rashers of bacon, cut into pieces
2 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped
Parsley, chopped finely
Lemon juice
Spring onion, chopped finely
seasoning.
Fry the onions in a little oil until transparet, add the liver and bacon plus a little more oil if needed. Cook for a minute or so. Add the garlic. Continue to cook, stirring frequently. When liver is cooked through, take of heat, and mince. Add the parsley, lemon juice, spring onion, and other seasonings to taste. Put into a sealed container firming the mixture down, and keep in the fridge.
Enjoy!
And here are the links to the other recipes:
http://www.redbrickpaper.co.uk/2011/02/lambs-liver-pate-with-caramelised-red-onion-chutney/
