I simply love paté. I love it so much I could eat just paté alone for a meal.
Back then, when we were still travelling around the German-speaking parts of Europe – Austria, Switzerland – I always made it a point to eat paté at least once in every two or three days. Without any bread rolls. When the guy was staying in Germany, I would often buy them as a treat for myself, usually off the shelves of the local supermarkets as they are so cheap, almost half the price of those found in Singapore. These were usually sold as individual slices in vacuumed packs. I especially love those with the gelatin on top. Yummy.
I recall it was in Vienna, Austria, that we first came across paté packed in little breakfast mini packs at the hotel breakfast lounge, similar to those of butter spreads. The greedy me actually stole a lot of those spreads back to the hotel and then back to Singapore. Yummy.
Sadly, there aren’t a lot of places in Singapore that sell paté, and if there are, they are damn expensive, not to mention lacking in variety and quality. I decided to try making it for myself at home so that I can find out more about what ingredients go into making such a wonderful breakfast recipe.
Ingredients:
- Unsalted butter: 40g (2 tbsp) + 25g (1 tbsp) + 40g (2 tbsp)
- Chicken liver: 400g, sliced into chunks
- Shallot: 3 (large), finely chopped
- Garlic: 1/2 clove, finely chopped
- Dill: 1 stalk, finely chopped
- Ground nutmeg: 1/2 tsp
- Salt: 1.5 tsp
- Milk: 2 tbsp
- Ground blackpepper: 1 tsp
- Toasts or crackers to serve with
Method:
- Heat 2 tbsp butter in wok.
- Fry liver in butter till browned, about 4 min.
- Remove from heat and place into blender.
- Heat 1 tbsp butter in wok.
- Fry shallots over low heat for 5min till soft and translucent.
- Add garlic, dill and nutmeg. Fry for another 2 min.
- Add shallot mixture into blender, together with 2 tbsp butter, salt, milk and blackpepper.
- Process blender until paté is smooth.
- Leave in fridge to chill overnight before serving with toasts or crackers.
Disclaimers:
- This recipe was adapted from ‘The Complete Book of Party Food & Appetizers’ by Bridget Jones.
- I used dill instead of thyme and did not use clarified butter in the last step to set the paté in the fridge. I also excluded Madeira (an alcohol) and allspice from the recipe, using nutmeg in place of allspice.
Serving:
1 pint