Chicken Liver Pate Recipe or Chicken Liver Pâté Recipe

Chicken Liver Pate Recipe or Chicken Liver Pâté or Pâté de fois de volaille is dangerously easy, inexpensive and luxurious. Easy chicken liver pâté is made with butter, onions, garlic, brandy, and thyme.

It is blended smooth to spread on bread or crackers. Also known as Pâté de fois de volaille — it may look atrocious to you, but it tastes really great!

Chicken liver pâté is a classic French dish, combining rich chicken livers with flavourful pantry staples for a creamy, luxurious tasting spread.

Chicken liver pate on garlic toast

I have always loved eating the buttery chicken liver pâté at Basil & Thyme restaurant in New Delhi and have not been able to easily resist this magic of elegant smooth velvet.

Basil & Thyme Delhi, located in Santushti Complex (opposite Ashok Hotel in Chanakyapuri) was one of the first stand-alone Continental restaurants in Delhi.

Their Chicken Liver Paté is easily the best in town as claimed by many at both of their outlets – Chanakyapuri & Sunder Nagar.

They are only operating their Restaurant in Sunder Nagar now and offer a selection of European dishes presented in a casual, elegant setting with modern artwork.

Foie gras (the French term for fatty liver) is a duck or goose liver fattened upto 10 times its normal size. This is done by force-feeding birds to enlarge their livers. This labour-intensive process is known as gavage (French for force feeding).

Many animal rights activists describe the process as cruel & torturous. Hence, In 2006, Chicago became the first city in the USA to enact a ban against restaurants serving the dish, but the ban was repealed two years later.

New York City is currently home to about 1,000 restaurants that serve foie gras, but on Oct. 30, 2019, the City Council voted to ban the dish beginning in 2022.

New York will join California, Australia, India and numerous other places that prohibit foie gras for animal rights reasons. Whole Foods took foie gras off its shelves in 1997.

Just as I was getting ready to play host to a few friends, on an impulse I asked my meat supplier to pack a lot of chicken livers with other goodies he was getting set to deliver.

The liver came in with other meats and all forgotten sat pretty in the freezer while the other stuff got cooked. I discovered the package only a week later and immediately started craving for a chicken liver pâté.

A little research on the internet and a few tweaks in my mind got me working to get the chicken liver pate on its way.

You can have this simply as a light (really!) supper or a sandwich/cracker spread made with chicken livers. It takes less than a half-hour to prepare, and firm ups in the refrigerator in a few hours.

This great hors d’oeuvre can be made at home easily within minutes and goes very well with an array of cheese and wine. It tastes magical when smeared liberally on toasted bread or crackers of all kinds too.

The following recipe is amazingly simple and takes just minutes to make if you have all the ingredients handy.

1. If you like livers with a milder taste, you can soak the chicken livers in milk for an hour or so before proceeding with the recipe.
2. You can replace the cognac with a Chivas just as I have done or you can use a touch of cream sherry.
3. If you don’t have white onions available, feel free to use shallots.
4. Always wait for the livers to cool before blending.
5. The top of the pate will quickly discolour when it is exposed to the air. You can add clarified butter (ghee) on top of the pate to make it last longer in the fridge.
6. Always use fresh chicken livers.
7. Soaking the livers in milk prior to preparing the pâté will mellow out the intense flavour.
8. Overcooked livers are the most likely reason for a grainy pâté. For a smooth, silky texture make sure to cook the livers until just lightly browned before blending.

The top of the pate will quickly discolour when it is exposed to the air. To keep it better it’s advisable adding a layer of clarified butter (ghee).

Without a layer on top, it will keep just a day or two in the fridge. With the protective layer of butter, it will keep for around 5 days. To use the pate soon, store it in the fridge.

For longer storage, you can freeze it for a couple of months though make sure it is well sealed in airtight ramekins. This way you’ll only need to open one at a time.

1. With cheese, crackers and wine. Pate is the perfect spread for a cheese board.
2. Hard cheese is firm and goes perfectly well with our creamy and decadent mousse pâtés.
3. With garlic toasties, simple toasted bread or baguette of your choice.

Pate can be eaten as a lunch dish, an evening starter or, possibly, a main component in “Tea party”.

Accompaniments for meat Pates and fish Pates require little more than toast and a few refreshing celery sticks or radish slices.

1. For an elegant and tasty appetizer, serve any type of pâté with a fresh baguette, sliced toasted bread. Let your guests self serve, or spread the pâté on the bread or toast in advance and arrange them on a garnished plate.
2. If serving it as a salad course, pass it in a crock or in a ring mould. In such cases, lift off a slice or serve a spoonful onto your plate along with a cracker or toast.