Need help with the chicken liver

Andreas_Ax_n_Kr_ger_157103

So i tried the chicken liver pate a couple of days ago and it dident go so well and i need some help figureing out what i did wrong.

After i was done with the cooking and the cooling the consistency was kinda grainy and noot smooth and creamy like the video at all.

Any idea what i did wrong or what i can do differently? i followed te Chefsteps recipie, i just halved it.

Thanks, Andreas

Manfred_18311

I make duck liver Pâté time by time it should work just simple on your chicken liver!

Enjoy. Don't worrie, it easy!

Pâté foie de Carnac Barbarie

Procedere: Mise en place

Short while ago I aimed for duck dumplings, liver dumpling soup (from Pig) is a very common and a popular dish in traditional Bavarian and German food serving restaurants of every level. Next to liver the recipe is asking for whole egg and breadcrumbs. I modified the recipe to duck liver. Since I had some excess of the dumplings farce I added some milk to it had it rest for 5 hrs then sieved it finely and placed it in a prepared with spiced red wine gel. Quite nice but this could only be the beginning.

                                                                               

The Pâté

I established some pre-sets: I didn’t want to have the pristine duck flavor watered with any dairy products or eggs; to the contrary, preserving the purity of the duck flavor was the only result acceptable! Following the pre-set I extracted the Fat from the Skin and used it as additional flavor carrier. Some Xanthan for emulation and smoothness, the duck meat spiced with pre mixed curing salt (0,5% NoNa²) for color preservation and conservation, added Citric acid for the same reason on the liver only as I really didn’t want to salt the liver directly.

I split the process it in two days. Day one was to prepare the Duck meat and have it cured for 24 hr. Day two was set to prepare the liver and then join the two components. 

I deboned one whole duck, saved one duck breast for a different use. Skinned the duck to extract the fat layers at 80° C , trimmed and diced the meat, vacuum packet it ( 3cm) for a 35min bath at  60° C. The carcass went into a stock for reduction to a demi-glace.      

                                                           

After cooling the meat in an ice bath and adding the curing salt, the meat was passed on  to a meat cutter and finally the farce went to rest for 24hr at 4° C.  I figured.., as it turned out correctly, the pre-cooking of the duck meat made it possible to process it very finely by keeping a pink color.

                                                                              

Day 2, Preparation of liver  

Now deep red color of the duck liver is a sign the duck was a free running one and lived from what the environment offers, thus from what ducks historically feed on; bugs, larvae’s,  worms and seeds. The more yellow/ ochre colored livers are telling of a farm raised duck feed mostly by corn, the color corresponds similar to the one of a foie gras. I had about 50% of each, red and ochre, I first had reservation to mix them both, possibly compromising the color of the “pâté foie de Carnac Barbarie” as it could tend into and rather ochre color but to my relive it did not. I account the separated preparation of meat and liver for the constancy of the pink color and of course the citric acid on the liver and the curing salt on the farce.     

 

Processing duck liver can be labor intensive as Duck liver contains blood vessels which need to be removed, than it was fine sieved (µm 50) and the citric acid added.  

Meat farce, sieved liver, 30g duck fat, Xanthan and spices added to taste (ground pepper, Marjoram) it was mixed thoroughly after the mix it cured for another one hr at 4° C, the batch was fine sieved again (µm 50) and filled in prepared (sterilized) glass jars.  9 jars in all placed in the SV Supreme with water filled right under the lid for 80min at 60° C.  

 

The added fat made 3 % to the batch, considering meat and liver containing fat per se; it would be fair to say the whole batch contained approximately 9% - 11% fats. 

The consistency is stable but at the same time soft to spread which was intended (Xanthan), as I knew ahead the duck meat will give the pâté more structure, both in taste and consistency.

The duck flavor is also nicely lasting and the spicing on the tip of the blade, all in all, the entire recipe proved to perfect, I received a very satisfied result in every aspect.

Fresh baked Bread and the Pâté . 

Just gorgeous.