Party Preparations 1

It may appear as we haven't eaten this month, but in fact, I've been so busy cooking this past week, that I haven't had time to update the blog. That and the possibility that Lundulph's Mum might have a peek and spoil some of the surprise. Lundulph's parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary this week-end and so a party was called for, a party with lots of food. I made a very precise schedule, which I managed to follow just as precisely.

On the Tuesday, I made hummus and chicken liver paté, having never made either before. But I'd planned on trying the hummus ages ago and had a jar of tahini in the larder in preparation. The recipe is one that I'd written down on a small piece of paper, so have no idea where I got it from. As an aside, I have done this for many years and have a large collection of post-it notes and shopping receipts with recipes scribbled down on the back.

Ingredients

2 x 400 g cans chick peas
2 large cloves of garlic
3 tbsp tahini (sesame paste)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Put the chick peas and 120 ml of their liquid in a blender along with the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth.

That's all there's to it. On the whole, I think I used a bit too much tahini and not enough olive oil, it felt a bit dry. Also it's a good idea to leave the hummus over night, to allow the flavours to develop. Very nice to dip, that's for sure.

The second thing I made that evening was chicken liver paté, mainly inspired by Fred & Ginger who had made some for us the other week. I had a recipe from Waitrose from ages ago, which seemed simple enough.

Ingredients
25 g butter
400 g chicken livers
1 medium clove of garlic
1 large fresh sprig of rosemary
150 ml double cream
50 ml sweet white wine (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Trim the livers and cut into smaller chunks. Peel the garlic and wash the sprig of rosemary.
2. Heat the butter in a large frying pan and fry the livers for 5 - 8 minutes, press in the garlic and add the whole sprig of rosemary and stir around occasionally to get the livers evenly cooked.
3. Turn off the heat and leave to rest for 5 more minutes, then remove the sprig of rosemary.
4. Scrape the contents of the pan into a food processor and start blending. Pour in the double cream and the white wine.
5. When the paté is completely smooth, season with salt and pepper.
6. Transfer into the serving dish, cover with cling film and make sure it touches the surface of the paté, so that it doesn't discolour, and leave to set for at least 1 h.

The recipe recommends Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venice and unfortunately that's the only thing I forgot to get, so I used a Syrah Rosé instead. Very intrigueing this paté thing, when it was ready in the blender, it had the consistency of chocolate mousse, but tasted of liver. I transferred it to a box and put it in the fridge, hoping that it would go a bit solid at least. It did and it was really good and had the nice smooth texture that you'd expect too and tasted lovely. It went particularly well together with the knäckebröd I made last month.