June Daring Cooks Challenge - Chicken Liver Pate and Pesto Bread

Our hostesses this month, Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz, and Valerie of a The Chocolate Bunny, chose delicious pate with freshly baked bread as their June Daring Cook’s challenge! They’ve provided us with 4 different pate recipes to choose from and are allowing us to go wild with our homemade bread choice.

Since I saw this Challenge back in a May I was more than excited. Firstly because I love baking pates. I like using all kind of spreads and pates on my bread every morning. Also I wanted to make bread again after first quite succesfull attempt with Irish Soda Bread.

Sometimes I feel like I am countrywoman lost in a city since I love the country so much. I am not sure if I could live in a country full-time but for a longer free-time stays I'm in! I like to wake up very early, going to check what grown overnight, how many new eggs we have, what kind of flowers will make us happy today. But living in a city is not bad either, oh no. 

We do not have garden but my balcony is quite big. So every year when I see that the sun in high and we are sure that cold days are behind us I plant. I have many, many herbs in any place you can count. That's why I am so crazy over pesto right now. And that's why I choose to make Pesto Bread with my Pate.

I use hazelnuts to my pesto, so since I wanted to be this recipe to be more coherent, I also add some sweet hazelnuts to a pate. This is nice crunchy surprise inside and work nice with a chicken meat. Livers, when make good, are also little sweet. In burned-sweet kind of taste.

Chicken Liver Pate:

1 tablespoon butter

2 onions, coarsely chopped

400g chicken livers, trimmed

3 tbsp brandy, or any other liqueur (optional)

500g chicken legs with a skin, cooked in a soup before

2 shallots, chopped

1 tsp quatre-épices (or 1/4tsp each of ground pepper, cloves, nutmeg and ginger is close enough)

2 eggs

200 ml (7 fl oz, 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp) heavy cream

2 fresh thyme sprigs, chopped

Salt and pepper

100 gram hazelnuts


Preheat oven to 200ºC (400ºF, Gas Mark 6)

Melt the butter in a heavy frying pan over low heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes, until softened. Add the chicken livers and cook, stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes, until browned but still slightly pink on the inside.
Remove the pan from heat. Pour in the brandy, light a match and carefully ignite the alcohol to flambé. Wait for the flames to go out on their own, carefully tilting the pan to ensure even flavoring. Set aside.
Put chicken legs with a skin in a food processor, then add the onion-liver mixture and the chopped shallots, and pulse. I make my little more smooth looking since I prefer this way.
Transfer to a bowl and add quatre-épices, cream, eggs, and thyme. Season with salt and pepper, and mix well. Spoon the mixture into a terrine or loaf pan and cover with the terrine lid or with aluminum foil.
Take baking tin poured with a butter and covered with bread crumbs. Put half the mixture in tin and place the hazelnuts, pressing them into a pate a little. Add rest of a mixture pressing a little again. That will remove any air from a tin.

Bake for 1,5 hour (uncover after about an hour) or until the skin will be dark brown. Remove from the oven and cool. Put in a fringe for about2-3 hours before serving or better overnight.I use recipe for Pesto Bread again from lovely Liska's blog.