I like your insides

I’ve recently acquired a fascination for all things internal – gizzards, livers, giblets, and other strangely named, squishy red things. They simultaneously repulse and attract me, I think because of their squishy red-ness.

Helpless as I am, in the grips of this fascination, when Alice Waters told me I could make pasta from scratch without a pasta press, I believed her and set out to make pasta with chicken livers and sage.

Friends, learn from my mistakes. You cannot make pasta without a pasta press. I should have known; should have remembered my brother’s hilarious (to me, at least) attempt to make ravioli, but I was excited and wanted my chicken livers.

That experiment is lost to the depths of time, or at least until I make a post about epic kitchen failures. Moral: Alice Waters is wise, but not always correct. And buy a pasta press.

So, I had about a pound of chicken livers in my fridge calling out to me, saying: “Come look at how squishy we are! Aren’t we a delightful shade of blood-purple? Please be repulsed but fascinated again!”


See what I mean? They are strange yet alluring.

I cannot resist the call, so yesterday I made chicken liver and bourbon pâté. Believe me when I say that anything with bourbon in the name automatically has my vote. Plus it let me look at my chicken livers and then puree them into something unrecognizable as innards but still delicious.


Yes, okay, pâté is generally considered more of a party food, or whatever, but the chicken livers! They wouldn’t let me be.

And now I have enough pâté to feed a chicken-liver-hungry army.


Bourbon Chicken Liver Pâté
(recipe from Gourmet)

1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter
1 cup finely chopped onion
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme or 1/4 teaspoon dried
1 teaspoon minced fresh marjoram or 1/4 teaspoon dried
1 teaspoon minced fresh sage or 1/4 teaspoon dried
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
1 lb chicken livers, trimmed
2 tablespoons bourbon

Melt 1 stick butter in a large nonstick skillet over moderately low heat, then cook onion and garlic, stirring, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add herbs, salt, pepper, allspice, and livers and cook, stirring, until livers are cooked outside but still pink when cut open, about 8 minutes. Stir in bourbon and remove from heat. Purée mixture in a food processor until smooth, then transfer pâté to crock and smooth top.

Melt remaining 1/2 stick butter in a very small heavy saucepan over low heat, then remove pan from heat and let butter stand 3 minutes. If using herb garnish, put sprig on top of pâté. Skim froth from butter, then spoon enough clarified butter over pâté to cover its surface, leaving milky solids in bottom of pan.

Chill pâté until butter is firm, about 30 minutes, then cover with plastic wrap and chill at least 2 hours more.

Then eat pâté until your tummy hurts.