Goose Liver Pate

This year we decided to roast a goose for Christmas (it turned out really well) which meant I found myself with a goose liver on hand. After a bit of researching I found this wonderful recipe from Jacques Pepin and after making a few modifications, I set about preparing it for tonight’s New Year’s Eve celebration. Like Christmas, tonight’s dinner will be a quiet, low key affair for just the two of us as I’m still feeling down about my mother’s passing in early December. We picked up her ashes yesterday. It’s all a bit surreal. We snuck an advance taste of the pate this afternoon and it is marvelous. Marvelous! I recommend serving it with cherry jam (we’re going to use the homemade jam we canned over the summer) on rich buttery crackers.

ingredients

3 ounces goose fat
1 large shallot, peeled and coarsely chopped (2 1/2 tablespoons)
1 goose liver (about 3 ounces), chopped
1 teaspoon herbes de Provence (or more, to taste)
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons Port
1/4 cup milk
teaspoon of unflavored gelatin

preparation

1. Soak the liver in the milk; set aside. Meanwhile, place fat in a skillet, and cook over medium to high heat for 4 to 5 minutes, until the fat has melted and some of it has browned.

2. Add the shallots, and cook for about 30 seconds, stirring occasionally. Add the liver and milk, herbes de Provence, Port, and garlic, and cook over medium to high heat for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes, stirring occasionally until liquids have reduced. Add the salt and pepper.

3. Transfer the mixture to a blender, and blend until liquefied. This will yield 1/2 cup. Pour into souffle cup and sprinkle gelatin over, stirring to dissolve. Let cool for at least 1 1/2 hours, then cover and and refrigerate until serving time.

4. Spread the pâté on crackers or toasted baguette slices, and serve. The pâté will keep, well covered, for 3 to 4 days.

Comments

Board Game Review: Lost Cities Roll & Write (A Comparison to the Original Lost Cities)

I really love the card game Lost Cities , designed by Reiner Knizia. When my husband Christopher and I were first getting to know each other, we used to meet up at Starbucks sometimes and play games. Lost Cities was one of our frequent picks. It’s a head to head, two player game in which both players are trying to outscore each other by laying down ascending runs of card suits on a small board between the two of them. There’s a theme laid over the mechanism (completing expeditions in the lost world) but it’s basically pasted on and so that is the last we will speak of it. So there we were, newly in love, eyeing each other across the table, smiling and flirting, and doing our best to beat one another at Lost Cities . It was awesome. And now, with the roll & write genre having made an impressive rebound a few years ago (let’s not forget the mechanism has actually been around since the 50s with Yatzee ), Knizia has ported his award winning game Lost Cities into this format, releasi

Board Game Review: Hues and Cues

Last week we received Hues and Cues from The Op Games. We recently finished playing through Scooby-Doo Escape from the Haunted Mansion (a fantastic game in The Op Games catalogue designed by Jay Cormier, Sen-Foong Lim, and Kami Mandell that you should absolutely pick up to play with your family) and wanted to give another game from the same publisher a go. I picked Hues and Cues because I’ve been pleasantly surprised by other “test whether our minds think the same way” games such as The Mind and Wavelength. In Hues and Cues , players gather around a large central board comprised of 480 graduating colors of the rainbow surrounded by an x-y axis and scoring table. White and black (which are technically not colors) are conspicuously absent as are shades (mixtures of color + black; e.g., grey) and tints (mixtures of color + white; e.g., cream). On each player’s turn, they draw a card with four colors and the x-y axis codes of those colors depicted and they select one. They are in the

Board Game Review: Brass Birmingham

Here’s a story of a lovely lady (spoiler: it’s me) and her pride and how it has led to the discovery of the single greatest board game I have ever played. It’s probably also a good primer for other reviewers on increasing your reach. At GenCon this year, I was perusing the wares of the various booths and my eyes caught a glimpse of two beautiful game boxes. Each had crisp metallic lettering with an old world feel and artwork that radiated European class. I made my way to the booth and waited patiently to speak to to the team manning it as there were many buyers lined up to purchase the games. I didn’t know anything about the games (Brass Birmingham and Brass Lancashire), or the publisher – Roxley Game Laboratory – but I knew I wanted to review one or both of the games. Almost every board game love story I star in in can be summed up this way: I am seduced by the artwork or theme and then I stay for the right mechanics. When the lead rep spoke with me, he gently rejected my request. He