Chicken Liver Pate

The pate's are a spread for tartines or slices of bread made from liver. Almost any liver works but the most used are chicken, pork, rabbit. Of course, the higher end of pate is duck or goose pate. Nowadays you can buy pate of all kinds in cans but I've discovered (that what I should have remembered from my childhood) that you can easily can make your own pate in house.

INGREDIENTS (for a medium bowl):

• 500 gr. chicken lliver;
• 1 big onion;
• 1 clove garlic;
• 3-5 strips bacon;
• 200 gr. butter;
• 100 ml. white wine, dry (can use sherry, port, etc.);
• 2-3 bay leaves;
• 1 handful parsley;
• salt, pepper, mustard seeds (optional).

HOW TO MAKE:

First dorp a little knob of butter into a frying pan and add the onion cut julien and the minced garlic. After the onion has softened add the bacon cut into 1-2 cm. bits and fry to render the fat from it a little bit. After 10 minutes of cooking you add the chicken livers and cook them all on medium heat for 15 minutes stiring occasionally. Middway through the cooking process add the glass of wine. Oh, the flavors!

Season well with salt, pepper, bay. Beware the salt in the bacon. After the livers are well cooked through, add the chopped parsley and turn off the heat and let cool for a wile. Remove the hard bay leaves and blend all the composition in a food processor until smooth. Fill a serving bowl with the paste and seal the top of it with the rest of the butter that you've liquefied beforehand. I've gone easy on the butter, but you must know that the base recipe calls for 1 cm. thick butter cap on top of the pate bowl.

Refrigerate it when it has cooled enough and serve in the next few days on toast! Try it with toast and dijon mustard!

Tagliatelle With Fresh Green Peas

A must do recipe for the beginning of the summer is pasta with fresh green peas. And I mean fresh, because the dish simply isn't going to work with canned or even frozen ones. The recipe requires only that you pre boil the peas for 5 minutes in salted water. I was fortunate enough to receive the peas from a neighbor of my parents who was just picking them of the stem in the garden. She gave the peas to us in the pods, so my wife spent 15 minutes just taking the cute little green pearls of the stems. Pleasant 15 minutes, though!

INGREDIENTS (serves two):

• 150-200 gr. fresh green peas;
• tagliatelle pasta (can use fettuccine or other ribbon like pasta);
• 3 tbs. olive oil;
• 3-5 strips bacon or pancetta;
• 1 clove garlic;
• 150 ml. cooking cream;
• 50 gr. parmesan cheese, grated;
• salt, pepper, oregano (optional).

HOW TO MAKE:

First set up some salted water and boil the green peas for no more than 5 minutes.

Heat up some olive oil in a pan and add the bacon cut up into thin bits. Brown the bacon for 5-7 minutes. Add the chopped garlic to flavor the oil. Do not brown the garlic (adjust the heat to low). Immediately add the cooking cream to form a sauce. Salt and pepper. Add some dry oregano. In a nearby pot the pasta should already be boiling according to the instructions on the pack. If the sauce is too thick, add a ladle of the pasta water. When the pasta is al dente, strain and add it to the sauce in the pan. Stir well to coat the pasta with the creamy sauce. Add some more of the pasta water to thin the sauce, until it has a silky consistency. Add the strained fresh green peas,  and the grated parmesan cheese. Stir well. Plate and enjoy hot, immediately!

New Potatoes & Bacon Warm Salad

It's the time that you find new potatoes in the market. They are so small and cute. I've seen some people teach us how to peel them, but in this recipe I've decided to eat them with skin on, because it was so thin and tender. Someone fried them in duck fat. Yummy! I just decided to make a salad. And it is a warm one, since it has fried bacon in it.

INGREDIENTS:

• a handful of new potatoes, round and small;
• 3 to 5 strips of bacon;
• 1 or 2 spring onions, both white and green part;
• 1/2 red bell pepper;
• fresh parsley (can't use dry for this one);
• extra virgin olive oil, a dash of balsamic vinegar;
• salt & pepper.

HOW TO MAKE:

First you boil the potatoes, skin on, in 2/3 more water then potatoes, lots of salt in. Boil them until they are soft to the penetrating fork, but not as soft to fall apart. Drain the water away and cut the potatoes in half or quarters depending on how small they are.
While the potatoes are boiling, in a nearby pan, fry some bacon, cut into thin little inch size bits. You can fry long strips and brake or cut them after they are crispy. Do not burn the bacon. It's just not nice.
Chop up the red bell pepper into small little bits like in the picture and the spring onion into small rings. Use both white and green parts of the onion. Chop the fresh parsley roughly, not too fine. The parsley leaves look nice in this one.
Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl and (important) do it while the potatoes are still warm. They will soak up the aromas of the bacon and the onion. You can add a few drops of balsamic vinegar into the mixing bowl. Assemble on plate. Enjoy!