Christmas
by: Cara Nicoletti
October8,2014
5
2 Ratings
- Makes 3 cups
- Test Kitchen-Approved
What You'll Need
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoonsrendered chicken fat (if you can't find this, sub in 2 tablespoons unsalted butter)
- 2 tablespoonsunsalted butter
- 2 yellow onions
- 2 sprigsthyme
- 1/4 teaspoonground cinnamon
- 1 piecestar anise
- 1/2 California bay leaf
- 1 teaspoonblack peppercorns
- 1 poundchicken livers
- 1/8 teaspoonpink curing salt (this is different than Himalayan pink salt. Curing salt keeps the livers from taking on a gray color after they are cooked. This is optional, if you can't find it, don't stress)
- 1/3 cupruby port
- 1 cupcream cheese, cut into cubes
- 1 tablespoonsugar
- 2 tablespoonssherry vinegar
- Kosher salt to taste
- Extra rendered chicken fat or olive oil to seal the jar
- Crusty bread, for serving
Directions
- Add a tablespoon of chicken fat and a tablespoon of butter to a medium heavy-bottomed pot and add your sliced onions and thyme. Add Cook over medium heat until onions are soft.
- Add cinnamon, bay leaf, star anise, and black peppercorns to a spice grinder and pulse until finely ground (your cinnamon should already be ground, but adding it to the grinder helps the ingredients to move around and get ground up).
- Add the spicing to the onions and cook over medium heat until the onions are soft and deeply caramelized.
- While the onions are cooking down, clean your chicken livers of any white or greenish fibers. These fibers are totally fine to eat, but cleaning them away will help the texture of your finished mousse.
- Once the onions have cooked down add additional tablespoon of chicken fat and butter and raise the heat. Add livers and pink salt and cook, stirring and tossing them constantly for 5-7 minutes, or until they are firm to the touch but still rosy. If you have a meat thermometer the internal temp should be 165F. Generally, overcooking liver leads to an unappealing grainy texture, but the cream cheese and the blending/passing through a sieve will help cover all manner of overcooking sins, which makes this process way less stressful.
- Once your livers are cooked, transfer them to a bowl. Deglaze your pan with the port and allow it to cook down slightly (about 1 minute). Pour port over livers and add cream cheese.
- Place this mixture in a high-powered blender and blend until very smooth (you will have to do this in more than one batch).
- Pass the puréed liver into a bowl through a fine mesh sieve. Once all of the liver has been passed through a sieve, add sugar, sherry vinegar, and salt to taste. Remember that this mousse’s flavor will change as it cools, so add a little more salt than you think tastes right. Also feel free to add more sherry vinegar, more sugar, and more pepper, etc.
- Divide mousse into jars and coat the top in a thin layer of either rendered chicken fat or olive oil. This helps to seal the surface and keeps the liver from oxidizing and turning gray -- it also helps to keep it fresher for longer. Mousse will last 10 days in the refrigerator.
Tags:
- French
- Anise
- Port
- Sherry
- Thyme
- Vinegar
- Chicken
- Cream Cheese
- Fall
- Summer
- Christmas
- Thanksgiving
See what other Food52ers are saying.
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kehsutton
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Deneb Zeenat Latif
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nancy essig
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Kit VanRiel
Cara Nicoletti is a butcher and writer living in Brooklyn, New York. Cara started working in restaurants when she moved to New York in 2004, and was a baker and pastry chef for several years before following in her grandfather and great-grandfathers' footsteps and becoming a butcher. She is the writer behind the literary recipe blog, Yummy-Books.com, and author of Voracious, which will be published by Little, Brown in 2015. She is currently a whole-animal butcher and sausage-making teacher at The Meat Hook in Williamsburg.
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14 Reviews
kehsutton December 18, 2023
this has been on our annual Christmas Eve rotation since spotting this gorgeous-stylized image in 2014. It is without fail smooth and perfectly seasoned. Total French-kiss over here!
Deneb Z. April 2, 2018
what can be a non alcoholic substitute for Port?
Angie H. October 18, 2014
This was absolutely divine! A little too sweet for my tastes, next time I'll use only 1/2 T. of sugar. I also added some bacon when I caramelized the onions. My 19-month-old devoured three servings!
nancy E. October 17, 2014
This sounds so wonderful. A chicken liver pate for the weak of heart. Everyone should love this recipe. I find it hard to get organic livers though..
Esther October 16, 2014
looking for video on how to crack a egg with one hand
Esther October 16, 2014
how do you crack an egg with one hand ?
Kit V. October 12, 2014
Ive made pates does the curing salt prevent those from graying as well?
JanetFL October 12, 2014
Sounds delicious! Cara, you might want to edit Step 6 so that it reads "deglaze your pan with port" rather than "pork".......
Cara N. October 12, 2014
Ahh! Thank you, Janet! As soon as I'm at a computer i'll fix it!
JanetFL October 13, 2014
We wouldn't want someone to actually try to deglaze with a piece of pork :)
peicook October 11, 2014
Can this mousse be frozen? Would love to have a few jars in the freezer for appetizer emergencies.
Elliott P. October 10, 2014
I love to deglaze with pork!
ChefJune October 10, 2014
...and I have everything in the house to make this for weekend snacks! YUM.
Cara N. October 10, 2014
hooray! let me know how it turns out, June!
