Chicken Liver Pate Dedicated to Vinay Jayaraj
Liver pâté is a pâté and meat spread popular in Northern and Eastern Europe. Made from ground pork liver and lard, it is similar to certain types of French and Belgian pâtés. Duck and Chicken Liver is also very popular in most parts of the world.
Liver pâté is a popular food item in Scandinavia, where it is known as Leverpostej (Denmark), Leverpostei (Norway) and Leverpastej (Sweden). It is made from a mixture of pork liver, lard, onion, flour, egg, salt, pepper and spices, poured into a loaf pan and then baked in the oven. The liver is usually finely ground, but coarsely ground variations are also made. Typical spices includes allspice and some recipes also includes a small amount of cured anchovy. In Norway, leverpostei is made with a bit of pork meat.
Leverpostej is served with bread in a variety of ways. It is served both hot and cold and can be bought premade in supermarkets, butchershops and delikatessen.
A popular everyday version is to spread cold leverpostej on a slice of rugbrød (Danish dark wholemeal rye bread) and eat it as an open faced sandwich. Swedes often use it on crispbread. It may be topped with a variety of accompaniments, such as pickled beets or cucumbers, raw onions, fried onions, fried bacon or fresh slices of cucumber. In Sweden, fresh cucumber and a bit of dill is sometimes used. More extravagant variations include the smørrebrød known as Dyrlægens natmad.
Warm servings of leverpostej are had with either rugbrød or white bread and is traditionally accompanied by pickled beets or gherkins and either fried bacon or sautéed mushrooms.
In Denmark, leverpostej was introduced in 1847 by the Frenchman François Louis Beauvais in Copenhagen. At that time it was considered a luxury dish, and was expensive. Today, it is a common and most affordable food item. In two 1992 surveys, Danes ranked leverpostej as their favorite sandwich topping. Stryhn's is one of the main producers in Denmark with 85,000 units produced daily. The company was established in 1945 on the isle of Amager, south of Copenhagen. For the past few decades, their Stryhns brand has been the most popular leverpostej in Denmark.[8][failed verification][9] In Denmark, leverpostej is almost always sold in aluminium trays, this way it can go right in the oven to be served hot if preferred by the consumer.
Foie gras a specialty food product made of the liver of a duck or goose. By French law, foie gras is defined as the liver of a duck or goose fattened by gavage. In Spain and other countries, it is occasionally produced using natural feeding. Ducks are force-fed twice a day for 12.5 days and geese three times a day for around 17 days. Ducks are typically slaughtered at 100 days and geese at 112 days.
Foie gras is a popular and well-known delicacy in French cuisine. Its flavor is described as rich, buttery, and delicate, unlike that of an ordinary duck or goose liver. Foie gras is sold whole, or is prepared into mousse, parfait, or pâté, and may also be served as an accompaniment to another food item, such as steak. French law states that Foie gras belongs to the protected cultural and gastronomical heritage of France.”
The technique of gavage dates as far back as 2500 BC, when the ancient Egyptians began keeping birds for food and deliberately fattened the birds through force-feeding. Today, France is by far the largest producer and consumer of foie gras, though it is produced and consumed worldwide, particularly in other European nations, the United States, and China.
Gavage-based foie gras production is controversial, due mainly to the animal welfare concerns about force-feeding, intensive housing and husbandry, and enlarging the liver to 10 times its usual volume. A number of countries and jurisdictions have laws against force-feeding, and the production, import or sale of foie gras; even where it is legal, a number of retailers decline to stock it.
Pan Fried Chicken Liver with Pear - Market Kitchen
Market Kitchen is presented by a range of passionate and knowledgeable foodies with an appetite for life, including TV Presenter and cookery writer Rachel Allen, (teacher at Darina Allen's world-renowned Ballymaloe Cookery School), TV presenter and foodie, Amanda Lamb, Tom Parker Bowles (author of The Year of Eating Dangerously and food writer for the Mail on Sunday and Tatler), Guardian food critic and award winning author Matthew Fort and award-winning chef and restaurateur Matt Tebbutt (proprietor of The Foxhunter, Abergavenny).
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