Chicken liver parfait with celariac, parsnip and apple remoulade and cranberry chutney

So what is the difference between pate and parfait?

Chicken liver parfait with toasted homemade poppy and sesame seed bread

Well someone had to ask didn't they (it was one of the guests actually who was passing through the kitchen as we were clearing up after the dessert).

A - Pate is more course - and with chicken liver pate normally made with the chicken livers being fried first and blended with all the other ingredients once cooked. Parfait tends to be more moussy (this one certainly was) and smoother, and the livers are blended raw and then cooked. Blending it with the eggs adds a lot of air - air makes it lighter.
Also you get a much better colour with this recipe - i.e. blending the livers with the other ingredients first and poaching it in a bain marie. Once it's cooked it stays a nice pinky colour. Pate made with blending the sauteed livers is more grey/ brown.

Cranberry and pear chutney pre-cooking

We made this for a dinner party last week. The host couldn't make up her mind on a starter, and eventually requested this. It had been a while since I'd made chicken liver parait - and with such a busy few years and a few moves my original recipe from the Lygon Arms days (which was originally from Mosimann in his Dorch days). Anyway - I found this recipe and it worked really well. The above version is wrapped in pancetta and cooked in a terrine mould. Cook it to 74 oC on the temp probe to be safe (see link below).

Link to cranberry and pear chutney here. It's a new Christmas fave.


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Game pate en croute
Smoked salmon pate
Using temperature probe
Some other terrines

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Meat Free Monday #22 - Tabbouleh with grilled vegetables, parnsip remoulade and garlic ciabatta

Can you see Broadway tower?(It's almost half way in the middle at the top of fish hill there). View from the kitchen I was cooking in earlier - beats industrial kitchens.
Bank Holiday Monday - you know what that means. Busy busy busy. No wait - that's every day. Half term is always busy for us though because families stay in the Cotswolds for the whole week rather than just the weekend so there are events going on each day of the week with 3 on Friday night with a client meeting before and then a wedding on Saturday.
While the guests were eating their main course at Masty House, I made the most of some left overs. Nice Booths china plates there to use - hadn't seen that Booths pattern before.
Tabbouleh

Bulgar wheat cooked in vegetable stock (c. 10 mins)
Dice tomato (seriously the Buckland tomatoes are unlike anything you can get in a shop)
Lemon juice
Olive oil or Cotswold Gold
Parsley
Mint

Simple but so good. I served this to the guests with the shoulder of lamb - tabbouleh and lamb, classic combination.


Parsnip remoulade

Parsnip julienned on mandolin
Mayo
Creme fraiche
Seasoning
Chives

So one day I'd ran out of celariac and tried parnsip instead. What a revelation. Sweet, creamy & crunchy all in one - where can you go wrong. Add carrot in there and you would have a variation on coleslaw. If you make it up to an hour in advance the parsnip softens a little and is much better. It went with the duck pate I had made for the guests I was cooking for, but there's always a little spare......
The story of my life [above]. Apart from the dusting (no time.... you can tell), mowing the lawn (ditto - my landlord gave up waiting and does it himself now) and walking the dog - a dog would be rather neglected with my hours, but the neighbour's cat comes calling every morning.

More info on Meat Free Monday here.

Related posts

Other Meat Free Monday dishes
Garlic bread
Gluten free garlic bread

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Meat Free Monday #2 - Egg and Chips

When I first thought of doing Meat Free Mondays I was worried if there wouldn't be enough new things to try. Now I'm worried there aren't enough Mondays in the week.

Making mini cheesecakes in muffin cases was a revelation last year. Eaten fresh from the oven, frittata can be one of the best things. I thought making frittata in the same way - in muffins cases - would be another great buffet idea. Sure enough try googling it and you get some pretty tasty versions. Here's another.

Still going through a butternut squash phase, so the frittata was:
4 eggs
(some) Milk
Ground nutmeg, s & p
Cooked spinach
Roasted butternut squash
Grated cheddar
Whole grain mustard

You also need Marg's tip of spraying the muffin cases with oil, or brushing them with oil if you don't have a spray. Stops the contents sticking to the case.

And the chips? Parnsip chips roasted in a little olive oil, having cut out the tough middle core with pesto mayo for dipping.

Related Posts:

Other Meat Free Mondays

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Christmas lunch delivered chilled to your home on Christmas Eve or cooked and served by chef and waiting staff on Christmas Day

"Over here! You've got the wrong house!". Ho ho ho - the neighbours of the people we cook for on Christmas Day always have a sense of humour when we arrive, wherever it is!

View from kitchen door at the house we were cooking at on Christmas Day -

still very heavy frost at midday which never lifted!

It never seems like Christmas to me till the first lines of Once in Royal from Kings College. When I was young it would be on while I boxed up my homemade sweets for friends & family. This year I heard it on the way up the M5 back from delivering Christmas lunches in Bristol, on the way to more drops in Cheltenham and the Cotswolds before ending in Kidderminster to cook and serve a dinner party - quite the busiest ever Christmas Eve. The frost on the hills was so heavy it was almost like snow.

This year I had expanded the menu to make it a bit easier for people.

Game pie - more about this later - was served with celariac remoulade and homemade elderberry chutney from Delia at Dove Cottage who makes it from elderberries picked around the fields of Broadway. These are actually ones I made in November - the pace was so fast on Christmas eve there was little time for photos.

Smoked trout from Donnington trout farm. You can read more about those here.

Local pheasant (lots of pheasant shoots in the Cotswolds!).

Having run out of bacon I wrapped them in parma ham which I had while roasting - saves it from drying out - and stuffed them with 1/4 orange, 1/4 onion and some thyme. Once cooked I let them rest before de-boning and sat the parma ham underneath the pheasant breast & leg.

Turkey

We were walking with dinosaurs (top left) on Christmas Day itself - we cooked for a variety of ages from the 1 year old (top right) to grandparents. Deliveries (above) were made before cooking for a dinner party on Christmas Eve.

For the turkey I de-boned it to make a ballottine as last year. This makes the presentation much better. It was roasted on top of a potato trivet as ever with lemon, thyme, and this year I added cinnamon and crushed cardamon seeds. All the flavour of these infuses the turkey as it cooked. Once it had a bit of colour on it I added white wine to the roasting tin too - even more flavour, and also moisture.




The party we were cooking on Christmas Day had asked for cauliflower cheese rather than our roasted brussell sprouts so that's what we did. I was about to boil the cauliflower when I changed my mind and roasted it instead, like I did for the cauliflower in Cotswold Way ale sauce. Then once cooked topped it with cheese sauce & cheese and placed it back in the oven. Cooked like this you keep in all the flavour of the cauliflower rather than boiling it into the water which invariably you throw away. And glazed chantenay carrots (hiding underneath the turkey in pic above) replaced the creamed leeks and onions which we served for the delivery meals with the honey roast parsnips silver served.

As I had some cranberries left from making the pumpkin and cranberry bread rolls I put some in the stuffing for the turkey leg.

Parsnip and leek crumble for an all vegetarian delivery (there is something else than nut roast!). Roast celery, artichokes & white wine sauce in there too.

Getting Christmas pudding lit and into the room is always a bit of a rush. Never get a good photo (evidence below)......

Egg free chocolate brownie for the children (as one allergic to eggs) with homemade egg free ice cream.

Later on, after our own Christmas lunch (did actually stop - thanks to Gill and her mother), it was back to work to clear up and get ready for another busy day the next day (Boxing Day) and then onwards ever onwards to January 3rd.

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Curried parsnip soup with walnut and raisin bread rolls

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