Tabbouleh with grilled sweet potato, celariac & pink grapefruit salad

"I feel sick" said our client as we were unpacking. Oh dear were we going to have to take over front of house as well? "How quick can you get the food ready?"
Turned out her 51 guests were arriving to eat at 12:30, not 2:30 as she had organised and her sick feeling was panic. I think she'd been used to shouty chefs. Who needs it? Much better to see these things as a challenge. "Riiiiight - let's go then!"
By some miracle we got 2 1/4 hours work done in 45 minutes - love bit of pressure! 10 minutes before we had originally been meant to start serving, the guests had finished and were leaving for the Christening ceremony none the wiser to the emergency behind the scenes. Job done.

Due to the rush this healthy living autumnal salad was rather rustic in presentation - but tasted great. Once you've segmented the pink grapefruit you can squeeze the remaining juice from the remaining flesh over the salad along with olive oil as a dressing.

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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.


Related posts

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

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