Chicken Livers, Parsnips & Paté | Sequatchie Cove Farm

I was driving down Lookout Mountain this morning on the way to work at Greenlife and I noticed that the redbud on the side of the road was starting to sprout leaves. It is finally sinking in that it is spring. And it sunk it hard that I have not been around to see it as well as I could. There are no redbuds in the kitchen at Greenlife…

BUT. The week before last I had a wonderful dinner party. Parsnips are a friend I never thought I would have- as are chicken livers. But they came to the party and shone like they should…

We started the party with a chicken liver pate made from Dave Water’s chicken livers. I have this terrible aversion to chicken due to a wreck on highway 136. (It was full of gore and industry chicken guts draped from trees and I won’t go to far into the details) BUT chicken is the one animal that I absolutely MUST have met before I eat OR at least met the person who raised it and trust that it had a very good life (and death). So… I went to Dave to buy a chicken because my roommate wanted some. Instead of the nice plump broiler I set out to get I settled for a stewing hen and a pound — of livers….. The stewing hen is in the freezer waiting for the grand plans of a white bean chicken chili… I have been mulling over ideas- ch-icken and dumplings (which I am still not good at- I can cook the chicken fine- it’s the dumplings that get me- either I boil the broth too fast and they fall apart, or I simmer it too slow and they get awful and doughy (ps if anyone has some incredible method for cooking dumpling please tell me because I am very very interested), or maybe cooking the hen for broth and then pulling the meat off and using it for chicken salad mixed with some fennel fronds from my yard and new asparagus (how lucky am I to have moved into a house where purple asparagus thrives in the front lawn?). Or maybe pot pie (my brother Kelsey from William’s Island just turned twenty one and we celebrated it with a ham roast and a chicken pot pie that Ashley cooked in a Dutch oven in a bon fire in the yard a Sequatchie Cove)… But I think that white bean chicken chili is the menu for the next dinner party. (but hold your horses for that one cause I haven’t made it yet and will tell you about it later.

So back to the pate. First I cooked up some ground sausage from Sequatchie Cove (maybe a half a pound or less -whatever was left over from a three person breakfast of biscuits and sausage). Then I threw in a half a diced onion and some minced garlic. I let that all get soft and comfy and then shocked it with its first encounter of Six Grapes Port that I had bought at the Vine (brandy is also a good choice but I really like a nice rich port because it has a good sweetness and richness that adds to everything.) When the half a cup or so of port had cooked off I took everything out of the skillet and threw in a half a stick of butter. After it melted I seared the livers in it til barely done (the butter has to be hot and the liver must be pink in the middle- overcooked liver is a terrible thing) and threw them in the bowl with the onions, garlic, and sausage. Then I threw in some more butter, some sage leaves that came from a plant that grows by my driveway, a pinch of fennel seed, and a handful of walnuts. I let that all cook til the sage curled and the walnuts were toasty and then shocked it all with more port. When that had cooked down I took it all out and blended the livers and all (minus the walnut and sage) in the food processor til smooth and then threw in the walnut and blended them for a couple seconds. I like my pate a little chunky and I really like the chunks to be something as delicious as walnuts sautéed in butter and reduced in port. And there we were. It is best to let a pate sit overnight so that the flavors will mingle and get richer. It is so amazingly delicious on a hunk of fresh baguette but toasted pita will do just as well…

There was a soup with sweet potatoes but since you can’t get those at the farmer’s market I won’t tell you about it. I’ll tell you about the roasted Island parsnips I cut into strips and threw in the oven with some chunks of butter and walnuts and roasted til chewy and caramelized. I tossed them with a few sweet pickled green tomatoes from last summer but they would be just fine like that. And I’ll tell you about the Island kale salad I made with raw kale and a half a pear diced up with a honey, balsamic, and minced garlic dressing.

And then (since I started this last week and never sent it out) you get to hear about the white bean chicken chili I made for THIS week’s dinner party. It could have been a wee bit better because I failed to add that last bit of salt at the end because I was distracted by a batiking project Ashley from the Island and I had embarked on….. But this is what I did- I covered the stewing hen with water and boiled it all day until there was a nice little skin of golden fat floating on top and the chicken was super tender. I had soaked some white beans overnight and cooked them while I was boiling the hen. Then about two hours before we ate I diced an onion, chopped up a whole head of garlic, diced a bunch of parsnips and sautéed them all in butter til soft, then I threw in a cup of white wine (leftover from the soup the week before) and let that cook down a second. I pulled all the meat off the hen, hung the wishbone out to dry, threw in some chili powder (I made my own out of a dried habanero from the Island last summer, a cayenne from Sequatchie, lots and lots of toasted cumin seed, a few peppercorns, a bit of coriander seed, and a touch of canela cinnamon. I ground that all up in my spice grinder. I wish I’d paid more attention to proportions- I would say it is probably about one part cumin, half that of hot peppers, and a quarter of all the rest. If that makes sense. It is fun to play around and then when you have something you like you can make a big ol batch of it and have a unique chili powder on hand at all time), and added the meat and beans. I covered it all in stock from the hen (I froze the rest, after I’d skimmed off the fat on top (grass-fed chicken fat is so easy to see because it is bright yellow) and cooked it for about and hour and then turned it off and let it sit. I think most hearty soup is better the next day but the time it takes to batik a piece of fabric and maybe walk down to Point Park will suffice.

I also made a salad of thinly sliced Sequatchie collards with diced apples and a dressing of Ashley’s homade mustard and red wine vinegar (plus touch of honey). And cornbread with a bit of cured and smoked Sequatchie hog jowl.

And horray for lettuce! There is nothing better in the whole world sometimes than a simple lettuce salad with a bit of balsamic and oil. Unless of course you have a few stalks of asparagus growing in your yard you can lightly steam and slice into the salad.

But now that I have crammed two weeks into one I will shut up now and let you go to the market and make your own supper….

Filed under: Local Food Letter, Local Food News on April 6th, 2009 |