Mark Vetri's Rustic Chicken Liver Pate

I've been reading Marc Vetri's Il Viaggio di Vetri cookbook for the last few weeks and came upon a recipe that looked like a good party dish; we were planning on attending the latest Philly food bloggers potluck but I came down with a cold right around then, so this dish ended up being a practice attempt.



Here's a link to the recipe, Rustic Chicken Liver Pate on Crostini. If you don't like chicken livers but want to try them to see what all the fuss is about, I'd reccommend this recipe...Vetri's got enough port, Cognac and panchetta and truffle oil in this to elevate the chicken liver to flavor heaven...ironically they named it 'd'Angelo or from the Angel (although he points out this is because of the restaurant's namesake where he had this dish).



The most time-consuming step was pushing the liver puree through a sieve to give it that smooth texture and catch any herb chunks or liver bits. Here you can see me using the backside of a large spoon to smear spoonfuls of pate through the mesh screen and into a bowl below.

If I had to do this over again I wouldn't have bothered with the puree and simple rough-chopped the liver mix and smeared it on the crostini before serving to give it more texture...then again, I like lumps in my mashed potatoes.

The end result was smooth and very earthy, but I couldn't appreciate the flavor combination fully due to the fact that my cold was making those powerful flavors very hard to distinguish.