Rabbit and Chicken Liver Pâté

I made a pork terrine a few weeks ago and it was time to refine the method to make a Pâté. The difference being that a Pâté has a smoother texture and typically contains liver. I referenced Thomas Keller's Bouchon recipe as foundation for my technique with some modifications to make it my own recipe.

First, I made the spice blend. I followed the Bouchon ingredients exactly.

Spices:

1 TBS + 1 tsp black pepper corns
1 TBS + 1 tsp nutmeg
2 TBS kosher salt
1/4 tsp curing salt
1 TBS + 1 tsp fresh thyme
3 bay leaves

You can place all of them in a coffee bean grinder and grind. I hand grated the nutmeg, but did the rest in my bean grinder. Set aside.

Pâté:

1 Lb rabbit meat cut into 1" pieces
1 Lb chicken liver
1 Lb unsalted fat back (cut into 1" pieces)
8-10 thin bacon slices
1 cup whole milk
7 slices of white beard with crust removed.

I got a whole rabbit and sectioned it. I then harvested the best meat saving the remainder for other uses.   Trim the sinew from the livers. In a bowl, combine the rabbit meat and the liver and evenly mix in the spice blend. Cover and place in fridge for several hours. The remaining ingredients will be used later.

After several hours:

Take a terrine dish and lightly coat with a high temperature oil like grape seed, canola, or peanut oil. Take some plastic wrap and line the dish so that the excess wrap hangs over the edges. Next lay slices of bacon cross ways. The bottom will be the presentation side of the Pâté, so take the time to line the bacon slices carefully. I pushed the slices tightly against each other. You can also choose to slightly overlap the slices to prevent gaps.

Place milk in a bowl. Slice the bread in 1" cubes and immerse in the milk and insure that all of the bread is soaked. Set aside.

Set up grinder with a large dye. Set up a bowl in an ice water bowl to capture the ground meat. At this point remove some of the liver (maybe a 1/3 of the liver) and set aside in the fridge (I'll explain later.) Run the remainder of the meat/liver through the grinder. Next run the bread and milk through the grinder and completely mix with the ground meat/liver. 

Remove the meat mix from your bowl and place in another bowl. Clean the first bowl and replace it in the water bath. Change the grinder dye from the large to the small dye. Run the meat mixture through again. Run the fat back through the grinder and thoroughly mix with the meat mixture.

Preheat oven to 300

Binder:

2 egg yolks
2 TBS Madera (or cognac)

In a bowl, mix the egg yolks and madera with a fork. Add to the ground meat mixture and fold in with a dough spatula. Using the spatula, layer 1/2 of the mixture in the terrine dish on top of the bacon slices.

Retrieve the liver that you set aside earlier and randomly place on top the meat layer. This will add to the presentation when the Pâté is sliced.

Add the remaining meat mixture on top. Fold the bacon pieces over to cover. Keep in mind to minimize the overlap of the bacon because it'll be too thick, so trim with scissors as you need. Also, don't get too caught up in appearance as the top that you see now will actually be the bottom when the Pâté is un-molded after cooking. 

Next, fold the saran wrap on top and cover with the lid.

Place the terrine dish in a large casserole dish and fill with 

water to about 1/2 up the side of the terrine dish. Preferably warm water.

Place in oven and cook until the internal temperature is 160 degrees. As I mentioned in my previous post on making terrines, terrine dishes usually have a temperature probe hole in the lid to measure the temp without removing the lid. If you happen to be lucky enough to have an oven with a temp probe function, this becomes a simple task. Otherwise, you're looking at something around 1 1/2 hrs of cooking.

After reaching the desired 160 degree internal temperature, remove from oven, remove the lid, and place on a rack to cool for about 20 minutes. Drain the melted fat.

Cut a piece of cardboard (I used 2 for extra rigidity and better weight distribution) and wrap with foil. Find something to weigh down the Pâté. A brick is perfect.

Place the cardboard on top, weighted down by the brick.

Place in the fridge for at least 24 hrs. Two to Three days would be better. This is what it'll look like when you remove it from the fridge, and remove the brick and cardboard.

Pry open the saran wrap and unfold over the edges of the terrine dish

Next, tug on the edges of the saran wrap to unseat the Pâté from the terrine dish. Then take a large plate or cutting board and place on top of the terrine dish upside down.

Then flip

and un-mold

Remove wrap and Voila

It's a relatively easy process and not technical, just a little labor intensive. I assure you that the time spent is worth it. You can see the visual effect of layering the whole liver pieces in the middle. You can add various toasted nuts and/or dried fruit to add other flavors and more interesting presentations. Enjoy!