Polish homemade pâté of pork, chicken and liver, baked in a loaf tin
The holiday pâté made once for Easter and once for Christmas, enough for plenty of sandwiches: pork shoulder, chicken legs, smoked bacon and chicken livers cooked with root vegetables, ground twice with a soaked roll, bound with eggs, seasoned with marjoram and nutmeg. Baked in two loaf tins and sliced only when cold. About four hours, less than one of them work, plus a night in the fridge.
Your own work in that: 30 min.
- Meat simmering 95 min
- Grinding and seasoning 30 min
- Baking 70 min
- Cooling 45 min
Step by step
0 / 7 done
Cook the meat with the vegetables
Cover the shoulder, chicken legs, bacon, vegetables, onions and spices with water, bring to the boil, skim, salt. Simmer covered 90 minutes, until the meat starts to come away from the bone.
Ingredients: 600 g pork shoulder · 400 g chicken legs · 150 g smoked bacon · 300 g chicken livers · 2 pcs carrots · 1 pcs parsley root · 1 pcs celeriac, a piece · 2 pcs onions · 5 pcs bay leaves · 6 pcs allspice berries · 8 pcs black peppercorns · 2 tsp salt
TipThe mix of three meats is no whim: pork gives flavour and fat, chicken tenderness, bacon smoke. Pork alone makes a heavy pâté, poultry alone a dry one.
Three meats and root vegetables, an hour and a half
Add the livers at the end
Rinse the livers, trim the membranes and add to the pot for the last 5 minutes. Cooked longer they turn hard and dry. Lift all the meat, livers and vegetables into a colander and cool. Keep the stock.
TipLiver is the secret of pâté: without it the mixture is dry and bland, with it creamy. 300 g of liver to over a kilo of meat reads only as depth, not as liver.
Five minutes, no longer
Grind twice
Soak the rolls in the milk. Strip the meat from bones and skin and pass through the mincer on the fine plate with the bacon, livers, vegetables (without bay and allspice) and the squeezed rolls. Grind a second time: double grinding gives a smooth, even pâté, a single pass a lumpy one.
Ingredients: 2 pcs stale bread rolls · 150 ml milk · 3 pcs eggs · 2 tbsp dried marjoram · ½ tsp nutmeg · 1½ tsp black pepper · 2 tsp salt · 20 g butter
Fine plate, twice
Season and bind with eggs
Add the eggs, the marjoram crushed between your palms, nutmeg, pepper and salt. Mix thoroughly, best by hand, 3 minutes. The mixture should be moist and soft, like a thick stuffing; if dry, add stock a spoon at a time. Fry a teaspoon in a pan and taste: pâté is eaten cold, so season more boldly than seems right.
Marjoram, nutmeg, pepper; a test spoonful in the pan
Fill the tins
Heat the oven to 180 °C. Butter the loaf tins and line with paper. Transfer the mixture, press down with a spoon so no air pockets remain, level the top. You can lay 2 bay leaves on top for scent and looks.
Pressed down, no air, levelled
Bake
Bake 70 minutes at 180 °C, until the top is browned and the pâté pulls away from the sides of the tin. A skewer in the centre comes out clean and hot. Halfway through, if the top darkens too fast, cover with foil.
Browned, pulling from the sides
Cool and slice cold
Leave in the tins to cool, then refrigerate overnight. Slice only when cold: warm, it crumbles. Thin slices on bread with horseradish, cranberry or pickle. Keeps up to 5 days in the fridge, tightly wrapped, and 3 months sliced in the freezer.
Cold, thin slices, horseradish beside
Before you start
With dried mushrooms
5 dried mushrooms cooked with the meat and ground with it: a darker, more foresty pâté, for cranberry sauce.
With duck or goose
500 g duck or goose (legs, say) instead of chicken legs: the festive, richer version. Skip the bacon then; there is fat enough.
It crumbles
Too dry a mixture, or sliced warm. Next time more stock in the mixture and one more egg; leave this one overnight in the fridge — well chilled, it slices better.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
