The Best Ever Liver Pâté (gluten and dairy free too!)

I’m not kidding. This is the best ever liver pate recipe and it’s both gluten and dairy free. I, like many of you, did not grow up eating offal – unlike my mothers generation. For them, liver was often a first food and morsels of offal were included in many meals prepared at home. For generations before us, liver was a highly prized source of nutrition.

Somehow over the years, reverence for offal fell away. It wasn’t until I was 35 until I really embraced eating liver. Prior to that I had only dabbled in offal intake at the odd fine dining restaurant.

2 Recipes That Made Me a Liver Lover.

Once I had learned the incredible nutrition provided by liver, I really wanted to include it in my diet. The truth however, was I didn’t (and generally speaking still don’t) love the taste of liver. Fortunately I had my taste buds swayed by 2 key recipes. The first is Chicken Liver Soup with Crispy Bacon and Watercress. It’s from my book The Complete Gut Health Cookbook which I co-wrote with Chef Pete Evans. The second is this liver pâté recipe. This recipe came about thanks to a cook up at my home with chiropractor and fellow foodie Jeremy Princi. Funnily enough, both recipes involve well sourced nitrate free bacon. So if you normally turn your nose up at liver, trust me on these – you want to try them. They are both AMAZING!

Duck or Chicken Liver Pâté

Ingredients:

• 500g organic chicken or duck liver
• 5-10 cuts of pasture raised nitrate free bacon, chopped into roughly 1-2cm square pieces
• 1 large red onion, diced
• 4 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 4 TBS of Ghee (or coconut oil if particularly dairy sensitive)
• 1 TBS raw local honey
• 200-300ml coconut cream

Herbs and spices:

• 1 tspn freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 tspn ground cumin
• 1 tspn ground coriander seeds
• 1 tspn dried thyme
• 1 tspn good quality salt

Creation:

Prepare the livers by removing the sinews and ensuring any gall bladders are removed.

Sauté the onion, garlic and herbs (except salt) in 2 TBS coconut oil. Once the onion is soft and opaque add the bacon.

Cook the bacon until it starts to go crispy. Add the remaining 2 TBS coconut oil, livers, salt & honey.

Cook on medium high heat for 2-3 minutes per side for the livers. Careful not to over cook them as they will continue to cook once they go in the blender. If you’re not sure, cut one open to check and if there is still a lot of blood cook a little longer. If it’s just a little blood then it’s time to transfer to the blender.

Transfer the mix to a powerful high speed blender. Powerful blenders are ideal as they will blend into a super smooth consistency.  

Add 200mL coconut cream and blend. If it’s still too thick and not mixing well you can add the extra 100mL coconut cream.  

Have a taste (yummm!) and season to your liking, adding salt and pepper if you desire.

Pour the mixture into serving jars or ramekins.  In fact, I like to pour them into silicon muffin trays. Muffin trays are the perfect serving size and can go in the freezer. Once frozen you can pop out a serve an hour before you want to eat it.  Pour the melted coconut oil or ghee on top to seal and add some fresh chopped parsley. 

Pop in the fridge (or freezer) to set.  

Once set you can freeze them easily and get them out as needed and defrost.   

If you want to prepare in bulk just double the recipe and prepare in two separate pans. One pan will likely get over-crowded.

How to serve

Serve with toasted slices of the best ever homemade grain-free bread, on paleo seed crackers, atop slices of cucumber or wrapped in cos lettuce leaves. SO delicious!