Author: Notnick

Chicken Liver Pate

Ingredients: (can also make a 1/2 batch if you prefer)

500g chicken livers (Usually I can find frozen in the supermarket)
250g salted butter
2 large white onions, chopped
2-4 garlic cloves
2-3 bay leaves
40-80ml brandy
white pepper and salt to taste

Melt the butter and saute the onions for about 5 minutes, until soft and translucent, but not coloured.

Add the chicken livers (coarse chop – 1/4rd) and cook on a moderate heat until the livers are cooked. (about 5 minutes?). Season with salt and pepper, add brandy and flambe – stand back – big flame!

Remove from the heat and let it cool. Remove the bay leavess.

Once cooler, blend in a food processor/blender until its smooth and spoon into ramekins or a square pan to cool and set in the fridge.

Once cool, melt some butter and pour over the pate to air-seal the pate until needed.

This is really nice with oatcakes and maybe a little sweet chutney.

Italian Potato Salad

A really fresh potato salad side dish – a lot lighter than the regular potato, chives and mayo version I grew up with. really good as a BBQ side salad. The trick here is to get the seasoning right.


500g New potatoes – boiled (slightly nutty/firm) halved
200-300g cherry tomatoes – quartered
1/2 red onion – finely chopped
small handful of basil leaves, chopped/ripped
3tbl capers, drained
Dressing:
2 tbl olive oil
1tbl red wine vinegar
salt, pepper to taste

Basically – mix, dress, serve.

Orange and Fennel Salad

serves 6 as a side

2-3 large oranges
1-2 bulbs fennel
1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced
Olive oil to dress
salt pepper to taste

Using a knife, peal the oranges removing as much white as possible. slice into thin rounds.

Using a mandoline slice rings of fennel and onion.

in a dish, layer fennel then orange then onion slices. Olive oil drizzle, then salt & pepper to taste.

Panzanella (Italian bread and tomato salad)

serves 6 – as a side
1 red pepper
150g stale bread, torn into chunks, toasted
8 medium ripe tomatoes, quartered
1 small cucumber – deseeded and sliced
1 small red onion, finely sliced
handful of basil leaves, torn
1 tbl capers

60ml red wine vinegar
60ml olive oil
salt, pepper

skin the pepper -(burn the skin over a flame, and put in a plastic bag to cool – the skin will slide off) – dice and add to a bowl with the other ingredients.

mix the dressing and add to the salad – you might not need all of the dressing depending on how juicy the tomatoes are. turn and mix so that the bread soaks up much of the juice.

Taste and season. Allow it to stand for about 20 minutes before serving – let all those flavours mingle.

Salsa Verde

It sounds fantastic – the name rolls off the tongue – so exotic. It means green sauce. doh. Great with red meat oily fish and bbq.

5 cloves garlic, crushed
8 tbl olive oil – enough to keep it fluid
small can anchovies
2-3 tbl capers, drained
handfuls of basil, mint and flat-leaf parsley
1 lemon, juiced
1tbl white wine vinegar

Best blitzed in a blender – but try to keep some texture in the herbs – so add/blend the herbs last