Turkey Liver Pate

I’ve never been all that into liver. I don’t mind venison liver with plenty of onions and bacon, but there, it’s the bacon doing all the heavy lifting. We’ve played around with duck and goose livers, and they’re always decent, but so far I just haven’t been able to get into it. I’ve eaten a multitude of pates at the various restaurants I’ve worked at, and have never been particularly inspired by them. They just taste like… pate. Which is okay! Just not my favorite. So when Wade texted me to let me know that there was turkey liver pate in the fridge, and that I should really try some of it, I wasn’t super excited. I knew it would be fine, but I had other plans for lunch.

Guys, I took one bite of that pate, spread on toast with a little bit of whole grain mustard and some ramp oil, and those other plans disappeared. I inhaled almost an entire jar of it, spread on thick bread. I didn’t even sit down at the table to eat. Right off the countertop, thankyouverymuch.

Wild Turkey Liver Pate

Prep time: 2 hours

Serves: 4-8

Ingredients

200g turkey livers (about 2) - rinse in cold water to remove excess blood

40g bacon

100g onion, diced

50g bourbon

50g brandy

80g egg (about 2)

6g salt

1g instacure #1

.25g black pepper (a pinch)

.33g spice mix* (a larger pinch)

80g clarified butter (room temp)

Set sous vide at 154F

4 x 4oz mason jars

Method

Combine bacon and onions in small saucepan over medium heat, cook until fragrant and bacon fat has rendered, about 5 minutes. Add bourbon and brandy, stirring often, and cook for 3 more minutes. Strain the onions and bacon out and reserve the liquid. It should yield ~100g of boozey/bacon juice. Save bacon and onions for other uses.

In a blender or food processor, combine reserved liquid with liver, egg, salt, instacure #1, black pepper and spice mix. Blend until smooth. While blending, slowly add in clarified butter and continue to process until completely emulsified.

Strain the pate through a  fine wire strainer and pour into mason jars, leaving ½” head space. Finger tighten the jars and place in sous vide bath. Cook for 90 minutes.

Pull from sous vide and cool down in ice bath. Allow to completely cool before serving. The top layer of the pate might look a little oxidized- you can scrape it off to enhance the appearance.

Spice mix

20g Star anise

8g Ginger, dried

6g Vanilla bean  

6g Black pepper  

6g Cinnamon

5g Orange peel, dried

3g Nutmeg

Combine, grind and store in airtight container for future use.