Fig and Walnut Pate

"the memory of a good French pâté can haunt you for years." -Julia Child

When I was in cooking school there was a whole course dedicated to pates and terrines.  None of it impressed me at the time.  In fact, I often referred to it as 'cat food'.

Late in December of 2010 I had a wonderful meal at a charming bistro in downtown Calgary and my date ordered the pate.  Whenever we went out we shared everything, eating off each others plates.  Yes, we were that couple.  I was smitten.  With my date at the time, but also the pate.  It was light and creamy and oh so delicious.  That day I vowed to try to make it myself.

For Christmas 2011 I bought myself a new food processor and I decided that the best way, the only way, to break her in was to make pate.

I did my research starting with MtAoFC and continued with the internet.  As is typical of my style, I found about 3 recipes to combine into the recipe I eventually created.  A good part of the fun was chasing down the best ingredients; chicken livers from Bon Ton meat market, walnuts and figs from Shaganappi Grocery and talking to the guy at the liquor store about cognac.

Here's what I came up with;

1 pound of chicken livers
1 cup chicken broth
1 small onion, sliced
1/8 tsp ground allspice

1 cup butter, softened
1 Tbsp cognac (I used Hennesy at the liquor store guys suggestion)
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup whipping cream, whipped

1 cup dry red wine
3/4 cup dried black Mission figs

1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts

1 french baguette (I made my own from scratch)

Simmer livers, broth and onion in a medium saucepan until livers are cooked through, stirring occasionally.  About 12 minutes.  Drain livers and onions and discard the cooking liquid.  Transfer the livers and onions to the food processor.  Add butter, cognac and salt.  Puree until smooth, then fold in the whipped cream.  Transfer to a serving dish.  Cover and refrigerate until firm.  About 4 hours.
Poach the figs in the wine for about 15 minutes.  Drain and quarter the figs.  Both the toasted walnuts and the poached figs are to garnish the pate.  This probably works best if you mold the pate and turn it out onto a platter.  Then you can press the walnuts into the side of the pate and cover the top of the pate with the figs.
Serve the fig, nuts and pate together to be smeared on to baguette rounds.

 It was delicious!
Some notes for next time;
- consider folding the walnuts into the pate mixture.
-pass the pate through a fine sieve to make it smoother.

As always, please let me know if you try this recipe.
Enjoy!