Chicken liver parfait and Toast / Coop Hazy Pale Ale

 Parfait is a pate that is blitzed up after having been cooked, it is very smooth and packed full of livery flavour. I always like to think of this as a dish to make for a lazy lunch before a Six Nations decider! I have also made a Youtube video of the process. (link below)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH0BW5zkZwI&t=533s400gms Chicken Livers

20 gms Butter (cut up into cubes) 50 gms Butter 20 gms Butter Small glass of booze (Sherry, Madeira, Whisky, Rum, Brandy)(optional) Salt Ground Black Pepper Black Peppercorns Pop the 20gms of butter into a hot frying pan. Melt and allow the butter to start foaming. Add the chicken livers and fry (they will spit and bubble) until they are completely cooked on the outside but still a little pink in the middle. Deglaze with the booze (if using) and allow the alcohol to burn off. Add the livers, the cubed butter and the pan juices into a blender and blend until it is smooth (go a little bit longer than you think). Divide up the parfait up between a handful of bowls or ramekins and smooth the surface down. Pop in the fridge for 20 minutes or so. Remove the parfaits from the fridge and cast a few black peppercorns over the top of each one. Melt the remaining butter and pour over the parfaits. Return to the fridge for 24 hours and serve with toast. The toast was made from a raisin and walnut loaf which I made with this particular pate in mind, the recipe will be part of a later post.

The Match

Toast Beers grew from a pressure group / charity called Feed Back. This was the brain child of Tristram Stuart. It was set up in order to encourage people and companies to stop wasting food. His TED talk of 2012 is still very much worth watching to gain some perspective on the level of food waste globally.

https://www.ted.com/talks/tristram_stuart_the_global_food_waste_scandal?language=en

After realising that a great deal of bread was being wasted the team at Feed Back realised that it could be used as an adjunct in brewing and thus fed back into the system.

The mantra that if you want to beat those who are trying to destroy the earth, you have to throw a better party than they are has never rung more true!

This is the gang that were responsible for the Cop 26 box which I blogged about a couple of years ago, they are the kings and queens of collaboration. They have worked with bread producers, other breweries and in this case. high street retailers.

So, to the beer itself: This is a bit of a juicy one very much like a tuned down New England IPA. A citrusy, almost tropical nose gives way to sensible malt backbone. A neat finish with a clean dry edge makes it a lovely match for the parfait. The citrus notes cut the fat of the butter and the richness of the pate giving a clean finish. The malt spine matches up with bread and draws the whole dish together.