#offals

A simple recipe, this Chicken Liver Pâté is nonetheless a festive dish to tuck in between Christmas and New Year's Eve, whilst playing board games! It can also become a bit fancy spread on thin toasts to enjoy with cocktails! Happy New Year's Eve, friends!

Ingredients (makes a small pâté):

1 tablespoon olive oil

235 grams/8.30 ounces fresh chicken livers

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

2 small shallots

1 fluffy sprig fresh thyme

a pinch of fleur de sel or sea salt flakes and freshly cracked black pepper

4 tablespoons good Cognac or Brandy

120 grams/4 ounces unsalted butter, at room temperature

5 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 large bay leaf

Heat olive oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat.

Rinse chicken livers under cold water and pat them dry with paper towels.

Add to the skillet, and cook, 4 minutes on each side, until browned.

Remove livers from the skillet and spoon onto a plate; set aside.

Reduce heat to medium, and add butter to the skillet.

Peel and finely chop shallots.

Once the butter is just foaming, add shallots and thyme sprig to the skillet. Cook, stirring to loosen brown bits, about three minutes.

Season with fleur de sel and black pepper. Cook, 1 minute more.

Drizzle in Cognac generously, and cook, a few seconds more. Remove from the heat.

Spoon rested chicken livers in a food processor.

Discard thyme sprig, and pour Cognac shallot mixture over the livers.

Process until smooth, scraping the sides of the food processor with a spatula.

Continue processing at medium to high speed, gradually adding chunks of the softened butter, until all is completely incorporated and mixture is smooth and well-combined.

Spoon liver mixture into serving dish or pot, levelling the top with a spatula. Chill in the refrigerator, at least 3 hours.

Melt butter in a small saucepan with the bay leaf.

Remove from the heat, and allow to cool until lukewarm, before gently pouring over the chilled liver pâté. This will give it flavour and will help keep it for longer.

Return to the refrigerator and allow to chill, overnight.

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Race and Class in America

In her groundbreaking  bestselling history of the class system in America, Nancy Isenberg, co-author of The Problem of Democracy, takes on our comforting myths about equality, uncovering the crucial legacy of the ever-present, always embarrassing—if occasionally entertaining—poor white trash.   “When you turn an election into a three-ring circus, there’s always a chance that the dancing bear will win,” says Isenberg of the political climate surrounding Sarah Palin. And we recognize how right she is today. Yet the voters that put Trump in the White House have been a permanent part of our American fabric, argues Isenberg. The wretched and landless poor have existed from the time of the earliest British colonial settlement to today's hillbillies. They were alternately known as “waste people,” “offals,” “rubbish,” “lazy lubbers,” and “crackers.” By the 1850s, the downtrodden included so-called “clay eaters” and “sandhillers,” known for prematurely aged children distinguished by their yellowish skin, ragged clothing, and listless minds.   Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, Isenberg upends assumptions about America’s supposedly class-free society––where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early nineteenth century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics–-a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization.

These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ’s Great Society; they haunt us in reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty. Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been at or near the center of major political debates over the character of the American identity.   We acknowledge racial injustice as an ugly stain on our nation’s history. With Isenberg’s landmark book, we will have to face the truth about the enduring, malevolent nature of class as well.

Satay pho with rare beef and tripe

Do you like offals: liver, kidneys, tongue, heart, tripe? Which one is your favourite? What recipe? Do you like raw meat?

I love them all in any cuisine and try at every chance I get.

Hearty and tasty, and a bit indulgent too, this Whisky Cream Calf's Liver makes an excellent lunch after a morning rugby practise, both feeding you well and filling your iron needs! Happy Wednesday!

Ingredients (serves 1):

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

½ tablespoon olive oil

a large onion

2 fluffy sprigs fresh oregano

1 (200-gram/7-ounce) calf’s liver

a heaped tablespoon plain flour

1/4 teaspoon fleur de sel or sea salt flakes

1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper, to taste

1/4 cup good quality Single Malt Scotch Whisky

1/3 cup crème fraîche or sour cream

1 teaspoon demerara sugar

a couple of tablespoons water

In a large, deep frying pan, melt butter with olive oil over medium heat.

Finely chop the onion, and add to the pan. Cook, 2 minutes, until softened. 

Finely chop oregano, stalks and leaves, and add to the pan as well. Cook, another minute.

Increase heat to medium-high. Pat calf’s liver dry, and  sprinkle with flour on both sides. Shake off excess flour, and add to the pan. Cook, about 2 minutes on each side until just browned. Season both sides well with fleur de sel and black pepper.

Once well-browned on each side, transfer calf’s liver to a plate. Keep warm.

Add Whisky to the frying pan. Immediately and carefully ignite with a match, to flambé. Allow flames to die down, and stir in crème fraîche,until you have a nice, pale brown sauce. Add demerara sugar, cooking until dissolved. Stir in a little water to loosen the sauce, and return calf’s liver to the pan, a couple of minutes.