Pâté de Campagne, or Country Pâté
This post is part of the Real Food Wednesday blog carnival on Kelly the Kitchen Kop. Please visit Kelly the Kitchen Kop for more recipes and tips for eating real, whole, nutrient-dense food.
I love pâté de campagne but I had never tried to make it before. When I found this recipe for pâté de campagne by Julia Child, I couldn’t wait to make it. I’m always looking for good liver recipes, because liver is so nutritious.
According to the Weston A. Price Foundation, liver:
- contains more nutrients, gram for gram, than any other food
- is an excellent source of high-quality protein
- is nature’s most concentrated source of vitamin A
- has all the B vitamins in abundance, particularly vitamin B12
- is one of our best sources of folic acid
- contains a highly usable form of iron
- has trace elements such as copper, zinc and chromium
- has an unidentified anti-fatigue factor
- contains CoQ10, a nutrient that is especially important for cardio-vascular function
- is a good source of purines, nitrogen-containing compounds that serve as precursors for DNA and RNA
I think you’re going to like this pâté, even if you don’t normally like liver. It tastes a lot like Braunschweiger or liverwurst, only I think it’s even more mild. It’s delicious served with sourdough bread, Dijon mustard, and Cornichons or other pickles.
This recipe is based on Julia Child’s recipe for in her book, The Way To Cook. I modified it slightly, based on what I had on hand. I also think it’s very important to use real sourdough bread, not yeasted bread (real sourdough breaks down the phytic acid; phytic acid prevents absorption of minerals). I have also specified that it is necessary to buy organic liver, and ideally, you want to use pastured or free-range chicken and eggs, and nitrate-free sausage.
Pâté de Campagne
Ingredients:
1 yellow onion, minced
2 TBS butter
1 pound nitrate-free, antibiotic- and hormone-free pork sausage meat
1 pound raw pastured or free-range chicken breast
8 ounces organic pork or beef liver
10-12 ounces sourdough bread, diced (real naturally fermented sourdough bread, not the fake stuff they sell at the grocery store)
1 large egg, preferably pastured
1/3 cup goat cheese
1 clove garlic
3 TBS port, cognac or brandy (I used port, because we didn’t have any cognac. You could also use Armagnac.)
1 TBS sea salt
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp thyme — fresh or dried
2 bay leaves
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Saute the onions in the butter.
3. Mix all the ingredients in a food processor. I couldn’t fit them all in so I had to mix each ingredient and then mix them by hand in a large bowl.
4. When thoroughly mixed together, pack into a terrine or loaf pan (preferably enamel) and cover with wax paper or parchment paper (cut in a rectangle to fit on top). Layer foil on top of that (with a one-inch overhang of the foil).
5. Bake in a bain-marie (set the loaf pan in a shallow pan of water — the water should come up halfway up the sides of the loaf pan) for 1 to 1-1/2 hours. A meat thermometer should read 160-165 degrees.
6. Let cool for an hour, then refrigerate when cool at least overnight. Serve cold or room temperature with sourdough bread, Dijon mustard, and cornichons or other pickles.
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29/04/2009 at 2:53 am Permalink
Yum, that looks good! I am so determined to make my own pate this year.
Tidbit, in Sweden when you have your leverpastej sandwich it’s typical to have pickles on top. For anyone who knows food pairings and nutrition better than I, I’d be curious to hear ideas of why this mix happened.
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29/04/2009 at 3:48 am Permalink
Wow. That’s a lot of ingredients. I’m not a good cook and we don’t have liver (ever) but I’m game!
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29/04/2009 at 4:14 am Permalink
Thanks for this recipe! Pate is a great way to get liver in the diet.
Soli, I have had pate as an appetizer at a French Restaurant before and they also served it with tiny pickles called gherkins and pickled onions and thinly sliced red onion along side a very nice French baguette. I’m no expert on nutrition or French cuisine, but the tang of the pickles is a nice contrast to the richness of the pate.
Talking about this makes me hungry! I think today I’m going to make this.
29/04/2009 at 4:47 am Permalink
Julie, I can;t believe this slipped my mind this morning. What I’ve heard is that it’s best to pair liver with something high in vitamin C/acidic (hence liver and onions being a common dish) to help digest. I’m not quite sure how this works out, but hopefully someone here can add more.
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29/04/2009 at 5:47 am Permalink
Thank you so much for sharing this! This looks so much like the pate I had as a child in France. I’m very excited to try recipe!
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29/04/2009 at 6:54 am Permalink
Soli, I would imagine that pairing liver with a food item high in vitamin C is so your body can take full benefit of the iron in the liver. Iron is best absorbed in the presence of vitamin C.
29/04/2009 at 9:07 am Permalink
Just got some beef liver and I was trying to figure out what to do with it. What a timely post! I’ll be making this for sure.
01/05/2009 at 5:56 am Permalink
I have been looking for some good liver pate and liverwurst recipes. I used to love liverwurst as a kid growing up in Europe. Its been ages since I have tried some but have great memories eating it as a kid. My girls can choke some liver down but my eldest dd says it tastes like eating mud :-0
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21/05/2009 at 9:54 am Permalink
I’m wondering how it would turn out without the sourdough bread?