Chicken Liver Parfait (Sally Abé)

A restaurant parfait with no oven: raw livers are blended while boiling brandy-and-Madeira liquid is poured in, and the blender runs until a thermometer reads 68 °C. Sieved, set with gelatine, and very smooth.

Untested: not yet made in this kitchen. It is here for the Pâtés and Terrines section and is adapted from the source named in the Notes.

Ingredients

• 400 g chicken livers
• 50 ml brandy
• 50 ml Madeira
• 4 gelatine leaves
• 140 ml water
• 50 g butter
• Salt and pepper
• Toasted baguette or sourdough, to serve

Directions

1. Let the livers come to room temperature. Soak the gelatine in cold water until softened.
2. Reduce the brandy and Madeira by half in a small pan, then add the 140 ml water and bring to the boil.
3. Put the livers in a blender and start it. Pour in the boiling liquid, season with salt and pepper, and add the squeezed-out gelatine.
4. Keep blending until the mixture reaches 68 °C on a thermometer, then quickly blend in the butter.
5. Pass through a fine sieve. Chill in a bowl set over ice for at least 4 hours, until set.
6. Whisk the parfait smooth before serving with toast.

Notes

Source Adapted from Sally Abé, “Chicken liver parfait,” Great British Chefs. The original serves it with pickled watermelon rind and a garden salad, left out here.

Why it works The blender’s friction and the boiling liquid cook the purée together, so the whole batch is brought to one measured temperature instead of relying on the color of individual livers. The gelatine gives the set that eggs give an oven-baked parfait.

Food safety: chicken livers Chicken liver pâté is the most documented Campylobacter vehicle in restaurant food: of 28 US chicken-liver outbreaks in 2000–2016, 24 were blended dishes such as pâté and 26 involved undercooking (Lanier et al., Foodborne Pathog. Dis. 2018). Pink is not a reliable test in either direction. USDA and CDC say 165 °F (74 °C); Washington State University found that holding livers at 70–73.9 °C (158–165 °F) for 101 down to 26 seconds is safe for Salmonella and still leaves them tender and faintly pink (Poult. Sci. 2021). A probe thermometer is the only way to have both. For this recipe: the source stops at 68 °C, a little under the 70 °C that the WSU work used. Blending to 70 °C and holding there for about two minutes meets the UK FSA standard (70 °C for 2 minutes).

The Pâtés and Terrines section’s Liver Pâtés page (/pates-and-terrines/liver/) covers the history and technique behind this dish.

The photo The photograph shows a quenelle of chicken-liver mousse in a New Orleans restaurant, not this recipe.