A much better recipe for pâté

From a special guest

Pâté really only looks good at restaurants.

Sometimes I’m intending to make something to write about, and then life gets in the way and someone else takes over and does it for me. That someone is sometimes Jackson, and this time, you are hearing from him in his own words.

Hi, I’m Jâcksôn, the Pâté Man. Haha just playing, my name doesn’t have those things on the vowels and this is actually my first time making pâté but here I am anyway. What’s up.

First of all, let’s set the table: Go back and check out Kate’s post about pâté. Now look over here: I used Jacques Pépin’s recipe which is here. Table set.

I made this pâté on Thanksgiving. Here’s the first great tip I’m going to give you: you will not find a more low stress thing to cook than ‘using what you already have to create one more appetizer before the big meal’—no one cares, no one is even paying attention. 

We were making eight Cornish game hens this year instead of a turkey, which ruled, and we had so many little bags of livers and hearts and gizzards and whatever else they give you. We were going to save them or give them to the dog but then someone said pâté and I looked at my Google (Hello Jacques...) and I announced “I’m going to try making pâté!” Absolutely no one moved. Silence. It was as though I was not there.

I was warned against using the hearts. They’re too hard and won’t blend smooth, they said. Basically none of the recipes did it that way, I saw. I pulled out all the livers and hearts. It was pâté time.

Maybe the hearts thing tipped you off that I am not ‘beholden to the minutiae of the recipe’ when I cook. But Jacque Pâté's recipe was easy—chop some onions and garlic and whatever and throw it in a pan with the livers (and hearts!), add some oil and start searing them and then check the recipe and see that it’s not supposed to be oil, it’s supposed to be water and they are supposed to cook on low heat. Okay. Throw the water in and cook them that way. Easy. Great.

Next, get very nervous about cooking liver for only three minutes and serving it to so many people you love. Cook it for like 10. The hearts can take it. No one is paying attention. Then you take all of that and throw it in a blender with the other stuff, add a wild amount of butter for how much food this makes and you’re basically done. Taste, salt, taste, more salt, some pepper, taste, put it in the fridge. Done.

An hour later you’re eating it with the extra baguette you got at the store because it is always nice to grab one more baguette and everyone is talking about how good it is and Kate is saying that trying to make it was maybe her greatest cooking disaster ever.

Kate really goes in on herself, laying out everything that went wrong in her attempt. It would not be right to pile on about how she tried to make a recipe only having, like, half the ingredients. Instead I would like to say cheers to my guy Jacques for the easy recipe and jeers to the Food and Wine website who wouldn't let me create a login to become 5 star review number 5,174 and maybe even add a 26th review about how you can use also use hearts and mess up the recipe and still do a great job and get in a newsletter:

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