Liver and Pate
This episode finds Chef Angus in the classroom in front of a group of eager students. Wasting no time, he begins with a chicken liver and briefly discusses its various properties and how to select a quality piece of meat. The same is done for a duck liver. As is explained, due to its general properties, the first step in chicken liver preparation is to remove some of the excess blood by soaking it in a mixture of milk and salt. Next Chef Angus moves on to a fattened duck liver, or what is commonly called foie gras, and explains its qualities and why it is so prized as to fetch $36-38 dollars a pound.
Using a chicken liver, the first dish to be prepared is called "Devils on Horseback." After trimming some of the fat from the liver, Chef Angus wraps it in bacon before grilling it and presenting it in a combination of balsamic glace sauce and a roasted red pepper sauce. Another use for the liver is explained as a crostini is made by spreading a pureed liver paste over small pieces of toasted bread and topping them with fresh tomato and garnishing with basil oil.
Proceeding next to the foie gras, Chef Angus illustrates and explains the important process of deveining in order to prevent unappealing black spots in the liver. The first dish is a cold one prepared with the foie gras is a parfait by pureeing and cooking the liver briefly. It is then served with croutons, poached dates, juliened peppers and pureed date sauce. Another cold dish demonstrated is a torchon, or a cylindrical preparation of liver cut into discs and served with garlic sauce, quince sauce, black truffles, and a few pieces of lemon.
On to hot dishes, Chef Angus demonstrates the use of foie gras with a squab (a type of chicken breast). Combining black truffle with mushroom stuffing, the squab is wrapped in caul fat, a special product used by culinarians made from the interior lining of a pig's abdominal cavity, to create a creponette before being added to the cooked hot foie gras.
The foie gras lobe is seasoned and placed in a hot, dry pan to be seared before aromats like thyme and rosemary are added for flavor. The lobe is then placed in an oven for a short time, as Chef Angus explains in detail the extreme difficulty in cooking foie gras. The dish will later be finished with lightly cooked asparagus and poached apples.
Another dish is prepared with the other lobe of the foie gras. The lobes are pan-seared and presented with the roasted squab prepared earlier.over a bed of braised radicchio and topped with black truffles and garnished with a date sauce.
Liver Wrapped in Bacon
Dessert Parfait with Marzipan Garnish