Chicken stuffed with chicken liver
In the Potter household, we seem to take great delight in wrapping and/or stuffing meat with itself. That, coupled with our love of liver paté, made my coming across this recipe all the better. Several weeks ago, David and I found this cute little used bookstore in Evanston that had a small room devoted entirely to cookbooks. Needless to say, there was a good pile of books stashed in David's backpack for the journey home (I have such a fetish for collecting cookbooks!). One of them was entitled Chicken Breasts: 116 new and classic recipes for the fairest part of the fowl by Diane Rozas. Being a lover of chicken breasts particularly, I found this to be a win.In any case, the recipe was fairly straightforward, and David adhered to it pretty closely. Earlier that day, I had acquired several pounds of chicken thighs at a steal of a deal (as David prefers dark meat), so we adapted the recipe to include one breast and two thighs. First, oven was preheated to 325 F. Then, 2 tbsp of pine nuts were sautéed in butter until browned. Next, the livers were sautéed in butter until just pink inside and set aside. Then, a clove of minced garlic, 2 tbsp of chopped onions and a couple tbsp of minced parsley were sautéed with a pinch of nutmeg, salt, pepper and 2 tbsp of white wine wine. The pine nuts were coarsely chopped, and the livers were mashed with a fork into a paste. The parsley-onion mixture and pine nuts were then folded in. The liver-pine nut-onion extravaganza was then stuffed into the various awaiting chicken envelopes. The stuffed chicken items were sautéed in butter until lightly browned. Poured about half a cup of wine over and baked uncovered until done. For a quick sauce, David reduced the liquid remaining in the pan, making sure that all the delicious bits were broken down. As it thickened, he then added cream and seasoned. David also made his delicious-as-usual risotto to accompany it. All in all, it turned out quite well. David commented that adding something like cognac might liven up the liver mixture, but I did enjoy the rich creaminess of the dish. We'll definitely be making (and perhaps improving upon) it again.