Classic Culinary Arts:

Pate De Foies Gras Recipe

Make a paste with one quart of flour, as for raised pies, and put away in a cool place. Put four fat goose livers in a pint of sweet milk for two or three hours, to whiten them. Chop very fine two pounds of fresh pork, cut from the loin (it must not be too fat), and one pound of clear veal. Put one and a half cupfuls of milk on to boil with a blade of mace, an onion, two cloves, a small piece of nutmeg and a bouquet of sweet herbs. Cook all these for ten minutes; then strain the milk upon four table-spoonfuls of butter and two of flour, which have been well mixed. Add to this the chopped pork and veal and one of the livers, chopped fine; stir over the fire for ten minutes, being careful not to brown. Season well with pepper and salt, add four well-beaten eggs, and stir half a minute longer; then put away to cool. Cut half a pound of salt pork in slices as thin as shavings. Butter a French pie mould, holding about three quarts. Form three- fourths of the paste into a ball. Sprinkle the board with flour, and roll the paste out until about one-fourth of an inch thick. Take it up by the four corners and place it in the mould. Be very careful not to break it. With the hand, press the paste on the sides and bottom. The crust must come to the top of the mould. Put a layer of the pork shavings on the sides and bottom, then a thick layer of the force- meat. Split the livers, and put half of them in; over them sprinkle one table-spoonful of onion juice, salt, pepper, and, if you like, a table-spoonful of capers. Another layer of forcemeat, again the liver and seasoning, and then the forcemeat. On this last layer put salt pork shavings. Into the remaining paste roll three table-spoonfuls of washed butter, and roll the paste, as nearly as possible, into the shape of the top of the pie mould. Cut a small piece from the centre. The filling of the pie should have been heaped a little toward the centre, leaving a space of about one inch and a half at the edges. Brush with beaten egg the paste that is in this space. Put on the top crust, and, with the fore-finger and thumb, press the two crusts together. Roll the piece of paste cut from the centre of the cover a little larger, and cover the opening with it. From some puff-paste trimmings, cut out leaves, and decorate the cover with them. Place in a moderate oven, and bake slowly two hours. Have a pint and a half of hot veal stock (which will become jellied when cold) well seasoned with pepper, salt, whole spice and onion. When the pate is taken from the oven, take off the small piece that was put on the centre of the cover. Insert a tunnel in the opening and pour the hot stock through it. Replace the cover, and set away to cool. When the pate is to be served, place it in the oven for about five minutes, that it may slip from the mould easily. Draw out the wires which fasten the sides of the mould, and slide the pate upon the platter. Garnish the dish with parsley and small strips of cucumber pickles.

Truffles and mushrooms can be cut up and put in the pate in layers, the same as the liver and at the same time. The Strasburg fat livers (foies gras) come in little stone pots, and cost from a dollar to two dollars per pot.