It seems my blog is all about Freshly Blogged challenges at the moment. Sorry to be monotonous (and asking for your votes all the time) but I do have some other things to share later this week : )
Let’s get to the Week #7 challenge, you can vote for it here: The Switch.
The ingredients: Chicken livers, 80g white chocolate, Robertson’s Cinnamon, Robertson’s Cayenne Pepper and fresh cream. Two optional grocery item, three optional fresh ingredients.
The rules: Two dishes must be prepared, with both spices used in each.
Naturally one would make a savoury dish for starters/mains and a dessert with the white chocolate but I decided to change things around, a reason to have dessert first. My first thought was a chicken liver terrine and white chocolate mousse eclairs, but instead I made a white chocolate terrine with cinnamon crackers and chilli roasted strawberries. On the cake stand are spicy chicken liver mousse profiteroles with white chocolate and black pepper aioli, sprinkled with walnuts and oregano pan-fried in brown butter.
The recipe can be downloaded here, just scroll down until you see it.
The terrine is a frozen one, creamy and light and not too sweet. The crackers turned out so well: light crisp and flaky while the roasted strawberries were hot, spicy and sticky from the brown sugar.
I opted for another 80g bar of white chocolate and walnuts for the grocery items and strawberries, oregano and a white onion for the fresh ingredients. Even with the tight budget I managed to squeeze in a handful of walnuts for R15. Fellow bloggers, this is a huge help!
I love oregano and thought it would work well with the spicy liver mousse. Pan-fried with the walnuts created a wonderful fragrant cloud of savoury happiness in the kitchen.
A tip for profiteroles: Poke a hole in it to let the moist air escape to prevent t from collapsing.
The terrine uses very little sugar because the white chocolate is already so sweet. I lined one teacup with plastic wrap and used one without. The wrapped one was a lot trickier to get out! Just run a knife around the unlined one when ready to use, and lift out with a spoon. You can dip it in hot water but it melts easily.
I adored the texture of the crackers and vowed to make more, but next time with parmesan and fresh herbs. I forgot to do the eggwash! It’s so easy to make, all mixed in a bowl and rolled directly onto an ungreased baking tray. It took less than 10 mins to prepare and another 10-15 to bake.
Dusting of cinnamon and brown sugar. Preferably after the eggwash.
I’m not a huge fan of chicken liver, but after pan-frying with oregano and spices and the addition of fresh cream while blitzing it made a rich, smooth and very flavourful mousse that I would definitely make again.
My favorite part was the aioli, which I made with melted butter instead of oil. It’s heavenly!
Strawberries sprinkle with cayenne pepper and brown sugar, ready to be roasted.
Walnuts and torn oregano in the pan.
And it all comes together in the early morning light.
If you like what you see, please vote for my entry here.Thank you!
