Truffled Chicken Mousse

One of the by-products of raising our own meat chickens is a rather large volume of livers.  While the occasional liver dish can be quite good, I find I usually turn my eye to other items in the freezer and the livers get backlogged.  This dish is an inexpensive pleasure that will likely use up my liver supply well in advance of our next batch of chickens.

This recipe is for a rich and aromatic mousse that has a subtle rather than overpowering liver flavor. The generous portion of butter creates an experience similar to foie gras while the addition of fresh egg yolks enhances the richness and creaminess of the dish. Truffles send the spread to a new level. Caution should be applied with this dish because it is truly addictive and is far from low-fat.There are plenty of very good liver mousse recipes on the shelf and on the net, and while this is my own take on it I have to give credit to the dozens of recipes I've perused for technique and proportion.

1.5 pounds Free range chicken livers
2 cups Milk
3 Sticks unsalted butter (room temperature)
1 cup Diced shallots
1 tablespoon Dried french tarragon (or twice as much fresh)
1 teaspoon White pepper
1 teaspoon Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup Madeira
3 teaspoons Kosher salt
1/4 cup Light cream
3 Farm fresh egg yolks
1 black truffle


Rinse livers in cold water and soak in milk over night in the fridge.

The next day, set the butter out and bring to room temperature. Pour the livers into a colander and let strain. Stir the livers with your hand to loosen any pockets of milk, but do not rinse. Discard the milk.

Melt 3 Tbs of butter in a medium pan, add the shallots and saute on low heat. Do not let them brown. Add the tarragon, white pepper & black pepper. Lightly saute until the shallots are soft and just starting to stick to the pan. Deglaze with 1/4 cup Madeira and scrape the pan of any bits. Reduce the liquid by 2/3 to 3/4, stirring occasionally. Scrape the mixture into a food processor equipped with the metal blade.

Return the pan to the flame, add 3 Tbs of butter and increase to medium heat. Saute the chicken livers in small batches, turning over after 2-3 minutes. Do not crowd the livers. The liver should be lightly browned, but still slightly pink on the interior. Transfer each batch to the food processor when cooked. After the last batch of livers is complete, deglaze the pan with the remaining 1/4 cup Madeira and reduce by 2/3. Stir frequently to incorporate any bits of liver and add to the food processor.

Add the cream and salt to the liver mix. Dice the truffle and add to the mix. Cover the food processor and begin chopping. While mixing, add one stick of butter in 2 Tbs chunks, then the egg yolks and remaining butter in 2 Tbs chunks and continue processing until the pate is smooth and uniform. It should have the texture of a semi-thick sauce. Only use fresh local eggs for this step (we used some from our chickens), otherwise simply skip them.

Pour the pate into a medium strainer and push through with a spatula. Transfer to serving dishes, cover and place in the fridge overnight. Serve with your favorite crackers, bread or crostini. This is a fairly large batch of pate and ready to serve dishes can be frozen for later use.

Spring Chicks

The weather has been beautiful the last few days - perfect for the arrival of our spring broilers.  We got a batch of 100 Cornish Cross chickens from Purely Poultry, whom I've found to be very reliable and one of the best deals on broilers on a small scale.  We also get a discount because we're repeat customers.

Cute fuzz balls on arrival

Chickens and other poultry can be shipped when they are a day old because right before they hatch, they suck up the extra fluids in the egg and have enough protein, fat and water to last three days before they need replenishment.  This provides enough of a window to priority ship the birds to the farm.  The hatchery usually adds a couple extra birds because there are generally a couple birds that die during shipment.  Surprisingly, all 104 chicks survived the trip and were particularly perky, so we're off to a strong start with this batch.

Jayla loading chicks in the brooder

They spend two to three weeks in the brooder, then they're off to pasture where they supplement their diet with grass & bugs.  That should be just in time for the arrival of our Guineas and Muscovy Ducks, which will go through a similar process.

Creative Problem Solving

As a technologist and an IT engineer at heart, I have developed a real passion for solving problems and figuring out ways to make things efficient.  Farm projects provide a lot of opportunity for this and are a great hobby for keeping these skills sharp.

So here's problem number one.  The builder of our house put the pressure tank for the well and the associated plumbing in a small shed, which we call the pump house.  I think the reason for this was to reduce the Summer humidity in the house by keeping the condensation buildup on the tank in a separate building.

Pump House

Unfortunately, this also means another space that needs to be heated in the winter, which we've done with space heaters and electric pipe warmers, an expensive and risky approach.  Last year I tried just going with the pipe warmers and in the middle of preparing Christmas Eve dinner we had a sudden drop in water pressure.  After some inside troubleshooting I trudged through two feet of snow to find the pump house flooded and water spraying everywhere from a burst pipe because of a failed warmer.  Some quick pipe sweating and dinner was back on track, but the moist warm environment ended up becoming a neon sign for Norway Rats, who proceeded to tear apart the fiberglass insulation throughout the shed.

Problem number two is that we've been pretty lax with our layer chickens and they've gone pretty much rogue.  They've scattered themselves around the property and have taken to sleeping in the trees.  They have also found alternative spots for laying eggs and I haven't been able to track them down, except for stumbling on an occasional nest, which we won't use.  At some point I'll take on capturing the birds and confining them to the portable coop to "train" them to lay in the box, but sometimes it's as easy to start with some fresh chicks.

A while back I found a clutch of eggs in the woods and threw these and a few others in the incubator.  When they hatched, the pump house got cleaned out and the brooder relocated inside.

Blue Pressure Tank & Brooder

The heat lamp needs to be on for the chicks, why not have it do double duty and eliminate the need for the other heaters in the pump house?  So far it's working great and we'll have a fresh batch of layers producing in the Spring.  I wish I had thought of this last year.

The Downside of Farming

Most of the time I spend thinking about farming it's about the positive aspects of generating our own food and improving the land.  Things like appreciating superior food quality, the joy of watching livestock antics and the satisfaction of helping to preserve the genetic diversity of critical species.  But the farming experience is certainly filled with it's share of challenges.  It's not too hard to move on after a crappy corn season due to a drought, peas that went from seed to the compost pile from a sudden heat wave, or an epidemic season of squash bugs wiping out the majority of Cucerbits.  And then there are the real problems...

A couple weeks ago I moved the broilers out to pasture.  The hatchery was back ordered this fall, so our chicks arrived about a month after I had originally planned, which pushed the raising period into cool / cold weather. 

Moving Chicks to Pasture

About 10% of the flock died from the cold the first two nights outdoors, but the rest adapted well and really started to put on some weight.  That's a pretty big loss ratio for us, but it's recoverable.  About two weeks later, I went to the coop for morning feeding and all but three birds had been killed by a predator.  By the nature of the kill, my estimation is that one or more weasels dug through the coop and went on a killing spree.  A weasel will go after young poultry and basically kill everything in sight.  They bite the head off a chick, lick the blood pumping out and move on to the next one.  The really disturbing part is they don't eat much and leave the carcasses behind - a total waste.  I'd much rather have a fox in the hen house.   A fox will grab a couple birds and drag them away, but at least they eat what they kill like a respectful hunter.

So that's the end of our fall chicken project.  We're close to finishing the meat we've been keeping from our summer broilers and the next batch won't be ready until May or June, so it's probably back to grocery chicken for a while.  At least I'll get a chance to appreciate what I'm missing in the meantime.

Ever wonder what a hundred chickens look like?

Chicks in the Mail

Where do Chickens come from?  The US Postal Service, of course.

Our chicks arrived in the mail this morning from the hatchery.  The post office is usually anxious to move them along and gladly opens their doors early.  We got a batch of 100 Cornish Cross Cockerels from Purely Poultry, where we've had a lot of luck in the past.  Only one chick died in shipment (which is a really good shipment) and they always throw in a few extras to cover a couple losses, so we're starting off with 103 birds.

They are cute little fuzzballs when they arrive.  That warm feeling only lasts a few days and then it becomes apparent that these birds are simple eating machines.  These guys were hatched & shipped on Wednesday and arrived early Friday morning.  Just before a chick hatches is sucks up the last of the yolk and has about 72 hours of nutrition and fluid in its system, which makes ordering birds through the mail feasible.

Getting the chicks through the first three days is the real trick.  After setting them in the brooder, they get access to fresh water and chick starter feed, but there are usually a few that don't quite figure out the system at first.  We lost a couple birds in the first two hours because the crawled into the waterer and chilled themselves to death.  Did I mention that chickens aren't the brightest of animals?