Winter Recipe: Chicken Liver & Brandy Parfait

Says Simbavati Cederberg Ridge Execuitive Chef, Garth Davids, whose passion is creating good honest food in a farm to table style. Garth shares a favourite personal recipe with us. It represents his journey from humble beginnings, as a young boy growing up in the Cape Town suburb of Mitchell’s Plain, to the Simbavati Group Executive Chef he has become.

Chicken liver, a staple dish in his mother’s household, was usually served with a “smoortjie” – a sauce prepared with sautéed onion and tomato - or mayonnaise. Toffee apples were a sought-after treat in his neighbourhood and were usually enjoyed with his friends on the walk home from a cricket match. He recalls the basket of fruit, always available on the kitchen counter of his mother’s home. And the scent of the fruit that welcomed him when he returned home.

Chef Garth explains that in this recipe he chose to combine these ingredients to bring those memories to life. So here he proudly invites the reader to take a sensory journey through some of his fondest childhood memories.

For the chicken Liver parfait:
250g chicken livers (deveined and cleaned)
15ml olive oil
80g finely chopped onion
80g chopped apples
5g rosemary
5g garlic
50ml brandy
200g soft butter

Instructions

• Add olive oil to pan with the onions, garlic and rosemary. Sauté until onions are translucent, then add in the chopped apples and cook for 10mins
• Add the brandy and allow the alcohol to evaporate.
• Once this is done remove mixture from heat and set aside.
• In a separate pan heat up oil until pan is nice and hot, slightly smoking, then add your chicken livers and cook until medium rare not all the way through, remove from heat and add to apple and onion mixture.
• Place mixture into a blender on medium speed and slowly add the soft butter little by little until all the butter is incorporated.
• Once butter is incorporated, remove from the blender and strain through a sieve.
• Line a container with cling wrap and pour strained mixture into container and allow to set in fridge for about 4 to 8 hours.

For the onion puree:
2 white onions sliced
¼ teaspoon truffle oil
5g garlic
5g thyme finely chopped
50ml fresh cream
30ml olive oil

Instructions:
Place all ingredients into a pot and cook very slowly until onions are soft and caramelized, once mixture is ready, blend until smooth and add in the truffle oil, place into squeegee bottle.

For the baby toffee apples:
1 can baby apples (Liberty or Goldcrest brand)
200g white sugar
50g glucose
50ml water

Instructions:
Add sugar glucose and water into a sauce pan and bring to a boil, once mixture is boiling turn the heat low and cook very slowly don not stir sugar with a spoon gently swivel the pan around or side to side to keep mixture from burning
Heat the sugar to hard crack stage (156 degrees Celsius)
Once sugar reaches temperature remove from heat, take skewer sticks and pierce them into the apples, dip each apple 1 by 1 until apple is fully coated ad leave to dry.

For mixed berry coulis:
2 cups frozen mixed berries
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
5g corn starch

Instructions:
Place berries, water and sugar in a sauce pan and bring to a boil until sugar is dissolved, and once sugar is dissolved add cornstarch and cook for 1 10mins until mixture thickens and cornstarch is completely cooked out.
Place mixture in a blender and blend until smooth and pass through a sieve to remove berrie seeds then place in a squeegee bottle 

For the burnt apple:
1 whole apple peeled and sliced into wedges

Instructions:
Place sliced apples into a tray and blow torch until apples are charred if you do not have a blow torch u can hold them over an open gas flame to give them a charred colour.

Slice store bought brioche bread and toast until golden brown, place in the center of the plate, quenelle the chicken liver pate and place on top of brioche, pipe small 4 dots of onion puree on and around the brioche, place the burnt apple and toffee apple on either side of the parfait, place small dots of berry coulis around the brioche and lastly garnish with fennel shoots.

If you’d prefer Chef Garth to rather cook for you, performing some of his culinary mastery, why not stay with us at Simbavati Cederberg Ridge? Here the food offering is as memorable as the setting.