Recipe feeds 6 normal people or 4 very hungry people
“Pino” (ground beef filling)
Ingredients:
- 500 grams ground beef (low fat is best)
- 3 onions (see note 1)
- 3 cloves of garlic
- A little bit of cooking oil
- Salt and cumin to taste
- Raisins, soaked in hot water
- Olives
- 2 hard-boiled eggs, divide each egg into 4 segments
- 6 small pieces of chicken
Preparation:
- Chop onion and garlic finely.
- Heat a little oil in a frying pan; add the onion and garlic and fry for a few minutes.
- Add the ground beef to the frying pan and cook over low heat until the meat is no longer red. Stir regularly.
- Add salt and cumin to taste. (see Note 2)
- Put the prepared “pino” in an oven proof dish.
- Boil the chicken in water with salt and some herbs such as bay leaves or other herbs you have on hand.
- In your mind, divide the ovenproof dish into desired portions sizes (for instance six if you have six portions for chicken – but you can make each portion smaller or larger as you wish) and within the (imagined boundaries of each) portion place a piece of chicken together with a piece of egg, an olive and some raisins.
- Next – prepare the corn paste.
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Corn Paste Topping
Ingredients:
- 6 fresh ears of corn or 2 cans of corn (see note 3)
- Several leaves of fresh basil (see note 4)
- Sugar
Preparation:
- Remember to pre-heat the oven to 200 °C (see note 5)
- If using fresh corn, carefully cut the corn from the cob.
- If using cans of corn and the can has a lot of liquid in it, let it drain.
- Put the corn and the basil in a blender and puree the mix.
- If you used fresh corn, you need to put the corn and basil mix in a pan and let it simmer on low heat for a few minutes. You can skip this step if you use canned corn as that corn has already been cooked.
- Place the corn paste on top of the “pino“, chicken, olives, egg and raisins that you previously placed in the ovenproof dish.
- Spread the corn paste evenly to make a pretty cover for the dish. Sprinkle with some sugar to help give it a prettier color after baking.
- Put the dish in the oven and cook till the corn starts to brown on the top and around the edges. Remember that all ingredients have already been fully cooked, so you are really just warming it up and making the flavors mix together.
Notes and Comments:
Note 1 – I am not a fan of a lot of onion so I use about one onion and lots of green onions (spring onions) instead as they have a gentler flavor, but this depends on your own preferences.
Note 2 – Sometimes I also add paprika powder to give the “pino” a nicer color.
Note 3 – The recipe calls for 2 cans of corn. The cans in Chile are much larger than in Norway and I would recommend using at least 4 Norwegian sized cans. I love the corn paste topping so the truth is I usually use even more corn than that, but once you try the recipe you will figure out how much corn you prefer to use. There should be enough corn paste to at least cover the “pino”, chicken, eggs etc…
Note 4 – The taste will be best if you can use fresh basil for this recipe, but I know that may be hard to find in Norway so then you can use the dry basil (basilikum) that they sell in the herb and spice section of the supermarket.
Note 5 – The oven temperature may vary depending on the oven. It should be quite high, but if it starts burning, try a lower temperature such as 180 °C.
General comments: If you do not like the raisins or olives, these can be left out. You can also reduce the amount of garlic if your guests do not care much for garlic. Also, the Chileans will normally have pieces of chicken in this dish but this can also be left out if you prefer a simpler version. The Chilean food is generally not spicy, but if you want to add some “kick” to the dish you can definitely add a little chili powder, but not too much because it would overpower the sweet flavor of the corn.
OK, I confess! I went a little overboard a while ago trying out different liver pâté recipes. In total I made three different batches of pâté using two different recipes and different mixes of beef and chicken liver. To be honest with you - after having worked with the liver (not the greatest thing to touch!) and with its “special” aroma – I was not even sure that I wanted to taste the pâté any longer. Fortunately it had to cool down in the fridge overnight – and the next day I was ready to dig in!
The first recipe comes from Allers, but I changed it just a little – not sure if it was for better or for worse…..
Hjemmelaget Leverpostei (Homemade liver pâté)
1. Cut 500 gr liver in cubes and poach in boiling water for 3 minutes. The recipe called for pork liver but I could not find it in the stores near our house. So instead I used beef and chicken liver. I made one batch with only beef liver and another batch with about half and half of beef and chicken liver.
2. Put the poached liver along with the following ingredients in a bowl and mix just a little with a large spoon.
· 100 gr vegetable shortening (the recipe said 250 gr but I thought that was way too much)
· Half small onion, chopped
· 2 to 3 anchovies (I think I put more than that!)
3. Grind the above mix in the meat grinder. Once for coarser pate (which is what did) or twice if you want a finer pate.
4. Add the following ingredients to the ground liver mix and mix well:
· 2 tbs olive oil
· 1 dl flour
· 2 eggs (whole)
· 2 dl heavy cream
· 2 tsp salt
· Plenty of freshly ground pepper
· ½ tsp ground ginger
· 1 tsp thyme (I used fresh thyme)
5. Preheat oven to 175°C (approximately 340° F).
6. Put liver mixture in small oiled loaf tins and decorate with thyme sprigs or pieces of anchovy. I used some small aluminum tins I found at the store. They have lids that I think will be good for storage.
7. Cook in oven in a water bath for about one hour till the internal temperature is 76°C. It took 55 minutes in my oven to reach this temperature.
8. Let the pâté cool down in the forms.
9. The original recipe indicated that the pâté can be frozen. If it is edible and we do not eat it all at once, I will try to freeze it and I will let you know later on how that turns out.
Before the oven:
After the oven:
Pâté Poulet
This was a recipe I found in the Crème de Colorado Cookbook, but once again I made some modifications and I have to take all the blame for the potential disastrous result. I prepared this recipe last and as you can see the trend is obvious… measurements did not matter as much at this stage…..it was all done “al ojo”.
1. In a large pan sauté the following ingredients until the liver is just done. I have no idea when the liver is “just done” so I may have overcooked it….. ugh! It was definitely not raw.
· About 2 pounds chicken liver
· Green onions, about a cup
· Plenty of butter
· A generous amount of fresh thyme
2. Add the following ingredients to the mix:
· ½ cup butter, cut into pieces that will fit in the meat grinder
· 4 slices of bacon, browned and chopped
· A bunch of anchovies (probably 4 to 5 pieces)
3. Grind the mix in the meat grinder (or food processor).
4. Reduce ½ cup sherry to about ¼ cup in a small saucepan and add to the ground liver mix.
5. Add the following to the ground liver and mix well:
6. Add salt. The recipe suggested ½ tsp, but at this stage I was just doing it “al gusto” so who knows how much I added.
7. Stir in heavy cream till the consistency looks right! …..coming from the one who has always complained about the Chilean recipe books that are not specific about measurements….{eye roll}.
8. This recipe filled four small oiled loaf tins which I decorated with chopped green onions. I left the tins in the fridge overnight to chill and firm.
The Tasting
Alvaro and I apparently have the same taste in liver pâté. We both preferred the beef liver version with the mixed beef and chicken next. Neither of us cared much for the chicken liver only version of the pâté, but that is probably because we prefer the coarser pâté and for some reason the chicken liver turned out very fine. Both Valeria and Nibaldo only liked the chicken liver pâté. I guess we have some for all tastes!
We had lots of leftovers which were frozen for future use and we will update you on how it tastes after defrosting.
Let us know if you are able to come up with improved versions of the liver pâté recipes. We love pâté and nothing is better than home made with all pronounceable ingredients.
In order of preparation:
- If frozen, keep turkey in fridge for 3-4 days until properly defrosted.
- Sage and onion stuffing
- Apple sauce
- Roast turkey
- Roast potatoes
- Gravy
Sage and Onion Stuffing
(a la Rob)
If you can buy Paxo sage and onion stuffing do so and prepare as indicated on packet with extra sage. If not – read on….
Ingredients
- One large (or two small) brown onion(s)
- Lots of rubbed sage (2 tablespoons)
- Bread crumbs (2 cups)
- Butter
Directions
- Finely chop the onion(s)
- Fry onions in butter until soft
- Add sage
- Add bread crumbs
- Remove from heat and add boiling water to make a stiff paste
- Roast either in the turkey - or - in a roasting dish for ¾ hour at 400 degrees F.
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Apple Sauce
(a la Rob)
Ingredients
- 3 large 20-ounce apples (or Granny Smiths)
- 1 cup of sugar (brown does nicely)
- salt
Directions
- Peel, core and slice apples thinly into a pan with cold, salty water
- When the apples are peeled, drained the water and place pan over low heat
- Allow the apples to cook down slowly. This takes time
- Once apples start to collapse, add sugar to taste
- Stir well or mash until smooth
- Serve, but don’t eat all of it - so that you can make apple crumble the next day/week
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Roast Turkey
(a la Rob)
Ingredients
Directions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F
- Take the giblets out of the turkey
- Put a quartered lemon and a quartered onion inside the turkey
- Shake roasting bag with 1 tablespoon of flour inside it
- Put turkey in the bag
- Roast turkey in the oven for 45 minutes
- Turn oven down to 325 degrees F
- Roast turkey for 3.5 hours
- Take turkey out and leave it for ½ to 1 hour to settle before carving and serving.
- Pour off the meat juices into a pan, allow to cool and remove fat from surface – to be used for gravy
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Roast Potatoes
(a la Delia via Rob)
Ingredients
- Enough potatoes
- Vegetable Oil
- Salt
Directions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
- Pour some oil into roasting pan in oven
- Peel and cut potatoes to even size
- Add boiling water
- Boil for 10 minutes with 1 teaspoon of salt
- Drain and keep water for gravy.
- With lid on pan, shake gently to roughen the surface of the potatoes
- Pour potatoes into hot roasting tin
- Turn over potatoes to coat them with oil
- Place back into oven for one hour
- Serve
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Gravy
(a la Rob)
Ingredients
- Meat juices from turkey
- Water from boiled potatoes
- Corn flour
Directions
- Use a fat separator on the meat juices from the turkey
- Add meat juices to pan and bring to a boil
- Add potato water to taste
- Mix 2 table spoons of corn flour with cold water – add to gravy while stirring
- Bring to boil, add more corn flour if it isn’t thick enough.
These recipes date back to our Thanksgiving celebration in Ithaca, New York, in 2001. We had a great time with a nice mixture of nationalities. Some of us had never celebrated Thanksgiving before. Now we were to celebrate Turkey Day in its correct environment: the USA! We didn’t really know what to do, so we decided to call in the expertise. We got party experience, dried apricots and Boston beer from Erik-the-half-a-Swede, Rob-the-Brit brought turkey roasting experience, Alvaro-the-Chilean brought entertainment and cleaning abilities, Kristin-the-Norwegian brought recipes for American dishes, Sigbjørn-the-Norwegian brought Port and third place in Ithaca’s 1st Annual International Rock Skipping Championship while Hild-the-Norwegian stole a pumpkin pie recipe off the internet.
(more on our Turkey Day: http://www.rygnestad.net/family/potter/newsletters/thanksgiving.htm)
Here are a couple of photos of two dinners we prepared at the cabin in Estes Park during Christmas 2009: Turkey and Posole. Recipes to come….
Hild
Turkey a la Rob
Posole a la Alvaro (soup with pork and vegetables)