Whisk Wednesdays: Salade de Foies de Volailles Tiedes (Salad of Warm Sautéed Chicken Livers)

      The recipe prepared for this week's assignment for Whisk Wednesdays is from Class 25, Menu 2:  Salade de Foies de Volailles Tiedes (Salad of Warm Sautéed Chicken Livers).  It can be found in the cookbook Le Cordon Bleu at Home on pages 306-307.

      Doesn't this look delicious?  Believe me, it was! 

      Okay, I confess, it's not chicken liver at all, it's chicken breast tenders.  If I would have made it with chicken livers, no one would have eaten it, including me.  Why waste a perfectly good recipe when all you need to do is sub in another chicken part that you do like? 

      I subbed two things this week, the chicken breast for the chicken livers, and a white wine for the port as I thought the white wine would go better with the breasts.  And I had white wine on hand.

      The recipe goes together quickly, and again, the layering of the flavors is what makes it so outstanding.  Rich, yes, but I am only making French food once a week, so I don't sub the cream and butter as that gives so much flavor that it would be pointless to make a French dish and sub those ingredients. 

      The salad greens are washed and dried, dressed with a simple dressing of sherry vinegar and oil, salt and pepper, chopped fresh chervil and chives.  Oh, is it ever nice to have my herbs back in place on the deck so that I can just snip away anytime I need fresh herbs...luxury! 

     

Shallots are lightly sauteed in a little butter, chicken cooks quickly in that, followed by the wine for flavor and deglazing, and then the creme fraiche to bring it together...I boiled the creme fraiche to get it to reduce to a nice thick consistency, which it did in a very short amount of time. 

     The chicken was placed on the dressed greens, a little sauce dribbled over the chicken, some chervil sprinkled on top, and the fork was employed immediately. 

      Buy the book, make this recipe, use the livers if you like, the breasts if you don't, it is absolutely the most wonderful combination of flavors.  It was my lunch...plenty filling, very satisfying, and I will make this again. The flavors are fantastic together, nothing overwhelming, just nice subtle combinations making an enjoyable depth of flavor.  

      While we are on the menu section, and we were hoping to get all three dishes accomplished in one sitting, I knew that was not going to be happening here.  I cook throughout the day in bits and pieces due to running here and there and it all comes together somehow at mealtime.  In order for me to do all three of the French dishes in this menu, I would need to devote a whole afternoon to just that...not happening here soon.  So, my dishes this menu will be coming to you one at a time, which is very workable. 

If you would  like to see how the other Whisk Wednesday members fared in this class, click here, and then on the Whisk Wednesdays connect to individual bloggers, or better yet, come and join us!  Shari has the ingredients posted on her site at the click, so while we can't post the recipe instructions, you can at least look at the ingredients, and I bet you can figure out a lot of it from there. 

Next Week's Assignment:

The next few assignments are Menus, so we are going to make the menu for one meal (hopefully), but then post each dish separately in its own week as posting it all at once seemed a bit much, following the schedule below.
Class 25: Menu #2 (Make in one session, if you can, between May 19 and May 26)
• Salade de Foies de Volailles Tiedes (Salad of Warm Sautéed Chicken Livers) pages 306-307 (Post Wednesday, May 27, 2009)
• Longe de Porc aux Pruneaux (Roast Pork Loin with Prunes) and Mousseline de Céleri Rave (Creamed Celery Root Purée) pages 122-123 (Post Wednesday, June 3, 2009)
• Savarin aux Kiwis et aux Fraises (Rum Savarin with Kiwis and Strawberries) pages 409-410 (Post Wednesday, June 10, 2009)