At the age of six days my younger daughter started to come with me to the restaurant we owned. She used to stay in a next room with a lovely baby sitter who then became my closest collaborator. I used to stay in front of the stove, stirring pans, flipping fish, shouting the number of the table to go and, at her urgent request, hurrying to the next room to milk feed her.
When she was about three years old, she began repeating all those questions the children do: why? But why? And why? Many of them referring to the natural habitat where she grew up.
- Mom, what is this? ;
- A mixer. –
- Mom, what is this? ;
- A mixer. –
- Mom, what is this? ;
- A mixer. –
The mixers where not all the same one. There where a bunch of different machines for different use, I could not explain her, or I did not have the time to explain her with the children language. But, of course, her face displayed a not expressed question mark.
Marta, my daughter, found her own way to distinguish the different machines. She gave them personal names.
The robot became Mario.
The meat grinder – cheese grater became Luigi
The immersion mixer became Marco
Following this philosophy, also the big dish washer, the oven, the refrigerators and all the equipment got names. Marta asked for help to her nanny and she wrote on sticky labels the names suggested by Marta, who stuck them on the machines.
We still have the robot Mario and the label, all worn out and discolored, is still stuck there.
Mario is still working and it is still irreplaceable to make our famous :
CHICKEN LIVER PATE’
Ingredients:
500 gr chicken livers and hearts
100 gr smoked bacon
100 gr double cream
butter, salt, onion
Brandy, Marsala wine
Clean the chicken liver taking off the bile and cut the top of the hearts to take off the coagulated blood inside. Let them soak in water with a little vinegar for about half hour.
Let a sliced onion (better the red onion, which is sweeter) “sweat” in some butter and bacon.
Add the livers and hearts, salt and cook until they become “grey”. Crush them with a wooden lo let them cook inside.
Wet with a little bit of brandy and let it to evaporate. Turn off the heat.
Put everything in a blender to mash.
Put the puree’ in a bowl, add the double cream and half glass of Marsala wine.
Melt some butter – without frying it – and pour it out on the bottom of a mould and keep in the fridge some minutes to get hard.
Put inside the livers paste.
You can finish with some melted butter on the top, that, once solidified, will protect the patè.
You can serve it with a red fruits gelatine-, cut in nice shapes *) note
Or with sweet wine gelatine.
It is good with sliced toasted bread ( also a slightly sweet Pan Brioche)
*) Note:
heat some water, melt the gelatine inside; add mixed strawberry or blue berries; lay it on a large tray and keep in the fridge to solidify. Once jellified, cut it in small cubes to put all around the dish, or make heart or flower shapes to decorate the plate.
Marcella Ansaldo