Thread: Venison liver pate recipe ( as requested )

So here is my Venison Liver Pate recipe.

There are no particular amounts or measures really given as it depends on taste and how much or how big your liver is.
But in this case I'm referring to just over half of this spikers liver.

First shoot a deer without damaging the liver.
Extract liver and recover all the other meat. Or as much as you can carry.


Venison liver does not improve with age.
I like to do this within the first 24 hours if able.

Remove membrane from liver. A bit like removing the skin from fish.
Feed this to hunting dog.


Membrane removed


Now cut into about 1cm thick slices and cover with milk in a bowl.
Mix it around so the milk is even through the liver.
Refrigerate for at least 3 hours or even overnight.
Mix it around occasionally.


In a decent sized frying pan add plenty of olive oil and butter on a low heat.
Fry one large chopped onion , 3 or 4 cloves garlic, 6 fresh bay leaves and a handful of fresh thyme.
Low heat until onion and garlic are glassey but not over browned or burnt.
Remove the bay leaves before transferring the contents to a food processor.


Drain liver from milk mixture.
Give bloody milk to hunting dog as treat for helping find the deer previous evening.
Place frying pan back on heat and add more butter.
Batch fry the liver.


Fry maybe 3 minutes each side and check for it to be not still purple inside but not over cooked.
I check every piece by holing in pan with tongs and catting into thickest pert to see colour.
You will see if the center is still raw and give a little longer.
But important to now cook too much.
Remove to food processor with previous onions etc.
Add a little more butter to pan for each batch.


Once last liver is cooked and removed to food processor.
Add a generous amount of cooking brandy or cooking whiskey .... not the good stuff.
And flame off the alcohol.


Reduce heat and add a generous amount of cream and reduce by about half by volume.
Stirring constantly and picking up all the browned on cooking yummys.


Add this to all other ingredients in food processor.
Add one teaspoon salt, one teaspoon sugar and a huge grind of fresh black pepper.


Blitz up well in processor.


Now I pass this processed mixture through a sieve using a bread making scraper and done over a large bowl.
This is a bit of extra work but you will be delighted with the result and it freezes much better when done this way.


It will pass through slowly and you will be left with a whole lot of stuff inside the sieve that is mainly blood vessels and membranes.
Do this in batches and discard the rubbish left in sieve into dog bowl.
The very fine grade pate will accumulate on the outside of sieve and can be scraped off into your bowl.
Once its all done feed the dog again with those scraps.


Now I fill a large container to use fresh and some small ones for freezing.
Add a generous grind of black pepper to the top and refrigerate before use.
It tastes pretty yuk when its warm fresh from being done, so you will have to be patient.


Now the last step is to clean up all the mess you have made in the kitchen before you are in the shit with the "kitchen Nazis".
This stuff sticks to everything in the kitchen like glue.


Now you can enjoy your very own pate.
I have done this so many times I just don't even need to think about what I am doing.
You will get very good at it.
You can drop the part using the sieve if you want to make it easier ... but its considerably better if you take the time to master this technique also.

Bloody nice on toast and all the usual pate receptacles.
You will start to look at live deer as "venison liver pate on the hoof".

Wife does Goose Liver Pate - also Beef and Chicken - and Venison of course
Venison Livers as we all know are alway great condition (apart from a few I saw in Perora Central N Island -with TB )

She has read and says she uses Carrot & Oinion 50/50 and same volumn of this cooked down as Liver you are doing and cook the liver in same pan as oinion and carrot been cooked in.
Bay leafs better to place 1 leaf on bottom of jar fresh and half a leaf on top.
If Bay leaf cooked it destroys its natural flavour.

Shes says men in this country appear better/more interested cooks than women
Thumbs up for you from her !!!

tagged this

Bloody nice, thank you for sharing

Awesome, will give it a go next time I get a liver.

Thanks for the good pic,s/description ..next deer that gets shot im going to follow your recipe , top bloke

God damn, thank you sir for sharing, think I might be whipping up a batch when a liver comes handy....