SC - Livyre Puddings (chicken liver pate)

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Morgan Cain wrote:
> 
> > FWIW, not having immediate access to either source you mention, I'd bet
> > money the eggs aren't raw by the time this mixture is put into sausage
> > casings and boiled...
> 
> Good thought, Adamantius, but I didn't see such a step in the recipe.  You
> just make the paste, no further cooking once the items are smushed together,
> and I didn't think the hot chicken livers alone would be sufficient to cook
> the eggs.  Overall, except for being "sweet" instead of "savoury," the
> recipe sounds a lot more like chopped chicken livers.  That's why I worried
> about the eggs, but there doesn't seem to be any ill effect from leaving
> them out.
> 
>                                 ---= Morgan (who spent FAR too long
>                                           standing in checkout lines today!)

No, no ill effects, but given that there is also (presumably) raw hog
suet (i.e. unrendered lard, possibly ground or chopped), for which you
have substituted rendered chicken fat, IIRC, I'd strongly suspect that
instructions to stuff this mixture into casings and simmer until firm to
be sort of implicit. At least one other cookery source somewhere on my
shelves has a whole slew of such recipes, and only the first in the
series actually bothers to describe the process of putting the stuff
into casings and boiling: for that time and place, the fact that the
term "pudding" is used implies the process. A modern example of this
kind of thing might involve, say, a meatloaf recipe that doesn't
actually specify to form the mixture into a loaf and bake it until done
to your taste... it's pretty much accepted that that's what you'll do.  

On the other hand, there are the various baked puddings from late- and
early-post-period, but those recipes tend not to include suspiciously
raw ingredients, generally.

Given the limitations built into your Lent/Passover scenario, it makes a
fair amount of sense to do as you've done, even if I might not do it
that way myself every time. 

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com