freezing chicken liver mousse???

[siduri]

I do a big christmas party every year with many many dishes, for about fifty people - a whole meal including turkey and many many side dishes.  Among the appetizers i make a chicken liver and apple mousse (like julia child's chicken liver mousse but with apples cooked in with the livers) (sautee shallots and apples, then add livers, thyme, salt and pepper, add clove or allspice and remove liver from pan, deglaze with brandy (ideally apple brandy, but i use a little apple juice and regular brandy) and then blend in blender with some cream cheese and i add a little cream to make it a little easier to blend, not having a food processor). 

My question is, since i work two full days full time morning to night to prepare everything, if i could do this in advance and freeze it.  I never dared, afraid it would ruin the texture, but thought i would ask.  It's one of the most popular things i make so i don;t want to ruin it. 

Thanks

 

[chefross]

Yes you could freeze the pate but I'm not sure about the cream cheese part as, I know it does not freeze well. Could you substitute egg white for the cream cheese?

 

[chefedb]

Siduri  !  It will indeed affect the texture, making it a little grainy and sometimes runny(I think it's the dairy part). You could do the whole procedure leaving out cream cheese and cream then  blend that in after thawing, It should yield same outcome .

 

[siduri]

Thanks for your quick replies, ChefRoss and EdB.  I was having these suspicions about the cream cheese.  I wonder, however... one of the recipes i used to make this hybrid recipe used melted butter instead of cream cheese.  Could  it  work freezing it with butter instead of cream cheese? it seemed excessively rich with butter, but i could go back to that in exchange for having one less extremely messy procedure to do on the day of the party or the day before, when i cook two full days straight. 

ChefRoss i don't get how egg white could substitute for cream cheese.  Would it be cooked?  this recipe calls for cooking the livers with the shallots, but then the rest is blended and put in the fridge.  Which, i guess, is why it's a mousse and not a pate'?  Apart from safety (much less of a problem here with salmonella than you have there, still i wouldn;t want to get 50 people sick!) raw egg white is pretty gross.

Ed, about freezing without the cream cheese and then adding it later, do you mean freezing the cooked livers and then defrosting them  before blending in the blender with the cream cheese? 

If, instead, I blended it to a smooth paste, froze that in small pkgs for quick defrosting, and then mixed cream cheese into them would the plain liver paste tend to also become grainy?  I suppose the cream cheese would sort of bind it together in that case, if added later.  

OK, to make it clearer, my questions are

1. freeze cooked livers before blending, defrost and then blend all to puree in blender with cream cheese?

2. substitute butter for cream cheese, and freeze finished mousse?

3. substitute egg white (raw? beaten? cooked somehow and how?) for cream cheese then freeze finished mousse?

4. puree livers and all ingredients except cream cheese, defrost, and mix cream cheese into the puree?

I know i could make up a little batch and test it, but really i barely have time to do what i have to do, and am hoping someone has some direct experience with this.  I want to try to have one less messy process to do on the day of or the day before the party.

thanks lots

Siduri

 

[chrisbelgium]

Siduri, I made a liver mousse quite some time ago, but never froze it. I also think there's always a danger the result will turn out grainy. Although, it's perfectly possible to freeze terrine of foie gras...

I made mine with butter only, maybe less chance to go wrong, as butter is also perfectly freezable?

Start by cleaning the livers and... soak them a few hours in icecold milk (add icecubes!). This will get all of the blood out and get rid of the possible "funky" taste, you know what I mean.

Sweat shallots, then sear livers on high fire. Pour some portwine in the pan (and why not sweet marsala).   The livers still need to be a little pink. Then they go in the food processor with around 50-60% of that mass butter.

But, no guarantee wether this can be frozen without consequenses.

 

[bazza]

I freeze them and never have a problem, however I only use cream and butter for the dairy part. I think your recipe might give you problems with the acidity from the apples and the cream cheese. If you have time could you try a small batch and see how it freezes?

 

[homemadecook]

Siduri  !  It will indeed affect the texture, making it a little grainy and sometimes runny(I think it's the dairy part). You could do the whole procedure leaving out cream cheese and cream then  blend that in after thawing, It should yield same outcome .

This is also what am I trying to suggest.
 

 

[chefross]

Siduri, my comment about using egg whites consists of blending all the raw ingredients in a blender BEFORE baking the mousse. The egg whites are a sub for the cream cheese and is a binder for the mousse.

 

[chefedb]

Freeze, thaw, add any dairy, then blend and serve

 

[siduri]

Thanks Ed.  I'm wondering if it will work with butter instead of cream cheese.  My hope is to do the entire thing ahead of time since the blending is the most annoying part of it, since i can only do a little bit at a time and i make a large souffle dish full.  But it would at least help a little to cook the livers first. 

Chefross, I don;t bake this mousse, the livers are cooked, then blended with the cream cheese. 

 

[chefedb]

Mousse is never baked unless it is En-Croute. Which is a different preparation altogether

 

[chrisbelgium]

There's however a method where you can blend icecold eggwhite -a bit at a time- in raw liver, roll that in cling film in sort of a sausage or big bonbon, and steam it.

It's not livermousse, more like liverwurst.

 

[chrisbelgium]

Siduri, how about just frying nicely seasoned small pieces of liver and put them in the middle of cold small risotto balls mixed with some egg to bind, and deepfry ("suppli" in Italian, I believe)? The Italians will kiss you, no dought.

 

[siduri]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the suggestions.  My problem is that I want to do LESS work at the last minute, not more.  I'm not looking for a chicken liver dish but am looking for a way to avoid having to do all the preparation for the mousse at the last minute, when i have a million other things to do (I do this whole meal alone, everything from scratch, so i need to streamline the last two days when i cook morning to night.  There are about 10 dishes or more i prepare).  So if i don;t want to be blending livers and cream cheese on the last day, i certainly don;t want to be forming and then frying small suppli at the last minute!!! help!  They sound good, and resemble a risotto my mother used to make, but not what i do for my christmas party. 

Also i'm more interested in getting people to taste things they would never try normally.  I want them to say, "APPLES with CHICKEN LIVERS???!!! That sounds disgus.... hmm, hey, not bad"