Silk-Smooth Duck Liver Parfait with Sauternes Jelly and Toasted Brioche

⏱ 150 min · Serves 8

A properly luxurious parfait: duck livers blitzed warm with butter and a reduction of Sauternes, port and shallot, then baked gently in a bain-marie until set like custard. Sieved twice for pure silk, sealed under a shimmering Sauternes jelly and served with hot buttered brioche. Make it a day ahead — it only gets better.

Per serving: 572 kcal · 14.0g protein · 21.0g carbs · 47.0g fat

Ingredients

• 400g duck livers, trimmed of any green or sinew
• 250ml Sauternes (or other sweet white wine)
• 75ml ruby port
• 1 large banana shallot, finely sliced
• 1 garlic clove, sliced
• 1 sprig thymes
• 300g unsalted butter, cubed, at room temperature
• 3 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• Pinch of ground white pepper
• Pinch of pink curing salt (optional, for colour)
• For the jelly: 150ml Sauternes, 1 tbsp caster sugar, 2 sheets (4g) leaf gelatine
• To serve: 1 small brioche loaf, sliced; flaky sea salt; toasted hazelnuts; cornichons or fig chutney

Method

1. Soak the trimmed livers in cold milk or lightly salted water for 2 hours (or overnight) in the fridge, then drain and pat very dry. This gives a cleaner flavour and better colour.
2. Put the Sauternes, port, shallot, garlic and thyme in a small pan. Simmer until reduced to about 4 tablespoons of syrupy liquid, roughly 10-12 minutes. Strain, pressing the shallots to extract everything, and discard the solids. Cool slightly.
3. Heat the oven to 130C/110C fan. Line a 1-litre terrine or loaf tin with a double layer of cling film, leaving plenty of overhang.
4. Warm the livers gently: put them in a bowl set over a pan of hot (not boiling) water and stir for 3-4 minutes until they reach about 45C and look grey-pink at the edges but are still raw inside. Warm livers are the secret to an emulsion that doesn't split.
5. Tip the warm livers into a blender with the eggs, the wine reduction, salt, white pepper and pink salt if using. Blitz on high for 1 minute until completely smooth.
6. With the blender running, add the soft butter a few cubes at a time until you have a glossy, pourable custard. Pass the mixture twice through a fine sieve into a jug, pushing it through with a ladle. Skim off any foam.
7. Pour into the lined tin, cover tightly with foil and sit in a roasting tray. Pour in hot water to come two-thirds up the sides. Bake 45-55 minutes, until the centre wobbles as one set mass and reads 63-65C on a probe.
8. Lift out, cool at room temperature for 30 minutes, then chill for at least 4 hours (ideally overnight).
9. For the jelly, warm the 150ml Sauternes with the sugar until the sugar dissolves (don't boil off all the alcohol). Soak the gelatine in cold water, squeeze out, and whisk into the warm wine. Cool until barely tepid, then pour a 3-4mm layer over the chilled parfait. Chill 1 hour to set.
10. To serve, toast thick slices of brioche in butter until golden. Dip a spoon in hot water and scoop generous curls of parfait, or turn the terrine out and slice with a hot knife. Finish with flaky salt, crushed toasted hazelnuts and cornichons or fig chutney alongside.