The force feeding of ducks or geese required to prepare foie gras (French "fatty liver") is widely known and banned in some states. I was at a restaurant last night which offered "Chicken Liver Mousse." It was creamy, delicious, and quite reminiscent of foie gras. In fact, many chefs are turning to this as a foie gras alternative.
The only discussion I've found on this is from this Reddit post. Other sites' preparation instructions do not discuss initial chicken treatment to get such a liver texture.
I'm curious if chickens are force fed to marbleize their livers in much the same way that ducks are. Have we just transitioned from one bird to another?
Best Answer
There's no need to force-feed the chickens.
Chicken Liver Mousse is just a posh word for a smooth paté, with sometimes a bit of extra aeration.
For every chicken, there's a chicken liver. The world eats a lot of chicken these days, so there's a lot of chicken liver to spare. All you need to add is butter for the extra fat content & resulting mouth-feel.
At its simplest, it's chicken liver, lightly sautéed in butter &/or oil, added onion or garlic, herbs & spices, alcohol, cream etc to taste, then whizzed in a blender until perfectly smooth. It's often not really a mousse, as it's not really fully aerated, but extra aeration makes it tend further towards an actual mousse, which the cooling butter will attempt to hold in place. You could go further perhaps using gelatine etc to hold the mousse as it cools.