Every time I’ve read Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl to the kids, I keep thinking that I should recreate Doughnuts Smothered in Liver Paste. To be fair, doughnuts aren’t really my style. But my husband, a serious sourdough baker, was happy to help. And the kids ended up taking one for the team.
Contrary to what we learned growing up, the livers and saturated fat give us plenty to love: a wide variety of vitamins including the fat-soluble vitamins, and improved regulation of hormones and mental health. The doughnuts, not so much. Except that everyone does.
Farmer Bunce
Farmer Bunce; Fantastic Mr. Fox
In Fantastic Mr. Fox, three farmers try to catch a fox that has been feeding his family off their farms. They manage to shoot off his tail, yet he escapes back down his hole. While the farmers watch over the foxes hole, planning to starve him out, Mr. Fox tunnels to the farms. He outsmarts the farmers and feeds all the underground animals of the woods forevermore.
Bunce, one of the three farmers is a duck and goose farmer. “His food was doughnuts and goose livers. He mashed the livers into a disgusting paste and then stuffed the paste into the doughnuts. This diet gave him a tummy-ache and beastly temper.”
My kids have heard me say this as many times as we’ve read this book, but since I have a new audience here: Despite what modern culture condones, to be sure, the tummy-ache and bad mood are obviously from the doughnuts and not the liver. But whatever.
Metabolic Syndrome, etc
Robert Lustig, expert pediatric endocrinologist at UCSF, confirms this. In his fantastic lecture, The Bitter Truth, Lustig explains biochemically how sugar and high-fructose corn syrup (which are identical metabolically, half sucrose/half fructose) are the culprits behind our most common diseases, including:
- heart disease
- lipid problems
- hypertension
- type 2 diabetes
- dementia
- cancer
- polysystic ovarian syndrome, and
- non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
(If the 90-minute lecture is too much for you, here‘s the 12-minute summary.)
Lustig even singles out donuts as the confounding variable in the confusion over saturated fats! When we originally studied heart disease, we did not separate these two variables (sugar and fat) and accidentally implicated the wrong one. Oops!
Cheers to 40 years of misguided nutrition policy!
Doughnuts Smothered in Liver Paste
That said, if you also like to live dangerously, Doughnuts Smothered in Liver Paste may be just the recipe for you!
Any poultry livers will do. If I had access to goose, I would definitely use those. Any other mousse or pate recipe could serve in place of the buttery Liver Paste. And yes, of course, the doughnuts are made with sourdough, fried in lard. We do the best we can.
Note that according the Fantastic Mr. Fox, one dinner serving for Bunce would be six filled donuts (chapter 8). I would recommend the inverse: six servings of Liver Paste per one doughnut. 😉 But feel free to make it your own. Enjoy!
Doughnut Hole with Goose-Liver Paste
Doughnuts Smothered in Liver Paste
Ingredients
For the Liver Paste
- 8 T butter, divided
- 1 lb poultry livers, cleaned of connective pieces or dark spots
- salt
- pinch of allspice
For the Doughnuts
- 28 g sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 c milk (50 g)
- 225 g flour
- 70g young sourdough starter (fed night-before)
- 3 T salted, melted butter
- 1/4 t salt
- butter or coconut oil for greasing baking sheet
- 2 c lard or coconut oil
- 1T cinnamon per each 3 T sugar mixed in a bowl for dusting (to taste)
Instructions
For the Liver Paste
- In two batches, heat one to two tablespoons butter in a pan over medium-high heat. Add half of your livers and cook for just two minutes on the first side and another minute or so on the second side. They should still be reddish pink inside (as they will continue to cook while blending). Tip these into a food processor and repeat with another tablespoon of butter and remaining livers.
- Add the remaining butter to the pan over low heat until it has melted. Add melted butter to food processor, along with the salt (start with 1 teaspoon and taste for more) and allspice. Blend until well combined. Optionally, push through a sieve for a smooth creamy paste!
For the Doughnuts
- Using a stand mixer, beat eggs and sugar until fluffy, about 5 minutes (#6 setting on stand mixer, whisk attachment).
- Change to dough hook on stand mixer. Add flour, sourdough starter and milk. Mix for 7 minutes on #2 setting. Dough should be pulling away from sides.
- Remove from mixer, allow to rest for 5 minutes
- Melt butter in pan, add butter and salt to bowl and squeeze dough between fingers to work into dough. Knead by hand for 5 minutes.
- Remove from mixing bowl, place in a clean bowl and allow to rise for 2 hours. (Might not rise much here, that is ok.)
- Place onto a buttered/oiled baking sheet and press down/out to spread the dough to fill the pan (similar to making focaccia). Place in a large plastic bag or cover in plastic wrap and allow to rise another 2 hours.
- Using a doughnut shaped cutter or two cups of varying sizes to cut doughnuts directly out of the dough on the baking sheet. Remove doughnut.
- Heat lard or oil in high-sided pot on stove to 350 degrees. Fry doughnuts on first side until browned/done to your liking. Flip to fry alternate side. Continue until all doughnuts and doughnuts holes are fried. (Use a larger width pot that will allow for multiple doughnuts otherwise you will be frying for a long time frying!)
- Immediately after frying, while still hot, toss doughnuts or doughnut holes into cinnamon and sugar mixture. After, allow them to rest in a paper bag or on a plate to cool.
- Smother with Liver Paste. Enjoy!
This recipe brought back memories from my childhood. I grew up in Kaunas, Lithuania and donuts with meet filling were a special treat! I remember women selling them (they were called Spurgos) piping hot from their little street carts. Now when I think of it, the meat filling tasted a lot like liver pate. They were scrumptious!
Aurelia, thank you for sharing such a special memory! Those sound delicious!