On this page, I would like to share a recipe for homemade Danish Liver Pate or Leverpostej as it is called in Danish. Danish liver pate is probably one of the most traditional Danish food that you can serve together with the Danish rye bread.
Homemade Danish liver pate is mainly based on pork liver and pork fat and then some extra ingredients like onions, eggs, milk and flour. Making a homemade liver pate is super simple and does not require any professional cooking skills.
The ingredients for Danish liver pate
As just said, making a homemade liver pate is actually easy. I can only imagine that the most difficult part is to get a hold of the ingredients. In Denmark bigger supermarkets always have raw pork liver and pork fat on stock in the freezers.
See also: How to make a Danish Hotdog
Outside Denmark, you might be able to find these ingredients at your local butcher. None of the ingredients are that special but you still might need to order them in advance from your butcher.
If you know how to find raw liver and pork fat in your home country, I am sure other people would like to hear from you in the comment section below.
Danish Liver pate and Danish rye bread
The best way of serving this liver pate is together with some Danish rye bread, some crisp bacon and some pan fried mushrooms. You can serve a Danish liver pate hot or cold. However, I absolutely prefer my liver pate hot on a slice of rye bread. If you are looking for a recipe for Danish Rye Bread then I have two recipes here on my blog - an easy version and a traditional version. If you have never tried danish rye bread below I suggest the easy version.
Another way of serving liver pate is on a slice of white toast bread. This is especially popular during Christmas time.
When talking about Christmas, a Danish lever pate is a mandatory part of a Danish Christmas dinner together with Danish roasted pork with crackling, Danish red cabbage and Danish Apple Pork.
You can find recipe for a lot of very traditional Danish food here on my blog, just click the traditional Danish section.
Recipe for Danish Liver Pate
Making some homemade Danish liver pate is actually easy. The first thing you have to do is to prepare the pork liver, pork fat and the onions. This is done by running the three ingredients through a meat grinder minimum two times. This will make a nice liver, fat and onions mixture.
Now add eggs, milk, all-purpose flour, salt and pepper.
Mix all the ingredients well together. That is it - this is how easy it is to make a Danish Liver mixture, now we only need to cook it in a water bath in the oven.
Transfer the liver pate to two rectangle foil trays and place them in a large ovenproof pan. Fill the oven pan with water so that the water level reaches the middle of the foil trays. This water bath will make a good heat transfer from the oven to the liver pate.
Now bake the liver pate at 175 C (350 F) for about 35 minutes. The baking time might vary a little due to the size of the foil trays, which might be different from case to case. The core temperature should be around 75 C (176 F).
You might measure this core temperature the first time and then note the total cooking time for the future.
Ingredients
- 500 g raw pork liver
- 250 g hard pork fat (like pork fatback or leaf fat)
- 2 onions
- 2 eggs
- 2 dl milk
- 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
Instructions
- Use a meat grinder to grind the raw pork liver, pork fat and onions into a uniform mixture.
- Add the eggs, milk, flour, salt and pepper and mix it well with the lever mixture. The liver mixture is now ready to be cooked in to a delicious liver pate.
- Pour the liver pate into two or three foil trays
- Place the foil trays in an ovenproof pan and fill the pan with water until the water level reaches the middle of the foil trays.
- Bake the liver pate at 175 C (350 F) for about 35 minutes. The core temperature should be around 75 C (176 F) when it is ready to be served. If the liver pate takes too much color on the top, you can cover it with some aluminum foil.
Notes
Zohra Weiss
Hi! I don’t eat pork, and I’m hoping to try this recipe, but with veal liver. Do you have any suggestions? I’m not sure what to use in replacement of the pork fat.
Cheers!
Kim Nielsen
Hi. I've never tried this recipe with other ingredients than pork liver and fat. However, I can only imagine that it would also be great made from veal liver and veal fat.
Poul Wennerberg
Try a Danish chicken liver pate if you don't eat pork pork. It not quite the same, but close enough:
300g chicken liver
100 .ml olive oil
1-2 Tbsp all purpose flour
200 ml milk or cream
1 whole egg
1 small onion
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp ground pepper
1 pinchallspice
Mix it all in a blender until you have a fluid, homogene paste.
From here fllow the recipe on is website and serve and with a slice of pickled beetroot instead of mushrooms and bacon.
Kim Nielsen
That sounds delicious. I would have to try that one day :-) Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Nikol Lohr
Thank you so much for this recipe! 25 years ago, I made some new friends on a train to Roskilde. They gave me a place in their tent during the festival, and we spent an afternoon with one of the boy’s grandparents, who lived nearby. They served a homemade pâté I have longed for ever since. This was before general internet use, so I couldn’t email them and beg a recipe like I could today. This is the closest I've had since, and I was delighted! I briefly pureed half the batch because the texture I remembered was smoother than what my grinder produced. Both versions are lovely. Now I’m off to buy some mushrooms, to try it with bacon and mushrooms, as you’ve suggested.
Kim Nielsen
That is a nice story. I happy that you have finally found a recipe which can bring back you memories. :-) The texture of the pate is personal matter. Some like it completely smooth and some like it more coarse.
Kjeld Hylfelt
So happy to have found this website!
I have made a few leverpostej in the past few years following recipes very close to this one. For many years it was almost impossible to find pork fat at my grocery. When I did get pork fat, it nearly killed my poor food processor and was labor intensive due to a lot of clean up. I found the pork fat from my butcher difficult to work with and I needed to improvise. I hope you will not think this to be heresy, but... I had collected bacon drippings in a container in my refrigerator for use in other recipes. I used this rendered fat in place of store bought lard. I found the taste to be quite good without burning out the motor of my food processor.
Other than being non-traditional, can you think of any reason NOT to do this?
Kim Nielsen
I happy that you like my blog and my recipes. It's comments like yours that makes me want to continue the work on my blog :-)
Bacon liver pate - that is totally a thing! You can buy this in almost every Danish supermarked. I can only imagine that you homemade pate with pork fat is very similar :-)
Natasha
In DK the leverpostej never lasts too long! but I’m wondering if you have tried or had success with freezing two of the trays to eat later? I’m wondering if the consistency is changed, f.eks. becomes grainy?
Kim Nielsen
Yes you can easily freeze the unbaked leverpostej. Just pour the leverpostej into the foil trays, bag them and keep them in the freezer. I've done that before.
Jonathan Gress-Wright
Does pork fat mean lard? Where I live lard typically comes in buckets or jars and is already quite soft and spreadable; this recipe seems to assume something that is tougher and must be ground up first. I haven't seen anything like that in my local supermarket. What kind of pork fat should I be looking for exactly?
i have a recipe for leverpostej that calls for equal parts chicken livers and pork fat. That seems like a lot of fat but what do I know?
Kim Nielsen
I understand the confusion - I have not been that good at explaining this part in the recipe (thanks for letting me know - I'll update the recipe now). You should use 'hard' pork fat and not lard. In Danish we call it 'svinespæk' where I believe the best english translation would be 'pork fatback'. Leverpostej is almost always made from pork. Of course you can add chicken liver but then it is not the traditional Leverpostej. The traditional Leverpostej sometimes calls for 50/50 fat and liver - I think this is too much fat. I perfer 2/3 liver and 1/3 fat. I hope this explains it.
Lill'
Hi Kim
Just wanted to tell you that when people order Kidney Fat, they will get the lovely hard fat.
Cheers from Tropical Queensland, Australia.
Lill' an ex-patriot Dane
Kim Nielsen
Hi Lill. Thanks for your comment. I happy that you would like to share. I'm sure a lot of people can use this information.
Louisa
Hi Kim, it seems there is a lot of confusion to the fat used. I live in Ontario, Canada but my parents we Danes.
I had trouble with my mothers recipes because she wrote everything in Danish which I couldn't translate. So I was especially happy to find you blog.
The pork fat I find in the grocery store is called cured salt pork. It comes in 1/2 pound packages wrapped in clear plastic wrap. It resembles a small piece of whole bacon. It you can't find this next to the pork liver ask the butcher in your store or use 1/2 pound of bacon. as for freezing, I bake it first in a regular loaf pan and when cool cut it into four then wrap in plastic wrap cover with tin foil and freeze. When thawed it comes out perfect.
Kim Nielsen
Thanks for this great tip! I'm sure it can be very useful for many people.
Kevin
Married to a Dane for 48 years so I've been eating this every Christmas season for over 50 years.
I inherited the making of the pate from my in-laws. I do add chicken liver in a ratio of about 1 part liver, 1 part fat and 1/2 part chicken liver. I know it is not "traditional", but I find it makes for a smoother slightly lighter pate. I also grind the liver and fat 1x course, add the liquid and then 2x fine. It is a personal taste for it to be smoother. I make 7-8 small loaves and get to keep only one!!!
I get the fat from my grocery store butcher. I has a lot of meat on it, so when I trim it off, I get enough ground pork for Frikadeller!
Kim Nielsen
It is actually common to use different ratios of liver and fat. You just find what you like the best and then use that :-) Chicken liver, I've have to try that some time!
Chris S Doles
two comments that might help from my Danske Mor. pork liver is difficult to find even sometimes at a butcher. Asian markets almost always have it right in the case or nearby in the freezer, 'H Mart' or any larger asian market with a decent selection of pork or beef should have. tip two, our family recipe uses half beef, half pork liver (gasp!). but it's the best of both worlds, beef liver more flavorful and intense but still the fatty silkiness of the pork. tip 3, we use 'side pork' for the fat component which is essentially partially or uncured pork belly as I understand it, it's sometimes labelled as 'salt pork'. also ok but adjust he salt added if so!. in a pinch plain pork belly has plenty of fat and all of these are at a normal grocer. My mom's recipe also uses star anise. Also, I agree in terms of consistency it's a personal choice but i've been able to obtain a somewhat course, 'country' pate consistency even with a food processor since i don't have a grinder. it smells and looks so gross! but once cooked, yum...