Meat Pie - Poultry Stuffing

When I was a little girl (don't all childhood food stories start like this?), my mum would make stuffed chicken every other Sunday (the other one would be schnitzel or something similar). We used to love this one. Even my dad, who is not a chicken fan would help himself twice. Now that we don't live together any more, our Sunday traditions naturally disappeared. But after learning about Anna´s annual Festive Food Fair event, this little story glimpsed in my mind
immediately.

I decided to re-create this baked mish-mash that I learned it from my mum, who learned it from her mum… Traditionally, we use it as a chicken stuffing. But since it is such a big hit back home, people tend to make enormous amount of it, use a part of it as a stuffing and the rest, they bake in a separate dish to be sliced up as a :

MEAT PIE :
(mäsový koláč)

prep time : 1 hour
serves: 4 people

• 10 bread rolls (the older the better)
• 200 g chicken liver
• 3 eggs
• 100 g butter
• Salt, pepper
• Parsley
  

Cut rolls into 1 cm thick pieces and soak in water (alternatively milk) for about half an hour. Drain and squeeze the remaining liquid out. Meanwhile, chop the liver or blend in a blender. Chop fresh parsley. Separate egg yolks from egg whites. In a bowl, mix soaked rolls, liver, parsley, egg yolks, half of butter, salt and pepper. Whisk egg whites until thick. Carefully add to the mixture. It should be fluffy.
Grease a baking dish with butter and place the pie in it. You can put some butter slices on top. Bake at 180 degrees for about half an hour. When it starts to harden, place more butter slices on top, so it melts and leaves the pie crispy.

As mentioned above, you can also use it as a poultry stuffing (great idea for Thanksgiving turkey, too). In this case, cut the amount of butter in half. Poultry will grease the rest well.
For a change, use pork liver instead of chicken.
Beef liver is a bit hard, though.

Serve with pickled jalapeño or pepperoni, pickled cucumber and some nice wine.