If It’s Fat You’re Craving, Try This Chicken Recipe

Call it a backlash, a craving for flavor, or just plain laziness. Whatever the excuse, people are lusting after fat again.

The percentage of consumers who cite fat and cholesterol intake as serious health hazards has dropped 6 points since 1994, according to The Food Channel, a trend newsletter from the Chicago marketing firm Noble & Associates.

And the proportion of restaurant diners who are thoroughly unconcerned with their diets when eating out grew from 32 percent in 1992 to 37 percent in 1994, according to a National Restaurant Association survey.

Trend analyst Faith Popcorn calls this phenomenon “pleasure revenge.” Popcorn, who heads a New York company called BrainReserve Inc., helps major companies market their products based on consumer patterns. She says people are tired of being scolded for their fat intakes and “want to cut loose again.”

What all this means is that it isn’t necessary to justify a recipe for Chicken Livers in Cream Sauce. It is rich. It is fattening. It is very delicious. If you’re going to cut loose and enjoy an occasional high-fat pleasure, this is the dish to make.

Chicken Livers in Cream Sauce

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 cup thinly sliced red baby onions (or 1/2 cup chopped shallots)

2 cups coarsely chopped mushrooms

1/2 pound chicken livers, lobes separated if necessary

1/4 cup dry red wine

1/2 cup beef broth

1 teaspoon prepared mustard

6 tablespoons whipping cream

Salt, freshly ground black pepper

6 ounces spaghetti, cooked and drained

Melt butter in large skillet. Add onions and mushrooms and saute over medium heat 5 minutes or until onions are limp. Add chicken livers and brown on both sides, about 2 minutes per side. Remove livers.

Stir wine into skillet over high heat. Scrape up any browned bits from skillet. Let wine evaporate by half. Add broth and cook over high heat to reduce by half.

Stir in mustard. Stir in cream and chicken livers. Reduce heat to low and simmer 5 minutes to heat through and finish cooking livers. Season with salt and pepper. Serve over spaghetti. Yield: 2 servings.

Orange and Onion Salad

2 large navel oranges, seeded if necessary and diced

1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion

3 tablespoons chopped cilantro

2 tablespoons white balsamic or other fruity white wine vinegar

1/2 tablespoon honey

Dash ground cinnamon

1/2 tablespoon vegetable or mild olive oil, optional

Arrange oranges, onion and cilantro on each of 2 salad plates.

Stir together vinegar, honey, cinnamon and oil in cup. Spoon half over each salad. Serve immediately.

Yield: 2 servings.