Christmas party recipes: Chicken liver pâté | Hot and cold smoked salmon and toasted sesame seeds mousse | Twice baked cheese and walnut soufflés with chive cream sauce

With the hectic Christmas and New Year period fast approaching, I thought that a few ideas for recipes which are delicious as well as convenient could well be helpful.

I have selected three favourites, one fish, one meat and one cheese. The meat one is for a chicken liver pt, and I can well imagine some of you thinking that such a pt is easily bought, and old-fashioned beyond retro, but my passion for this pt was revived, with brio, when my sister Milla made some. This is the recipe she uses, and with it is my recipe for sesame toasts, which are so good with all of today's recipes.

Chicken liver pt

SERVES 6, as a first course

4oz/110g butter

1 onion, skinned and finely diced

1 fat clove of garlic, skinned and finely diced

12oz/340g chicken livers, fresh if possible, stringy bits removed

small bunch of parsley

tiny leaves stripped from a sprig of thyme about 4in/10cm in length

1 teaspoon salt, about 20 grinds of black pepper

1 tablespoon brandy

Melt the butter in a wide saucepan, then pour half the melted butter into a small jug and keep it warm.

In the remainder of the melted butter in the pan, fry the diced onion and garlic over moderate heat, until very soft, about five minutes. Then raise the heat beneath the pan and add the prepared chicken livers, and stir until the livers have just "seized up", about two minutes' cooking time.

Take the pan off the heat, and put the contents of the pan into a food processor, with the parsley and thyme leaves. Season with salt and pepper and whiz, adding the rest of the melted butter and the brandy. Scrape the smooth pt into a small bowl, smooth the surface, leave to cool. When cold, cover the bowl with clingfilm and store in the fridge for up to two days, or freeze.

Sesame toasts

These can be made a couple of days in advance, but they must be cold before being stored in an airtight container.

6 slices of bread, this can be white, brown, granary or seeded, whatever you choose

4oz/110g sesame seeds mixed thoroughly with

1 teaspoon salt

2oz/55g butter, melted

Put a sheet of baking parchment onto a baking tray. Slice the crusts from the bread, and cut each slice in quarters diagonally, giving you triangles. Put the salted sesame seeds onto a plate.

Brush each bread triangle on either side with the melted butter - when melted, butter goes surprisingly far.

Press each buttered triangle on either side onto the sesame seeds then put them onto the baking parchment-lined tray, and bake in a hot oven, 400F/200C/Gas Mark 6 until the surface seeds look toasted. Check that those on the bottom look toasted, too, and if not turn over the triangles and bake for a further several minutes. As the bread triangles bake, they crisp up.

Take them out of the oven, cool on the baking tray then store in an airtight container. During the preparation and baking, inevitably some of the sesame seeds will fall onto the baking parchment. Don't worry, this can't be helped and enough stick onto the buttered bread.

Hot and cold smoked salmon and toasted sesame seeds mousse

SERVES 6

6 ring moulds 6cm in diameter each lined with smoked salmon

4 oz/125g cold smoked salmon

3fl oz/85ml double cream

4oz/110g hot-smoked salmon flaked into a bowl

1 oz/28g toasted sesame seeds

1 tablespoon lime juice

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Put the cold smoked salmon into a food processor and whiz till very smooth. Briefly whiz in the double cream, then scrape the contents of the processor into a bowl. Mix in the flaked hot smoked salmon, the toasted sesame seeds and the lime and lemon juices, which will cause the mixture to turn firm - the action of the citrus juices on the cream.

Divide evenly between each smoked salmon lined ring mould, and neatly fold the ends of smoked salmon over the top. Press down firmly on each - I use the round top of a small jar. Then, carefully lift the ring from each mould, turn each the other way up and put one mousse on each serving plate.

Serve, if you like, with roasted pistachios scattered around the edge, a few salad leaves, and a few drops of dill vinaigrette.

I make these up to two days in advance of eating. They are delicious, and so easy.

Twice baked cheese and walnut souffls with chive cream sauce

SERVES 6

3oz/85g walnuts, briefly whizzed in a food processor to the texture of coarse crumbs

thoroughly butter six ramekins then coat the interior of each with the coarse walnut crumbs

For the souffls

2oz/55g butter

2oz/55g self raising flour

pint/430ml milk

1 teaspoon English or Dijon mustard

6oz/170g grated good cheddar cheese, I suggest an Isle of Mull cheddar or, the other excellent cheese for cooking, from my home county, Lancashire

About 15 grinds of black pepper, a grating of nutmeg, about teaspoon salt - the cheese will contribute salt

4 large eggs, yolks and whites separated

For the cream

pint/285ml double cream mixed well with

a small bunch of chopped chives

Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour. Let this cook for a minute before gradually adding the milk, stirring all the time and adding the mustard, too. Stir until the sauce bubbles, then take the pan off the heat and stir in the grated cheese, the pepper, nutmeg and salt, and stir until the cheese has melted.

Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time, and leave the sauce to cool for about ten minutes. Then whisk the egg whites till very stiff and fold them, quickly and thoroughly, through the cheese sauce.

Divide the souffl mixture evenly between the prepared ramekins and bake in a moderate heat, 350F/180C/Gas Mark 4, for 25 minutes. Then take them out of the oven and cool them. Meanwhile, pour the cream into one ovenproof dish, and mix the finely chopped chives through the cream. Alternatively, you can divide the cream between six individual ovenproof dishes.

When the souffls are cooled, run a knife around the inside of each ramekin and shake each souffl out onto your hand. Put the right side up in the chive cream. Cover this dish with clingfilm and refrigerate for up to two days.

Before serving and to reheat, take the dish (or dishes) out of the fridge and into room temperature for half an hour, before removing the clingfilm covering and baking in the same moderate temperature as before, for 20-25 minutes. Serve, with a spoonful of cream. During their second baking the souffls will rise up, but not as loftily as once baked souffls soar.

This article was first published in The Scotsman on December 4, 2010