It takes guts

It takes some considerable courage to plunge your hand into the abdominal cavity of an undressed creature, scoop your hand round a gloopy mass of giblets, find and snap the trachea and gullet and then and pry it all loose and gently but firmly pull it out all in one go to spill out under your palm.

It's rare these days to even find undressed poultry and it takes a couple of goes to get practiced enough not to burst the lower intestine and make a putrid mess all over the sink.

But I'm pretty good at it now and can get it all out without carnage. And there, glistening and amid the coil of gut is the prize - duck liver.

Until you have made your own, it is impossible to imagine the hard won pleasure of fresh duck liver pate.

Some duck sauces call for the giblets to be used to make rich demi-glassed conconctions to accompany roast duck, but bugger that, unless you specifically want the giblets, they are mine.

Here's how to transform your handful of quivering, satiny offal into a small taste of heaven.

I didn't have any bacon in the fridge, so just left it out and put in some extra salt. If'n yer a local, you can get chemical-free pineapple-juice cured bacon at Cooroy Meats (near the IGA) which is an excellent excuse to take a drive into the now greening Hinterland hills.