Thursday night we had the pleasure of going to our good friends Tobi and Mandy's house for dinner.  It was one of the nicest dinners I've had in quite awhile - thank you guys for such a great meal!

The following day was Hans (Ross's little brother) birthday, and we have a tradition where I make a ton of spaetzle for his present.  There is quite a lot of bacon in this particular spaetzle recipe, and the bacon inspired me to make a classic 1950's hors d'oeuvres called rumaki to bring along to the party.

Legend says that rumaki is a Polynesian dish, although I highly doubt this.  Basically, rumaki is bacon wrapped chicken liver and water chestnut.  My Mum assures me I ate these a lot when I was younger, but I have no memory of this.  I began by rinsing my chicken livers.

Next I made a quick marinade out of soy sauce, sesame oil and fresh ginger.  I marinaded the livers for an hour or two, but I suspect longer would be better.

Now simply open a can of water chestnuts, cut the liver into smaller pieces and wrap in bacon.  I used half a piece of bacon per water chestnut/liver pair.

I ended up ditching the toothpicks because they kept splitting the water chestnuts.

Once assembled place them in a 425 degree oven for 10 minutes or until the liver is cooked and the bacon is crisp.  I figured I should test a few in case a messed up this incredibly complicated recipe.

After their time in the oven these guys were crisp and the liver was cooked.

The livers had really taken on the flavour of the marinade, especially the ginger.  And the bacon added a lovely fatty crispness, but to my surprise the water chestnut in the center was the real highlight of the bite.

The water chestnut added a really lovely, clean satisfying crunch and gave the bite a really wonderful texture.

I think these are definitely birthday party worthy, if not an unorthodox choice before a big feed of spaetzle.