The Terrine Topic

[Baron d'Apcher]

What inspires you to make the elaborate patterns? Do you use a boiled water crust?

Hopelessly dated cookbooks, dinner party showmanship and classical sensibilities. Cold water shortcrust.

[Baron d'Apcher]

Pâté en croûte pendaison de crémaillère, Édition spéciale imposte.

Housewarming pâté en croûte, special transom edition.

Pistachio, pig's tongue, dried figs, pork shoulder, fatback, pig's heart.

New address.

Inside.

[Baron d'Apcher]

Donated to a DC At-Large Campaign. Was not there to see what the inside looked like, but there was an inlay of pork tenderloin. Sort of looks like Stewie after cooking.

Pork Barrel Degustation.

The Flavoring Candidates

Stately Pastry

Red #40 alive

[Dakki]

Lovely as usual.

It does kind of look like Stewie, though.

[dougal]

Ummm.

Dropped past this thread to admire the latest food pron from the Baron.

Came in at the top of the last page, and scrolling down, noticed this post from last year --

For those with experience using nitrite in pâtés, what percent of the meat portion is required to maintain a nice pink hue?

.25% nitrite of meat weight.

...

I beg to suggest that (as written) this sounds very very high. (2500 ppm nitrite)

However, using 0.25% of Cure No 1 (which itself contains only 6.25% nitrite) would give 156 ppm, which is exactly the US commercial limit for 'comminuted' meat products (which would include patés).

Using 0.25% of Cure #1 would be much better than using 0.25% of Nitrite !

[vice]

That was my question originally, and I did interpret Baron's answer to mean cure #1, not pure nitrite. Very important to point it out for others, though!

[Baron d'Apcher]

Pâté en croûte, special anniversary edition.

Extended family (cured shoulder, pistachios, fat back, currants, tongue).

Rehearsal.

Cutting the cake.

[piracer]

holy crap, amazing work. I doubt i could ever make pasty that looks as good as that!

Made my first head cheese - got a pigs head, oven braised it for 5 hrs with all the flavoring, shreded meat and bits of cartiledge. Sweated some finely diced onions and reduced all that gelatin from the braising liquid with some extra XO that was lying around. now its all in the fridge under weights, hopefully it'll turn out right!

[nolnacs]

That's absolutely beautiful. Did you use cutters to do the numbers?

[Baron d'Apcher]

That's absolutely beautiful. Did you use cutters to do the numbers?

X-acto knife, trial, error and patience.

Chicken Galantine: Special “I miss my sister; Venn diagrams channeled through Robert Delaunay’s “Joie de Vivre” edition”.

Chicken opus stuffed with fig, pistachio, fatback and foie & truffle mousse. Coated in chaud-froid, covered with peppers and shellacked with clear aspic. Golden booties.

Garnish of fluted mushrooms, whittled turnips and glazed radishes.

Bird-day afternoon

The Dr. Pepper is in.

Inside edition

[Blether]

I read to the end, and I'm still laughing about the windowless basement. Another tour de force. Please keep them coming.

[FrogPrincesse]

I can't believe that I have the audacity to post to this thread after the incredible Pâtés en Croûte and Galantine by Le Baron himself, but here we go...

I have been making a lot of terrines recently. My first attempt was about a year ago. At the time I made Pâté de Campagne with the recipe from Les Halles. The recipe is pretty standard in its use of pork shoulder, pork liver, and pork fat (2:1:1 ratio). The pâté is seasoned with allspice, parsley, garlic, shallots, white wine, and Cognac, and bound with an egg. It is wrapped in caul fat and cooked in a terrine (even though, in the book, the pate is shown wrapped in what looks like barding fat, which confused me to no end as I was trying to figure out what caul fat was supposed to look like). Anyway, I managed to find all the ingredients at my local butcher shop. The execution was simple but time-consuming. As I did not own a grinder at the time, I had to finely dice the 2 pounds of mixture with a knife, which was no small task for me. In the process, it was difficult (read: impossible) to keep the meat cold. But I did what the recipe said to do when grinding was not an option: "cut the pork into small dice, and hope for the best". In the end, it seems that pâté is quite forgiving so the result was fine. I thought that the pig liver flavor was a little too pronounced for my taste, so I decided to try another recipe in the future.

I had an occasion to make pâté de campagne again recently for the Charcutepalooza September challenge. This time, I followed the recipe from Anne Willan's Country Cooking of France. It's somewhat similar to the one from Les Halles. The meat to fat ratio is about the same (1.7:1 if I am doing the math correctly), but she uses escalopes in addition to the pork shoulder. Chicken livers are used instead of pig livers, and only a small amount (that would be 0.33 compared to the amount of fat needed in the recipe). I liked that change because chicken livers are much easier to find for me, and also because I did not want to taste of liver to overwhelm the pâté. Unlike the previous year, I had appropriate equipment available, and I used my new Kitchenaid grinder with a coarse die. I used the technique from Charcuterie and lined my mold with plastic wrap so I would not have to hunt for caul fat again (I like caul fat but very few places seem to have it available and when it’s available, it’s always frozen). Everything worked well and I was pleased with the end result. I would make that recipe again and maybe add some pistachios next time for texture and “visual interest”. We all liked the taste and my cat went completely nuts for it, which is odd because usually he is not into “people food”.

(to be continued)

[Baron d'Apcher]

I would make that recipe again and maybe add some pistachios next time for texture and “visual interest”.

for a more unctuous pâté campagne, consider adding 10% cold cream to the mix (by weight of the forcemeat).

[FrogPrincesse]

I would make that recipe again and maybe add some pistachios next time for texture and “visual interest”.

for a more unctuous pâté campagne, consider adding 10% cold cream to the mix (by weight of the forcemeat).

That sounds great. Unctuousity is a good quality and should improve spreading properties.

Thanks for the expert advice!

[FrogPrincesse]

After my success with pâté de campagne, I decided to move on to seafood terrines. The first recipe that got my interest was the Crab, Scallop, and Saffron Terrine from Charcuterie. The recipe calls for “8 leeks, green tops only”. Interestingly, my local Whole Foods only had trimmed leeks so I had to ask them to check in the back for untrimmed leeks. Who would have thought that the leeks would be the hard-to-find ingredient in this recipe! I bought 8 leeks and then blanched only half of them as they would not all fit into my largest pot. In the end I only used 1 or 2 leeks.

The terrine mold is lined with the blanched leeks. Then it is filled with a mousseline made with the scallops and saffron-infused cream to which lump crab meat is added. Since this was my first time making mousseline, I decide to substitute shrimp for the scallops as a cost-saving measure (but it was still an expensive terrine – I think I spent close to $50 in ingredients). No real difficulties with this recipe other than the fact that I was using a baby-sized food processor which was not the best tool for the job (a Cuisinart “mini-prep” processor). As a result, I had to prepare the mousseline in two batches. I probably should have cut the shrimp a little beforehand as the food processor overheated somewhat and a couple of shrimp pieces got stuck around the blade.

I was not really careful when filling the terrine so I ended up with a few air pockets as shown in the first picture. But the terrine still looked beautiful, with specks of color from the saffron and chives. It took about 2 hours to cook in a water bath and was easy to slice the next day.

A week later, I was invited to a party and decided to make this terrine again. This time I used scallops as specified in the recipe. I did not bother trimming the leeks into rectangles (I just used them "head to tail" instead) and used exactly 8 leaves to line the mold.

I served the terrine with an herb (chives, parsley) mayonnaise. It was even better than the first time and our friends raved about it. As most terrines, it’s a good recipe for a buffet as it can be prepared in advance. Active prep time for me is about 45 minutes so it’s also relatively quick.

[FrogPrincesse]

I made the Shrimp and Salmon Terrine with Spinach and Mushrooms from Charcuterie last week, for a potluck. The recipe first involves making a shrimp mousseline. Mushrooms are sautéed until soft; the spinach is trimmed (probably the most timed-consuming part for me; I used baby spinach which, at least, was pre-washed) and cut into a chiffonade. Mushroom and spinach are mixed with the shrimp mousseline. For the final assembly, the terrine is filled with 2/3 of the shrimp mixture, then a fresh salmon fillet is added in the middle, and lastly the top is covered with the remaining shrimp mixture. Cooking took about 2 hours in a bain marie in a low-temperature oven.

The terrine looks great thanks to the contrast between the salmon and the spinach & mushroom. It is a little difficult to cut because it has a tendency to fall apart. I made the mousseline in two batches and I believe that the egg white did not get distributed throughout, so some areas were easier to cut cleanly than others. The salmon tasted wonderful (I used wild king salmon), but for me the mushrooms really made the dish. It's amazing how little button mushrooms can develop so much flavor. The terrine is a little more "rustic" than the crab and scallop terrine, but I think that I preferred both its texture and taste. I guess that I like simple things! My husband, on the other hand, liked both terrines but preferred the crab & scallop version.

[nibor]

FrogPrincesse, your terrines look great! I am getting inspired.

nibor

[FrogPrincesse]

Thanks nibor, I am happy to hear this!

Making terrines is fun and a relatively easy way to impress your friends.

[Baron d'Apcher]

Pig's liver pâté.

Pastured pig's liver, belly, diced fatback, eggs, milk infused with warm spices and wrapped in bacon.

Hepatastically rich.

Livery delivery.

Bacon corset.

[Baron d'Apcher]

Pork and Quince Pâté en Croûte.

Berkshire pork, confit heart, tongue, cured loin, fatback and candied quince.

Object of desire.

The original forbidden fruit.

Wake & Bake.

Up to the eyes in quince

Conglomerate meat

[Baron d'Apcher]

Inlayed Berkshire pork pâté.

Berkshire pork with confit heart, tongue, fatback and quince. Inlay of cubic zaffronia and paprika wrapped in fatback.

[Dakki]

Impressive as usual, Baron. Big fan of your blog too, btw.

[avaserfi]

I don't know if this counts, but I recently made a honey terrine.

Tupelo honey, walnuts, dates and blue cheese inlay with a balsamic and bacon garnish around the terrine. Served hot.

[Mallet]

Very cool!

[Mjx]

I don't know if this counts, but I recently made a honey terrine.

Tupelo honey, walnuts, dates and blue cheese inlay with a balsamic and bacon garnish around the terrine. Served hot.

That's beautiful, it reminds me of amber: Would you mind elaborating on the recipe a bit? Was it served as an appetizer, or at the end of the meal?