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Inspired by a recipe posted in a forum I frequent I decided to attempt this classic french dish for Father’s Day.   It’s a fairly lengthy process especially as I decided to mince the meats myself, so I gave myself the whole weekend to do it,  Saturday for Prep and Sunday for assembly and cooking.

All in all I was happy with the results,  although I did ‘break’ the terrine.   This means that some of the fat liquified out of the terrine.    I believe I had the cook temp up too high, so I have adjusted the recipe to suit.     Most of the seasoning/marinade ingredients weren’t measured but done to taste,  so I haven’t included measurements on everything

There was plenty of meat left over so I turned the rest into Sausages.

Recipe after the jump

French Country Style Terrine (Pate de campagne)

• 1 Kg Pork Belly
• 1 Kg Veal Shoulder
• 600g Pork Fat ( oooh yeah! )
• 2 duck breasts,  skinned and cut into strips
• 1 Kg bacon ( thinly sliced )
• 2 onions
• 4 free range eggs
• 200g pistachios
• A bunch of garlic shoots
• A bunch of Marjoram
• Sherry
• Marsala
• allspice

Marinate the duck with Sherry, Marsala, Allspice, Marjoram and some crushed chopped garlic shoots overnight.

Mince the meats,  making sure to keep them as cold as possible ( make sure bowls and mincer bits are all cold, can put in the freezer a few hours before ), put the combined meat into the fridge.     Dice the onions and some garlic shoots and saute in butter and olive oil until soft and golden.   Pour about 3/4 cups sherry and 1/4 cup Marsala into the pan and reduce it to about half.    Refridgerate this until cold.

Put about half your meat into a mixing bowl,  preferably from a machine with a paddle attachment.  The other half of the meat can be kept for another terrine or used for something else,  or just halve the amount you buy.    Pour in the onion mixture,  add some allspice, marjoram, 4 free range eggs and plenty of salt and pepper.     Mix the ingredients well, the mince should change slightly in texture as the protiens start to bind.

fry up a small ball of meat and taste it,  adjust seasoning as necessary.

Once you’re happy with it,  we can construct the Terrine.

Firstly layer a loaf tin with bacon so that it overhangs the edges.

Then 1/5 fill with mince and a layer of duck

Then another 1/5 of mince and a layer of pistachios

Then another 1/5 mince and duck

Then  another 1/5 mince and pistachios

Then 1/5 mince

Now fold  the bacon edges up over the Terrine to seal it off, and cover with foil, and press while you preheat the oven.

Preheat your oven to 150 C and put the Terrine in the oven in a bath ( about 1/2 way up the tin ) of hot water. It’s also very important at this stage to forget to take any more photos until cut and served. woops!

Bake it for about 2.5 hours or until an internal temperature of 70 C.

While waiting for the Terrine to bake feel free to try to catch tomorrow night’s dinner

Press the Terrine while it cools for several hours and the refridgerate.

Finally after all this hard work you can serve it.   Slice thinly and arrange on a plate.  Serve with crostini and pickled cucumbers.

Tags: french, pate, pork, terrine, veal