It's terrine time again!

Some past glories to get you interested:

[Jenise]

Ah, I recognize those. Yours, mine and Les's, or is that George's Oxtail #2? Mine was a smoked duck breast terrine en croute with two kinds of crust. I'm up early, couldn't sleep. And the meat for prototype terrine #5 or is it 6 is thawing on my prep station as I type.

After all that work you should write the recipe down to share with fellow participants1

[Jenise]

After all that work you should write the recipe down to share with fellow participants1

What recipe? Seriously, I'm making this stuff up as I go. Guess what I'm doing today?

On the stove as I type in a cast iron goose cooker is a lamb galantine simmering in a mixed meat broth with roasted vegetables and a whole bottle of Blandy's madeira. I took a whole boneless leg of lamb and removed the best pieces, freed them of fat and sinew, then pounded them flat and tiled a tunnel terrine mold with overlapping slices. In the middle of that went a stuffing of finely ground lamb scraps, rice, bread crumbs, allspice, several peppers, several herbs, onions, garlic and pine nuts. Then up went the flap pieces and the whole thing was wrapped and tied with cheese cloth. I haven't a CLUE how this is going to work out, but sure would be nice with a Musar and an old Bordeaux, don't you think?

Do it, do it, do it!!

You'll get last serving position with the biggest and best flavours!

And write what you do down and it becomes....a recipe!

[Jenise]

And write what you do down and it becomes....a recipe!

Yeah, and that also means you have to measure. Jenise doesn't measure.

Say, here's a pic of the galantine simmering away in the Madeira broth.

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You can write down a recipe in the old way.

I did a bit of work on mediaeval cuisine on a thesis project and the recipes rarely used any measure other than 'a handful of..." or a pinch etc. Even if they did use a measure, it was usually a local one unknown outside the immediate area (No, when I said a tasse I meant a Dijon tasse, not a Paris tasse...)

They used a 'quantity of' or 'the size of a hen's egg (??)' or 'gills' (which varied in size).

Take a look at this site where there are 15 different sized definitions of a 'pound'.

http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~Marc-Carlson/history/measure.html

Even a vague recipe like that will give the ingredients and a good cook will come up with something similar to yours, although likely varying in proportions of ingredients according to differing tastes.

[Jenise]

Even a vague recipe like that will give the ingredients and a good cook will come up with something similar to yours, although likely varying in proportions of ingredients according to differing tastes.

Actually, in JeniseWorld, I pretty much did that with: a mixed meat broth with roasted vegetables and a whole bottle of Blandy's madeira. I took a whole boneless leg of lamb and removed the best pieces, freed them of fat and sinew, then pounded them flat and tiled a tunnel terrine mold with overlapping slices. In the middle of that went a stuffing of finely ground lamb scraps, rice, bread crumbs, allspice, several peppers, several herbs, onions, garlic and pine nuts. Then up went the flap pieces and the whole thing was wrapped and tied with cheese cloth.

Oh, the herbs were mint and rosemary.

I do everything in handfuls and pinches. But what one would need to be a lot more precise with here would be the method in which I prepared and applied the lamb, since it's my own idea and not documented anywhere else. You'll be impressed by how round the galantine is--I wouldn;t have dared hope for it to be that perfect. I'll take a picture and add it, as it's not been set in the aspic yet.

[Jenise]

Bill, here's what the bare cooked galantine looks like. Like I said, perfectly round. Because I formed AND cooked it in a tunnel mold, I expected one half to be perfect but the other half to be only vaguely roundish--too tall or flat on one side, rather like the moon through my astigmatism. I'd probably never get it this good a second time.

The color's a bit drab, but it's lamb cooked well done and that's unavoidable. The garniture (carrot and saffrone terrine with a mint & lemon gastrique) will fix all that.

[Jenise]

Oops! Forgot the pic, here it is:

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Looking good!

[Jenise]

Bill will post the whole spread in a new thread, but here's my final dish: stuffed lamb terrine, chopped madeira gelee, carrot-saffron mousse, pickled carrot ribbons with fennel seed, mint and scallion vinaigrette.

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Last week I made this mushroom terrine.

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I used Chanterelles , ceps and birch mushroom cut into cubes and mingled with chicken breast farce.

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Served on a salad with lambs lettuce, radicchio and oven dried cherry tomatos.

heinz - I like the green coating, it offers some optical relief and enhances the appearance IMO.

That is a beautiful thing, Heinz!

Heinz -

You get wonderful mushrooms! We rarely see beauties like that around here.

The terrine looks great.

[Jenise]

Heinz, your terrine's a work of art. How did you 'install' that green coating around the edge?

Heinz, your terrine's a work of art. How did you 'install' that green coating around the edge?

Yeah - doesn't that brighten it up a lot, visually?
I'd probably have warpped that terrine in a leafy veg (spinach or...) to get that effect but Heinz' terrine looks like it is coated in a puree of something.

Heinz, your terrine's a work of art. How did you 'install' that green coating around the edge?

I'll post the recipe, so you can see how I made it.

Mushroom Terrine

For the mushrooms
100 g ceps, cleaned and coarsely diced
150 g chanterelle mushrooms, cleaned and coarsely diced
150 g birch mushrooms, cleaned and coarsely diced
2 shallots (finely chopped)
1 tablespoon thyme, fresh leaves
The farce
350 g chicken breast, skinless
1 egg white (optional)
250 ml whipping cream
6 cl white port wine
Salt
Pepper
Nutmeg
2 tablespoons green parsley puree
For the marinade
200 ml strong chicken stock
1 teaspoon mustard, spicy (Dijon mustard )
3 tablespoons sherry vinegar
Salt
Pepper
1 pinch of sugar
4 tablespoons walnut oil
8 tbsp canola oil, first pressing
For the garnish
150 g lamb lettuce
2 heads radicchio Trevisano
12 cherry tomatoes

1. Fry diced Mushrooms with finely chopped shallots in a little oil and season with salt, pepper and thyme. Let cool down. Cut Chicken breast into cubes, season with salt and pepper and let stay in the freezer until the meat is partly frozen. Put the whipping cream also for some minutes into the freezer to cool down.
2. Mix slightly frozen chicken with the egg white and the cold cream in the kitchen Cutter (moulinex) to a smooth, glossy farce. Add port wine, season with salt, pepper and nutmeg and stir a few times.
3. Add green parsley puree to a portion of the farce and mix. Spread the green farce thinly onto a baking sheet in the size of the internal dimensions of the used normal terrine mold (incl. lid) and cook in the oven at about 130 ° C until the farce has tightened slightly and can be detached from the baking paper as a whole .
4. Line a lockable terrine mold with high temperature plastic foil and cover with this green chicken and parsley leaf.
5. Mix remaining stuffing with cooled down mushrooms. Fill into the terrine, and cover with the overhanging green farce leaf . Fold the cling film over and seal the terrine. Preheat oven to (120 ° C) and cook the terrine in a water bath for about 1 - 1 1/4 hours. Let cool down in the refrigerator for about 2 hours.
6. Wash and spin dry the lambs lettuce. Cut radicchio Trevisano into strips, wash and spin dry. Mix chicken stock, mustard, vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar, walnuts- and canola oil together to get the marinade for the salad. Add marinade to the radicchio and lettuce mix and stir .
7. To serve: 
Place salad on a plate, cut the cooled terrine into slices and add along with oven dried cherry tomatos.

[Jenise]

Thank you! That's a technique I've not seen anywhere else and can't wait to try it. I could tell from the photo that it woudln't have been a liquid fill, but it was too even to have been applied by hand after the center chicken/mushroom mixture had cooked.

The other day I've made a Foie gras terrine in a porcini mushroom farce covered with slices of a pyramid cake and served as a lolly. The wine with it was a 2009 Silvaner Ice wine Anselmann Pfalz

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I think you guys are going to have to fly Heinz in for the next terrine-athon, Bill. Those look great.

That lolly would be a perfect course for our events!

I am now contemplating what to do next year. Thinking individual quail galantines but doing a dozen boned quail is a lot of knife work....

This berry-yogurt-terrine was the desert course of yesterday's dinner.

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served on a red fruit sauce.