Easter terrine – keep stacking
Lots of posh chefs like to build their salads around a couple of slabs of goose liver or even duck liver. Then again: that stuff is really expensive and on top of that it’s most often grown in a very animal-unfriendly fashion. Why not use something just as smooth and firm and ever so tasty as an alternative building block? Terrine slices.
Terrines can be made of salmon (which is nice) or – again – liver (which I don’t like at all) but on this occasion I’ve chosen chicken and eggs. Makes sense really, because we’re getting close to Easter at the moment. Mind you, this recipe requires no gelatine whatsoever.
Boil 3 eggs for up to 10 minutes, “scare” them in cold water so they are easier to peel. Keep them whole. In the mean time, peel and finely dice a small onion. Heat some oil and soften the onion for about 5 minutes without really browning it. Leave to cool. Coarsely chop about 3 sprigs of parsley (or some other subtle fresh herb) and remove the crust of 4 slices of white bread.
Pre-heat the oven to 185 degrees Celsius or a bit less if you’re using a fan oven. Use a blender to chop 150g of grilled ham and 600g of chicken breast, together with the onion, parsley and bread. Also add a teaspoon of thyme leaves, some salt and pepper and 2 more (raw) eggs. Blend until smooth.
Line a cake tin with greaseproof paper. Scoop a little more than half of the chicken mixture in. Place those three hardboiled eggs on top, then add the rest of the chicken. Carefully try and remove all the air bubbles. Smoothen the top and cover it up with more greaseproof paper so it won’t dry out.
Half-fill a baking tray with boiling water (from the kettle), place the cake tin in the centre and put the tray in the middle of the now hot oven. Bake the terrine for about 50 minutes. Leave to cool and chill for several hours in the fridge, so you can slice the terrine quite finely. Very nice when added to a salad of cucumber and garden cress and maybe some grated mild cheese. Experiment with shavings of truffle instead of cheese if you want to turn it into something posh again for the Easter lunch party…
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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I’m not a fan of liver either so I had to try this recipe, it was easy to make and tasted great, but I would add that if I were to make this again I would do the following;
1. Grease the paper used to line the tin. It wasn’t so easy to remove once the terrine was cooked.
2. Blend the ingredients more, although it appeared to be well blended when i stopped, once cooked it was clear it needed a few seconds more.
3. Add more herbs, the flavours of the Parsley and Thyme were very subtle, I’d definitely add more of each next time.
All in all it was a great recipe for an alternative terrine, and my effort, which I had with a simple salad of Endive, Radicchio, tomato and cucumber is here…
