Wednesday 30 August 2017

Game Terrine

Mixed Game Terrine


I consulted several recipes on the internet for game terrine and although they had differences in content and method, they all followed a general pattern. Some chefs added sausage meat or force meat, others did not; some layered the force meat and the game in several layers and some just laid it at the bottom of the terrine (which becomes the top when served) and on top. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall lightly fries the strips of pieces of game before adding to the terrine; John Torode does not. John Torode adds white wine; Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Woman's Weekly favour red.

Chefs also disagreed in their choice of herbs - it's thyme for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Nigel Slater and Woman's Weekly (the latter adding rosemary as well); rosemary and tarragon for Gordon Ramsey; sage for the Hairy Bikers; and sage and tarragon for Jamie Oliver. Gordon Ramsey and James Martin also add cream.

There seems to be a consensus that meat, garlic and brandy are the essential ingredients!

For my traditional Christmas pork paté de campagne I usually use a spice mixture including coriander, nutmeg, cloves, ginger and cinnamon but I decided to keep it simpler for this game terrine.

My advice would be to follow the basic pattern and method and use whatever ingredients you want or whatever is available.

Basically for a 1.5 - 2 litre terrine or loaf tin you will need around 1 - 1.5kg meat plus 300-400g sausage meat and 300-400g chicken or game livers. I could not find any game birds locally so I used a mixture of chicken and duck with some venison.

Using roughly the above quantities, I managed to fill two 1 litre containers - a loaf tin and a new porcelain terrine that I had received as a present.


My porcelain terrine includes a weight for pressing down the meat when cooked.




 and a lid for storing the finished article.


If you are using a normal loaf tin, you can cut a piece of cardboard or plastic slightly smaller than the tin, cover with foil and place on the finished cooked terrine and weigh down with jars or cans until cool. or if you have two loaf tins of similar size which fit into one another



you can place one on top of the terrine when cooked and weigh down with kitchen weights or jars or cans* (see below)




So here is my recipe..................

Ingredients
4x duck breasts - total 500g
300g Venison steaks
500g pork belly
250g chicken breast
12 rashers of smoked streak bacon
375g sausage meat
380g chicken livers
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 tsp whole allspice
1 tsp juniper berries
1 tsp whole black pepper 
1 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp chopped fresh tarragon
Leaves from 2 sprigs of fresh thyme
2 tbsp brandy
100ml dry vermouth
50mls chicken stock
1 egg
1 -2 slices of bread
Salt

Method:

Start preparations two days before you want to eat the terrine.

Remove the skin from the duck and reserve. Remove the skin from the pork belly and discard.

Roughly chop the duck skins and add with the chicken livers and half of the sausage meat to a food processor and process until smooth. Grind the allspice berries and peppercorns, chop the tarragon and thyme, chop or mince the garlic and add to the processed chicken livers with half the pork belly, one of the skinned duck breasts, and a quarter of the chicken breasts and pulse chop till you have a lumpy mixture.  Add one egg, lightly beaten, two tablespoons of brandy, 100mls dry vermouth (or white wine or dry sherry) and the remainder of the sausage meat, a handful of breadcrumbs and stir.  If the mixture seems too wet and sloppy add some more breadcrumbs.  This will be your forcemeat. 



Put in a bowl covered with cling film and leave for 2 - 3 hours or overnight in the refrigerator.

After the forcemeat has marinated, take the venison steaks, chicken breasts, remaining duck breasts and pork belly and cut into long strips about 1 cm wide.

Lightly grease your terrine dish with butter or oil. Take the smoked bacon and beat lightly with a rolling pin to lengthen. Lay the bacon across the terrine, widthways overlapping the sides.  (With one of the tins, I laid the bacon lengthwise along the bottom and sides and similarly on top when I had finished)



Add a layer of force meat to the terrine and lay strips of the meat lengthwise. Add another layer of forcemeat and then a layer of meat.



You can make as many or as few layers as you wish but always start and finish with forcemeat. Always push down as you add the forcemeat as you don't want to leave air pockets.

When the terrine is full, fold over the bacon so the contents are fully covered.
If there is a gap, lay more bacon to fill.



Heat the oven to 160°C (150°C fan oven).  The terrine needs to be cooked in a bain marie. You will need one (or two) deep baking tins, large enough for the terrine to fit in comfortably. Cover the terrine with foil and place in the baking tin. Add boiling water to the baking tin to come halfway to two thirds up the terrine, and then place in the pre-heated oven for two hours.

For  best results you need to press the terrine as it cools. Remove the foil and press down with cardboard or plastic covered in foil or the weight (see above*). Pour off any excess fat.
Leave the terrine to cool in the bain marie, then remove and keep weighted down in a cool place for several hours.  

When cool, remove the weights, slide a knife around the edge of the finished terrine, invert on a plate and lift the tin. If the finished terrine doesn't slip out easily, place the terrine dish in hot water for a few minutes and try again.  It should slip out easily.

Place the finished terrine in the fridge until needed but remove from the fridge one hour before you want to eat it.  You should be able to slice it with a sharp knife.





Serve with crusty bread, a green salad and pickles or chutney.  Pickled gherkins and redcurrant jelly are good accompaniments

The terrine will keep for a week in the fridge. It can also be frozen and will keep, frozen for a couple of months.  If it has been frozen, defrost overnight in the refrigerator and take out one hour before serving.


John Austin

August 2017, Hove









Friday 18 August 2017

OUR ALLOTMENT - Life on the Weald - June 2017

The Weald June 2017


On our return from holiday we were pleased that our potatoes at Mile Oak had made good progress and should be ready for lifting next month.



But sadly all of our purple kale and cavolo nero had been totally destroyed by snails or slugs.  And later in the month the same fate came to most of our squashes.

Undaunted we cleared an area to plant out the French beans which we had grown in seed trays and pots at home.

Meanwhile back at The Weald, things were looking good.  The broad beans had delivered a heavy crop and were eaten on an almost daily basis and the freezer was filled to capacity.
As a result, we hadn't picked them all at their best and we were about to go on holiday.

 Coals to Newcastle!

We picked all the remaining broad beans,shelled them and took them with us to Spain! We were not sure how edible they would be as the outer skins were quite tough as you can see



- but we removed the outer skins, to reveal fresh bright green beans within




- and now we have a plentiful supply in the freezer in Spain



Towards the end of the month the garlic was ready for harvesting.


The beetroots are coming along nicely


 The seed strips seem to have paid off as both the carrots and parsnips look healthy...




.....and the potatoes are doing well.  We have had our first lifting of the Charlotte earlies and they were delicious. 



Earlier in the year we had sown some peas which Toby and Jane had saved from their crop in Northumberland last year - unfortunately we don't know what variety they are but they are obviously suited to Hove as they cropped well and were delicious too.


We will certainly look out for a late cropping variety and sow during the summer for an autumn crop.

In view of our friend Maurice's success in growing tromboncino in West London last year we have set up in competition and sown some from seed.  I have erected a frame to grow them over.


And if you haven't seen a tromboncino before, here is Maurice's effort last year....


I have also constructed a frame for our Spanish pepinos, ridge cucumbers, which we are growing from seed brought home from Spain. 



We are also trying to grow pimientos de padron from seed and they will be ready for planting out soon.  

Our cavolo nero, chard and perpetual spinach are looking good and ready for picking - they are great cut and come again vegetables and might last through the autumn. Some years they have gone through the winter.  The purple sprouting broccoli is looking strong and healthy and hopefully will provide a plentiful supply next March if we can protect it from the pigeons.

And we have also managed to save some redcurrants and raspberries from the bindweed at Mile Oak 






I have some autumn leeks in one of the raised beds, some grown from seed and some from plugs and they will soon be ready for planting out.  My next task is to lift a row of potatoes to make room for them.

It looks as though July will be a busy month..

John Austin

Hove June 2017

OUR ALLOTMENT - Life on the Weald (and Mile Oak and Neville!) May 2017

May 2017


The year has not progressed as well as we had hoped. Two minor operations put me out of action for a bit in the early part of the year and this delayed some of the heavier physical work needed, including getting the shed up. Before we got the half-plot at The Weald we had been co-working Luke and Nicole's half plot at Mile Oak where there is a shed. As they now have a half plot at Neville, the idea was to give up Mile Oak but as we haven't yet managed to erect our shed at The Weald, we aren't able to clear the one at Mile Oak, so I started cultivating there again with crops which, fingers crossed, will be ready before autumn. Meanwhile, Luke has broken his ankle and is out of action so we are minding his plot at Neville too! Hopefully we will be sorted by the summer.

We have managed to plant garlic and shallots and sow some broad beans, beetroot and spinach at Neville and put in a couple of rows of potatoes. But the dry April weather has been a problem as we haven't managed to get up to water as often as needed. We did plant out some squashes there just before we disappeared for another break at the end of May....

Squash plants on Neville
and we have cleared a patch and planted some purple kale, cavolo Nero and potatoes at Mile Oak.

Mile Oak, 2 rows of potatoes planted


We have sown quite a few seeds indoors which are now hardening off in the garden at home and we had arranged for them to be watered whilst we were away, but May has been so wet it hasn't been necessary!

We have some French beans in trays which we can hopefully plant out in June and some courgettes and outdoor cucumbers in pots which hopefully we can plant out early June.

Before going away in May we did manage to plant out some cavolo nero and early purple sprouting broccoli at The Weald and to sow some carrots and parsnips. I have never been lucky with these in the past, so this year I decided to buy packs of seed strips, which are slightly more expensive but hopefully worth it. It looks as if the investment has paid off.

Our potatoes are coming along nicely. They had a bit of a setback because of the April drought but have now been well watered by our neighbours while we were away and are back to life.

We have also harvested our first broad beans at The Weald



and it looks as though we will have a bumper crop this year - so we need to make some room in the freezer.

Luke is very fond of his squashes but because of his ankle had not sown any. Fortunately, I saw an end of line offer at Sutton Seeds for "plugs" at 99p for three and went a bit over the top and bought a whole load for Luke and me to share. Under Luke's supervision we have planted several varieties on his plot and I have potted up the remainder ready for planting at The Weald when I get back.

I bought three different varieties of patty pan squash, dark green, light green and yellow. And we have three other different squashes - we will see later in the year if they look anything like the catalogue pictures (below) or live up to their reputation

Uchiki Kuri -



A teardrop-shaped Japanese squash. They say it's easy to grow and has a sweet and nutty flavour. Uchiki Kuri is supposed to set around four 1.5kg fruits per plant. We'll see if they live up to their reputation! They are said to be hardy and drought-tolerant;

Honey boat -

- which is advertised as "easier to grow, more productive and sweeter than a butternut squash" and said to produce "super sweet fruit with firm, deep orange flesh". It's claimed that they also keep well throughout winter; and

Crown Prince -

which is claimed to be an allotment grower's favourite. The blurb says "it has a nutty, honey-like depth and smooth, pudding-like flesh making it a superb choice for roasting". It is also one of the most long-storing of all squashes.

I have planted some patty pan squashes and a Crown Prince at Mile Oak as well as pumpkin.

Off to Samarkand. Fingers crossed that everything survives until we get home

John Austin

Hove, May 2017