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Pâté de Campagne

Pâté Grandmère

English Pork Pie

Pork Terrine with Pork Tenderloin Inlay

Venison Terrine with Dried Cherries

Chicken Galantine

Chicken Stock

Roasted Duck Roulade

Pork Pâté en Croûte

Pâté Dough

Aspic for Meat Terrines

Veal Terrine Gratin

Shrimp and Salmon Terrine with Spinach and Mushrooms

Maryland Crab, Scallop, and Saffron Terrine

Salmon Pâté in Basil Cornmeal Crust

Aspic for Seafood Terrines

Grilled Vegetable Terrine with Goat Cheese

All Night Tomatoes

Avocado and Artichoke Terrine with Poached Chicken

Headcheese

Pâtés and terrines, broadly speaking, are essentially big sausages cooked in some sort of mold, either earthenware or porcelain (en terrine), in dough (en croûte), or in skin (as in galantines and ballotines). Without a mold, they’re meat loaf. (In this chapter, we use the words pâté and terrine interchangeably. Technically, though, terrine is short for pâté en terrine.)

Pâtés made of meat and fish date to antiquity. They remained popular from the Middle Ages up through the 1900s, and today they continue to be a part of restaurant cooking but are largely neglected in the home kitchen.

We tend to associate pâtés with French cooking because French haute cuisine showed how special they might be, given some care and finesse (compare the elegant pâté en croûte with the workman-like English pork pie, for instance). In America, though as with so much French-inspired haute cuisine, pâtés became somewhat debased and misinterpreted by cooks who didn’t understand what the greatness of the pâté was all about—a smooth suspension of fat in meat, beguiling spices, forceful seasoning, and a dynamic appearance. Americans in general have the impression that a pâté is a meat spread or a liver spread, or that it must include foie gras. While foie gras can make a pâté of the highest order, in the hands of the right cook, chicken and salmon make equally exquisite pâtés. In France, pâtés, en terrine and en croûte, are available at markets everywhere, very much a lively part of culinary commerce. Here, while not uncommon at restaurants serving French bistro fare, pâté is a rarity, available mainly at specialty markets. But there are indications that it’s returning in popularity as more chefs offer their own pâtés at their restaurants. And now the pâté, like so many great dishes nearly lost, may be ready for a resurgence in the home kitchen.

The only special equipment you need to make a pâté en terrine is a meat grinder or food processor, depending on the type of pâté. As a pâté can be shaped into a log, wrapped in plastic or cheesecloth, and poached, you don’t even need a terrine mold, the porcelain or earthenware vessel in which a pâté is traditionally cooked. Moreover, because a pâté must be made well in advance of serving, and serves a lot of people, it’s a great dish for entertaining, either set out on a cutting board with some mustard or sliced and served as an opening course. Leftovers go beautifully with salad and some good crusty bread.

And a pâté can be very inexpensive to put together, especially if you use trimming and/or inexpensive meats (one hallmark of a talented chef). If you already have the spices in hand, a pâté de campagne serving ten to fifteen people can be made for less than $10.

Basic Pâté Technique

While a pâté is not always an emulsion, often the fat is distributed evenly throughout the meat so that it’s present without calling attention to itself. Even in pâtés in which the fat is coarsely ground and distinct from the meat, care must be taken to maintain the suspension by keeping your bowls, grinder or processor bowl, blades, and ingredients cold. Otherwise, the fat may liquefy and melt out of the pâté. This is especially important in pâtés that are pureed in a food processor. You may not believe this until you pull a terrine from the oven and see it shrunken and floating in a pool of clear fat, the fat and meat having separated. It is edible, but