After the resounding success of my fromage de tête I’ve had many, many Puffins (well, Sir Percy and AlJunior) clamouring for more. Whilst slightly less adventurous here is my adaptation of various recipes for pork terrine. It’s perfect for those summer months we’re about to enjoy in lockdown lunacy.
Ingredients
- 1lb pork shoulder
- 1lb pork belly
- 10oz pork liver
- 6oz unsmoked rindless streaky bacon
- 3 garlic cloves
- Fresh chopped sage leaves
- Fresh chopped parsley leaves
- Fresh thyme leaves
- 2 oranges
- 6tbsp cooking brandy
- 2tbsp black peppercorns
- 2tbsp juniper berries
- 1lb rindless smoked streaky bacon
- Cornichons
Take the skin off the pork shoulder and belly and reserve for making crackling. Chop the belly, shoulder, liver and unsmoked bacon into small pieces.
Take half the shoulder, belly and unsmoked streaky bacon and all of the pork liver and use a food processor to make as smooth a pork paste as you can. A word of warning, there’s quite a bit of meat to process so do it in little batches so as not to overheat the motor of your food processor as we did first time round.
The liver adds a lovely earthy flavour as well as helping make a smooth paste.
Then take the rest of the shoulder, belly and unsmoked bacon and pulse this into the pork paste. The idea is to have a few larger pieces of coarse meat evenly mixed through the paste in order to give the terrine a bit of texture.
Transfer the mix to a bowl and we can start to add the seasonings. Juice and zest the oranges, chop the sage, parsley and thyme.
Add the brandy making sure you taste it just to make sure it’s OK.
Crush the garlic and chop into small pieces. Use a pestle and mortar to crush the juniper berries and black peppercorns into small pieces and add them to the mix. Once all these ingredients are mixed in cover with cling film and stick the bowl in the fridge for the night.
Now comes the fun part. Grab a terrine mould or loaf tin and line with cling film. Now take the smoked streaky bacon and stretch each rasher with the flat back of a knife so the rasher is thinner and longer. I sometimes place a few sage leaves in a line on the bottom of the mould for decoration. Line the tin with the pieces of streaky bacon so that they cover the whole area but also have an overhang of bacon down the outsides of the tin.
This is so once the terrine mix has been added the overhanging bacon can be folded over on top of the mix to form a “lid”. Now fill the bottom third of the mould with paste and press the mix firmly down to make sure there are no airholes. Add a couple of rows of cornichons to the top of the mix.
Then fill another third of the mould with terrine mix. Add a second set of rows of cornichons then fill the rest of the mould and fold the overhanging bacon onto the top of the terrine.
I make quite a lot of terrine at a time so I ended up with three separate terrines last time I made it. The time has come to cook the terrine. Place the terrine moulds into a baking tray and pour an inch or so of boiling water into the baking tray.
Cover this with tin foil then place in an oven at approx 150°C. Cook for a couple of hours or until cooked. I use an old meat thermometer we got with a Christmas turkey once to test the middle temperature of each terrine to make sure it’s done. Pork needs to be 71°C to be safely cooked.
Once this is done remove the terrines and place weights on them to compress the meat. If I’ve done more than one I usually place one on top of the other then add weights to the top of the terrine tower. Allow to cool.
The terrines should just drop out of the mould, but if necessary use a spatula to ease them from the tins and remove the cling film liner. Get ready to serve with a decent bread.
I wrap any extra terrines I’ve made in tin foil and freeze them for later.
© text & images Captain Black 2020
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