If you want to impress with your culinary skills I always feel that a terrine gives good bang for your buck.  The perfect terrine is not so much difficult as time consuming to set and therefore in this world of instant gratification many just can’t be bothered attempting to make one.  When a terrine is turned out onto a plate it is always very impressive with its layers of colour and uniform shape.  It is a fabulous picnic food but also works well as a starter or summer lunch dish.  A few slices of fish, chicken or duck terrine served on a bed of greens with some crusty bread creates a very satisfying meal.   It has many advantages; you can make in advance and it will hold for about a week in the fridge, so you don’t have to eat it all at once.

As with most popular restaurant-y foods that are considered sophisticated, terrines began life as humble French peasant food.  They were a way of using up leftovers and preserving meat.  They provided a hearty meal, could be eaten cold, were handy for transporting in lunch boxes and had a long shelf life.  It was ideal food for French labourers and was perfected by the ordinary French housewife long before chefs got hold of it.  Because of its origins there are thousands of different terrine recipes and once the basics have been grasped, it is also an easy dish to adapt and make your own so feel free to experiment.

I always feel terrine of anything is quite an adult dish and sometimes you have to develop a taste for it.  It can be heavily textured and chunky or smooth and spreadable like many pates.  It can have a mild taste or be quite spicy, herby, meaty and earthy.  Game pate and terrines are, in my view, a particular acquired taste but once you find the T-spot as I like to call it, you won’t look back.  Regular readers will know that I also like to bring my own twist to things and so I have adapted the idea of the terrine to work for accompaniments and desserts as well as being the main event.

While the word terrine is associated with the food it is also the name of the vessel used to create it.  A terrine is a long, relatively shallow, glazed earthenware dish, sometimes covered, but if you have a loaf tin it will work just as well.  The other thing to remember with terrines is that you are working upside down.  When the terrine is turned out what you put in first will be on the top, rather like an upside down cake.  We also want our terrines to be relatively solid so that they will slice well and not disintegrate disappointingly at the mere look of a knife.

So let’s start with an easy one. For a great salad accompaniment and one that makes the buffet table pop, how about a ridiculously easy beetroot jelly terrine.  Lightly spray a loaf tin with oil or line it with cling film.  Take a jar of beetroot and drain.  Line the loaf tin with the beetroot and then make up three quarters of a pint of blackcurrant jelly, with a full 1 pint jelly.  Pour it over the beetroot and leave in the fridge to set overnight.  When you turn this purple wonder out onto a plate it is like a gloriously big shiny jewel in the centre of your buffet spread. (Or you could tell the kids it’s a liquidised Barney; the fantasy of parents everywhere!  I’m just teasing, Barney is great and I have no wish to hurt an inch of his royal purpleness!)   This terrine slices easy and the sweet jelly sets off the beetroot really well as a salad dish.

The same principle can be used with summer fruits and other fruit jelly for a great fresh dessert.  I find the frozen berries work really well for this, but fresh raspberries and strawberries are equally as good.  A few slices of kiwi and grapes also add colour.  Just pour the bag of defrosted berries into the base of the loaf tin or the chopped fresh fruit.  Again make up three quarters of a pint of jelly and pour over the fruit and allow it to set.  By using less water in the jelly the terrines will be less wobbly and will create more solid slices.

When it comes to meat terrines it is all about flavour and making sure you give yourself time to let it all develop.  Some recipes require that you marinate the meat mixture in a wine and herb mixture for at least a day before you cook it.  After cooking there is also the pressing of the terrine to create the solid loaf which can take, in some recipes, another 48 hours.  So you see this is where the time comes in.  You can also be very creative with terrines.  Elegant French restaurants layer herbs decoratively in the meat or put surprises in the centre to create that interesting wow factor when it is sliced.  Traditionally, less expensive meats such as fatty pork or wild game birds such as grouse and partridge were used but these days restaurants are likely to use duck, goose and even fish.  I recently enjoyed a lobster and whiskey terrine as a starter and it was delicious.  Some cooks use chicken and vegetables or even cheese in their terrines.  Finally terrines are usually cooked in a bain-marie.  This is where the loaf tin is put into a roasting tray and hot water (but not boiling) is added around the loaf tin, about half way up.  This keeps the loaf cooking consistently all the way through.

Below is a recipe by Shannon Bennett that I found in his great book My French Vue.  I’ve used this recipe countless times and it always works out well.  If it’s your first attempt then stick to the ingredient list but as you gain more confidence you can always adapt the ingredients according to taste or, indeed, whim. 

 Chicken Terrine

600g (1lb 5oz) chicken thigh meat, diced

400g (14 oz) chicken breast, minced

1 tablespoon finely chopped shallots

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

2 teaspoons salt (I always use Maldon)

2 tablespoons finely chopped tarragon

200g (7oz) chorizo sausage, diced

2 tablespoons goose fat

Freshly ground black pepper

12 slices smoked bacon rashers, rind removed.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 160 C

Combine the diced and minced chicken, shallots, garlic, salt, tarragon, chorizo and goose fat in a bowl.

Mix by hand until fully combined.  Season with pepper.

 Arrange the bacon slices in a terrine mould (loaf tin) about 2 pints (1 litre) capacity, covering the bottom of the mould evenly, with the ends of the slices hanging over the edges.  Put the chicken mix into the mould and pack down using your hands.  Fold over the bacon and press it down tightly.

Cover with tin foil.  Put the mould into a roasting tray and add water to reach halfway up the side of the mould.  Put in the oven to cook for 80 minutes.

Remove from the oven, allow to cool.  Put into the fridge with a heavy weight on top of the foil and leave for 24 hours.  Turn out, slice and serve with crusty bread.

I was a bit of a philistine when it came to pate.  Smooth or rustic; it really didn’t matter and was largely ignored on my list of food priorities.  In my younger years I thought it was a little girly.  Why dabble with a perfectly good hunk of liver which went very well with a pile of onions, was my general attitude.  Creating a paste to spread on a dry cardboard cracker was an unnecessary and cumbersome exercise.  I also have a sneaking suspicion that I have an early poor association with pate, but I can’t seem to locate the memory.  Maybe I tried it as a child and found the taste too rich for my unrefined, junior taste buds and subsequently steered clear of it for years.  Or maybe as a shy teenager I was forced to stuff a pate covered ritz cracker under the sofa, into a plant or into a pocket to avoid eating such a dodgy canapé thrust upon me by an overzealous aunt or cousin at a family gathering.   Suspicious looking canapés were a signature of Irish gatherings in the late seventies and early eighties and pate seemed to be very much favoured by the new and emerging sophisticates who had discovered French cuisine.  Those mavens leading the vanguard of this French food revolution misguidedly suggested that this was all about stretching us and learning to be as refined as the Europeans.  For the Europeans in question pate and terrines were a way of creating and preserving nutritious and inexpensive food.  Offal would have been the bits that were discarded or sold at low cost or as animal feed.   Making a nutritious and delicious pate was an inexpensive way of making this meat stretch.

Now I love pate, what a difference a decade or two makes.  When hunting for a quick late night snack it can be very satisfying to take a packet of crackers, a hunk of pate and a glass of wine or port, if possible, and indulge.  If I feel like cooking I might even go to the bother of making toast. 

My mind was changed as a student when I encountered a French girl who was in Ireland to improve her English.  When she suggested that pate was one of her favourite foods I found myself nodding in agreement and suggesting that I would be willing to share some.  Given her honeyed tones, olive skin and the heavily accented English, had she suggested that fried cats’ testicles were her pleasure I would probably have agreed to try those too and offered to harvest some for her!  Yes, men really are such simple, fickle creatures.  Fortunately her obsession was with meat pate.  Being the son of a butcher I had an endless supply of the main ingredients.  Looking back I wonder if I should feel used in that maybe she only wanted me for my meat.  Whatever the case, my taste buds truly benefited in the exchange and I developed a taste for pate.  I often look back fondly on those days of cheap port consumed with exquisite pate on Jacobs cream crackers while sitting on the floor listening to some awful French pop singer on a tinny cassette player.  I wish I could tell you they were beautiful moments of youthful trysts with legendary French singers providing the score to these epicurean pleasures but it was the complete opposite.  However, the lessons in pate making may as well have been from Raymond Blanc himself.  What this girl could do with a two ring burner, an old frying pan and a tiny fridge were quite remarkable.

As with many such encounters of youth I have long lost touch with the person but her pate making lessons never left me.  It is a skill I have always enjoyed having and particularly as it was learned and acquired in such pleasant circumstances.  I regularly buy artisan pates but every now and then I indulge in making one of my own.  Molded up in pretty dishes, pate makes a great food gift. If you perfect the art of pate making and create a good recipe you might even find the odd person requesting it.

So what makes a fine pate?  Well I have long since dispensed with the idea that there is such a thing as a perfect pate.  Cake baking is an absolute science, mess with the basics and your cake will either turn out brick like and hard or too soft and will sink and crumble.  Pate making on the other hand is of a much more robust nature.  It allows and accommodates creative freestyle ingredient choosing.  Pate can be as fancy or as plain as you like and most are much easier to prepare than you might expect.  You can also use different alcohols from brandy and champagne to port and sherry.  Just free your imagination and your taste buds will truly appreciate the effort.  And don’t be afraid to experiment with the crackers either. The inspiration for this article came while working last Saturday one of my customers was telling me how hard it was to get chicken livers and this is true.  I was delighted to be able to tell her that available all the time at James Whelan Butchers we have 1lb tubs of frozen chicken liver if you ask any of the butchers.

 Try something new this week. I always welcome you comments and feedback.

Chicken Liver Pate

•500 g Chicken livers

•1 clove garlic chopped

•2 rashers bacon chopped

•50 g butter

•1 onion finely chopped

•2 tbsp chopped parsley

•3 tbsp sherry

•3 bay leaves

•150 g clarified butter

•salt and pepper

Using your large knife, remove the heart from the chicken livers and cut off the white sinews.

Heat a large frying pan. Add the chopped bacon and fry for about a minute.  Add in the  onions and garlic and fry for about another 2 minutes. Add the 50 grams of butter and toss the contents in it.

Add the chopped chicken livers. Stir and fry for 7-10 minutes, tossing occasionally.

Add in the parsley, sherry and season with salt and pepper. Then remove immediately from the heat.  (This is where you can be quite creative and use spices or other seasonings)

Spoon the mixture into a blender and blend until smooth.

Spoon into a bowl and smooth it on the top. Lay decorative bay leaves on the top and then carefully pour over the clarified butter. Set aside to cool for 1 hour if you need to serve it soon. Or you can cover it with cling film and place in the fridge.   Once opened, it will last 2 days.

A little like clothing, the great thing about food these days is that anything goes really.  Our purest attitudes to meal times and the type of food suitable to certain times of the day and special occasions have largely been put aside to cope with our busy and varying lifestyles, beliefs and pursuits.  Breakfast was and still is one of the most important meals of the day, and for some the only meal.  These days we tend to forego the value of a good breakfast and to our detriment trade it for extra minutes in bed.  Breakfast provides the first fuel for the day ahead and should never be underestimated as a foundation for great health.

Many people have dinner in the evening.  With the main work day over it is a relaxed time to come together with family or friends, break bread and reflect on events.  It is a time when many families catch up, share news and even air grievances.   Formal studies have found that families who get around a table and share at least one meal together every day function better than those that don’t.

Lunch is possibly the trickiest to get right.  Sandwiched neatly between breakfast and dinner it requires the right foods; food that gives energy for the afternoon but doesn’t cause a desire to sleep.  The definition of lunch changes at the weekends or on days off, when it can contain the very best dining experience of them all.  I have recently found that long, drawn out lunches at weekends and days off are particularly appealing. 

But Sunday lunch remains a firm favourite.  It’s perfectly acceptable to make a stab at a sophisticated, European experience for a Saturday lunch.  Various bean salads or rocket and spinach based fish dishes or pretentious risottos accompanied by rustic, crusty breads are all very well on a Saturday, but Sunday lunch is all about a roast.  And what better opportunity for a real Sunday lunch with all the trimmings than Easter Sunday.  Beef, chicken, turkey, lamb – or any joint of your choice; even the mere thought of a roast dinner gets the juices going.  Yes it requires work, but the result is worth it and the memories you are creating are priceless.

Some cooks favour chicken, others consider it a non event unless it is beef and then there is lamb, which still has the power to divide and polarise.  Some people love the smell of lamb cooking while others couldn’t even stand the thought of it.  Traditionally it is the joint of choice for Easter, but it really is a matter of individual taste; there are no rules.  While the meat forms the centrepiece, the gravy is hugely important.  Potatoes play a large part, with some even serving them in several forms.  It’s never surprising in Ireland to find mashed potato, roast and even croquet potatoes on the same plate.  If serving beef, a cook could stand or fall on the quality of the accompanying Yorkshire pudding.  Singles and couples tend to be greatly disadvantaged when it comes to roast dinners.  It is certainly a lot of work for just one person and even for two it is difficult given the quantity.  Just like the Turkey at Christmas, the key is having enough recipes in your repertoire to deal with the leftovers to justify cooking a joint of meat for two in the first place.  If you are having a crowd over, then a roast will always be a winner.  The ultimate resolution for a single or couple is to arrange an invitation to someone who is having a roast!  The Irish Mammy is still a good bet at Easter and Christmas despite the modern world.

However if you’re doing the cooking the first thing to get right is the type of joint.   If it is beef make sure it is rib or sirloin or at least a suitable cut for roasting.  Ask your butcher if you’re not sure.  There are two schools of thought on roasting: cook the meat from start to finish at a consistent medium temperature, which produces a juicy, evenly-cooked roast; or put it in a very hot oven to start, and then lower the temperature for the remainder of the cooking time, which helps brown the roast and its juices.  Always let the meat warm up to room temperature for at least an hour or two before putting it in the oven. 

Preparing the meat is also worth considering.  With a chicken I would always make sure the skin is dry to the touch and then generously butter it while also placing knobs of butter at the leg and wing joints.  A sprinkling of salt and pepper never goes astray at this point either.  With lamb I have always found success with making small slits in the surface and sticking in a slice of garlic and a sprig of rosemary at measured intervals.  When it comes to beef the least I would do is dust the fat surface with a mixture of flour and mustard powder.  Again none of the above is really necessary but adds to the overall finished dish. I like to baste meat, even if it is supposedly self basting, but always remember that every time you open the oven door you are affecting the temperature, so you’ll need to take this into account when calculating the overall cooking time.  And finally, rest, rest, rest! (And I don’t mean take a seat and enjoy a glass of wine; we’re talking about the joint.)  This is vital regardless of the meat you are serving.  Take the meat from the oven and let it rest for a minimum of 20minutes before carving or serving.

A roast dinner is all in the planning and preparation, but once underway it is actually much easier to cook than most people think.   While I love to embrace and experiment with new food ideas, we should never loose sight of the value of a roast dinner enjoyed by family and friends.  The memories will last forever and are therefore worth every minute of the preparation.  If you have any queries by all means drop by the shop, James Whelan Butchers in Oakville Shopping Centre where we will be happy to help.  Happy Easter.