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Terrine of Chicken Livers
Peel four or five large truffles, cut them into dice and put them in a basin with six ounces of cooked fat bacon also cut into dice and the livers of ten or twelve fat chickens; sprinkle salt, spices and powdered sweet herbs over, and one tablespoonful of Madeira wine. Cut half a calf's liver in thin slices, fry it in a little melted bacon fat with a tablespoonful of chopped shallots and the trimmings of the truffles and sprinkle pepper and salt over them. When the slices of liver are well set, pour in one teacupful of Madeira; keep it on the fire for two or three minutes, then take it off. When cold pound the liver. Chop and pound an equal quantity of fat bacon, mix it with the pounded liver, season well with pepper, salt and mixed spices, and pass all through a sieve. Line a terrine at the bottom and all round the sides with thin slices of fat pork, spread over some of the liver forcemeat, fill the dish with the livers, truffles and pork and alternate layers of the forcemeat; put some thin slices of fat bacon on the top, put on the lid, stand it in a baking-dish and bake it in a moderate oven for two hours, basting occasionally with the fat that runs over into the baking-dish underneath. When cooked, take the terrine out, lift off the lid, put a wooden weight on the top, and let it cool. When ready to serve turn the preparation out of the terrine, and cut it up. Clean the terrine, put it on a dish, fill it with the cut up pieces, arranging them to come dome-shaped on top, and place around some croutons of aspic jelly.
A classic baked pâté in the French manner, written for a kitchen with a larder full of truffles and a mortar the size of a bucket. The method is sound; only the vocabulary and the measurements need translating.
- The hinge: cook to temperature, not to the clockTwo hours in a moderate oven — by period reckoning somewhere around 325-350F — is only a guide, and depends entirely on the depth of your terrine. Bake it in the dry baking dish as directed, but pull it when the centre reads about 160F on an instant-read thermometer; much past that the fat renders out and the loaf turns dry and grainy.
- "Fat bacon" and "fat pork"Both mean fresh or lightly salted unsmoked pork fat — fatback or fresh side pork — not the smoked streaky bacon on the supermarket shelf. Smoked bacon will dominate the truffles entirely. Ask a butcher for fatback, sliced thin for the lining.
- Quantities the original leaves vague"Half a calf's liver" is roughly 1 1/2 lb; the livers of ten or twelve chickens come to about 1 to 1 1/4 lb. "Spices" and "mixed spices" are left unspecified; a quatre épices-type blend — pepper, nutmeg, clove, ginger or cinnamon — is the usual reading, about a teaspoon in total for this volume.
- A teacupfulReckoned variously at about 1/2 to 3/4 cup in period usage, against the single tablespoon that goes into the marinating livers. Both should be a dry-ish Madeira (Sercial or Verdelho); a sweet cream Madeira makes the finished terrine cloying.
- Pounding and sievingThe mortar-and-sieve routine exists to get a smooth forcemeat. A food processor does it in a minute, but keep everything cold and stop before the fat smears; then push it through a medium sieve if you want the texture Oscar had in mind.
- The terrine itselfA lidded earthenware or enamelled cast-iron terrine; with this much liver and fat you will want a large one, two quarts or more, or divide it between two. If yours has no lid, a doubled sheet of foil crimped tight will do. The wooden weight the recipe calls for matters: pressing while it cools helps the loaf slice rather than crumble.
- Rest before servingChill under weight overnight, and ideally two to three days, before turning out and cutting. The seasoning and the Madeira need that time; a terrine eaten the same day tastes flat and under-salted.
- Aspic croutons and yieldThe croutons are firm meat aspic chilled in a shallow pan and cut into small triangles or cubes. The quantities make a large terrine, enough for fifteen to twenty as a first course; the recipe directs that it be turned out, cut up and rebuilt dome-shaped in the cleaned dish.
Oscar Tschirky, the maître d'hôtel whose name carried the Waldorf's reputation, published his Cook Book in 1896. A terrine is properly the vessel — the lidded earthenware dish — and only by extension the thing baked in it. Chicken-liver terrines studded with truffle and Madeira descend from the Périgord and Strasbourg foie gras traditions, and the presence of truffles by the handful tells you exactly which clientele the Waldorf was cooking for in the 1890s. The practice of pressing the cooled loaf under a wooden weight and then rebuilding it in its own cleaned dish may well have been service-side showmanship of the period: the guest sees the terrine, not the kitchen work.