No. 2551

Pork Liver Pie or Terrine

Pate ou Terrine de Foies de Porc

Terrine.—Take three pounds of the breast of fresh pork, chop it finely into a forcemeat; chop separately two pounds of pig's liver after soaking it in cold water and straining through a sieve. Put the whole into a vessel large enough to have all thoroughly mixed, add one-third of an ounce of salt for each pound and one coffeespoonful of pepper for the same quantity, prepared red pepper (No. 168), nutmeg to taste, a pinch of chopped parsley, a bay leaf, a pinch of thyme, six eggs and three and a half ounces of flour; stir the whole thoroughly until a very smooth paste is obtained. Line the bottom of one or several earthen jars, fit to be put in the oven, with slices of fat pork, then fill them with the paste; cover with another slice, having notched the fibrous parts; place it in the oven and let bake slowly. A terrine weighing four to five pounds requires three to four hours to bake. When done drain off the fat and replace it with good melted leaf lard, cover with a board and place a two-pound weight on top. After it is cold cover with a light layer of lard, and serve either in the same jar, or else cut it with a spoon.

Pie.—The above preparation can also be made into a pie by baking it in a mold, proceeding as directed in No. 2557.

← No. 2550 Roast Larded Partridges Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2552 Roast Peacock Adorned with Its Plumage →

For the Modern Kitchen

A straightforward French country pâté scaled for a professional larder: five pounds of meat, a flour-and-egg binder, and a lard seal. Two things decide whether it succeeds — the salt ratio and a genuinely slow oven.

Read the salt as a ratioOne-third ounce per pound is roughly 9-10 g per 450 g, about 2 percent by weight — the standard seasoning level for pâté, and it is what keeps the mixture tasting like charcuterie rather than meatloaf. Weigh the meat and weigh the salt rather than measuring by spoon.
The pepper is heavy-handedA coffeespoonful is usually taken as a teaspoon, though some period tables make it half that; at the larger reading, five pounds of meat takes five teaspoons of black pepper on top of the red pepper. The dish sits among the cold dishes, where seasoning reads flatter; two to three teaspoons suits most modern palates.
"Prepared red pepper (No. 168)"A cross-reference to Ranhofer's own red-pepper preparation elsewhere in the book. Plain cayenne, about a quarter teaspoon per pound, does the job.
Bake slowly means 300-325FNo temperature is given because ovens of the period could not be set or read reliably. A four- to five-pound terrine at 300F should take about the three to four hours specified; higher heat squeezes the fat out and leaves the pate grainy and dry. The recipe does not call for a water bath, though one will even out the heat.
Cook to temperature, not to the clockPull the terrine when the centre reads 160F on an instant-read thermometer. Pork liver forcemeat carries the same pathogen load as any ground pork, and weight and jar thickness swing the timing by an hour either way.
Fat pork and leaf lardThe lining slices are fatback or caul fat, not bacon — cured smoked pork will overwhelm the liver. Leaf lard is the soft kidney fat, sold rendered by butchers and some supermarkets; ordinary rendered lard seals just as well.
The flour is a panadeThree and a half ounces is about three-quarters of a cup, beaten in with the eggs. It binds the liver and keeps the terrine sliceable rather than crumbly; skipping it gives a looser, more rustic texture.
Pressing and storingThe board and two-pound weight go on while the terrine is still warm, which compacts it for clean slices. Despite the lard seal, treat it as a refrigerated product: it keeps about a week chilled, and the flavour is best after two or three days.
YieldFive pounds of finished terrine serves twenty-five or more as a first course. Bake it in two or three smaller jars, as the recipe allows, and freeze what you do not need.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the vast compendium he assembled during more than thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it sits in the chapter on cold-buffet work — the larder cook's domain, alongside larded partridges and a peacock served in its own feathers. The dish itself is unremarkable French charcuterie: what English speakers now call country pâté, and what French butchers still sell as pâté de campagne. The distinction Ranhofer draws in his heading is the traditional one, that a terrine takes its name from the earthenware vessel it is baked and served in, while a pâté proper is enclosed in pastry or a mould. Pork liver was cheap offal, the fat pork lining and lard seal were both preservation and presentation, and a preparation like this let a grand kitchen turn the least glamorous part of the pig into something that could hold its place on a cold table for a week.