No. 2602

Terrine of Pork Liver

Terrine de Foies de Porc

Procure two pounds of the whitest pork liver, three pounds of fresh fat pork, four ounces of onion and one ounce of shallot, both chopped very finely and separately, four ounces together of salt, pepper, fine spices (No. 168), and a little powdered thyme, six ounces of flour, one ounce of truffles, one ounce of pistachios, and two ounces of tongue, these three latter to be chopped separately. Work the whole well together to obtain a compact paste, then divide it into three parts. Line the inside of a terrine with thin slices of fat pork, place in it one of the parts, and on it lay a bed of quarter of an inch squares of fat pork, then another one of the parts of forcemeat, another layer of fat pork squares, and on these the third or remaining part. The terrine should be filled to one inch below the edge, then covered with bards of fat pork; place a bay leaf on top, and set on the cover. Push the terrine into a moderate oven, standing on a baking sheet, and when cooked remove and lay a round of wood on it the size of the inside of the terrine; place under the press so as to press it down lightly, and leave it thus to cool for twelve hours.

← No. 2601 Terrine of Plovers and Larks Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2603 Terrine of Snipe →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

A full charcutier's terrine scaled for a restaurant larder: about five pounds of meat before garnish, which will fill a two-quart terrine and then some. Most of the work is in the seasoning arithmetic and the cooking, both of which the original leaves half-said.

The seasoning is the hinge"Four ounces together of salt, pepper, fine spices and a little powdered thyme" is a combined weight, not four ounces of each. For five pounds of meat, budget roughly 1.2 to 1.5 oz of that as salt (about 1.5% by weight) and divide the rest between pepper and spice. Fry a teaspoon of the mix as a test patty and taste before you fill the terrine.
Fine spices, No. 168Ranhofer's own ground blend, built on pepper with warm spices such as nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and mace; consult No. 168 for the proportions he gives. Any good quatre-epices is a workable substitute at the same weight.
Moderate ovenRead that as a moderate oven, somewhere around 325-350F; the book gives no figure. Note that Ranhofer sets the terrine on a baking sheet, not in a water bath; if you want insurance against the fat breaking you can stand it in a roasting pan with boiling water halfway up the sides. Reckon roughly 1.5 to 2 hours, but judge by temperature rather than the clock.
Cook to a temperature, not a clock"when cooked" should mean an instant-read thermometer in the centre reads at least 160F. Pork liver forcemeat set below that is undercooked, and much above it goes dry and grainy.
Six ounces of flourAn old-style binder standing in for the panade or egg used today. It works, but it gives a denser, more sausage-like slice; modern practice would use two or three eggs and a little cream instead, and the texture is finer for it.
Fat pork, bards and squaresFresh fatback, not salt pork and not bacon. Bards are the thin sheets used to line the mould and cover the top; the quarter-inch squares between the layers are the visible white flecks in the finished slice. Ask a butcher, or use the fat cap from a pork shoulder frozen firm for slicing.
Cool it cold, not on the counterTwelve hours under a light press was done in a cold larder. Do the pressing in the refrigerator, with the board and a can or two on top. This is cooked pork with no nitrite in it and no acidity to speak of; it has no business sitting out overnight.
Colour and keepingWithout curing salt the terrine sets a grey-brown rather than the pink of commercial pâté. That is correct here. Sealed under a layer of melted lard it keeps about a week refrigerated; unsealed, three or four days.
YieldAround 5 lb finished, or 25 to 30 slices as a first course. It slices best on the second day, and the truffle and thyme read more clearly then.

A Little History

This comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the compendium of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and it sits in the chapter on garnishings for cold dishes because that is what a terrine was in a nineteenth-century restaurant: buffet architecture, sliced out to face a cold table alongside galantines and aspics. The word terrine names the vessel first, an earthenware dish, and only afterwards the thing cooked in it; the same logic gives us casserole and tagine. Pork liver was the cheap end of the charcutier's trade, and the truffle, pistachio and tongue chopped into it here are exactly the touches that lifted a farmhouse preparation onto a Delmonico's sideboard. The flour binder marks the recipe's age as clearly as anything in it, where a modern kitchen would reach for eggs and cream.