No. 2603

Terrine of Snipe

Terrine de Becassines

Bone two snipe, divide each one in two parts and lay them in a dish with five or six peeled and cut-up truffles, and as much cooked ham fat, or fat pork; season the meats and truffles highly and pour over a little Madeira wine. Take the meat from the leg of a hare, cut it in pieces and fry in a saucepan with double its quantity of chicken or game livers until well done, then add the birds' intestines and leave to cool; chop this up with a third as much raw and chopped fresh pork, and then season the whole; put it in a mortar to pound with the same amount of fresh fat pork previously chopped and pounded with the truffle parings; add to this forcemeat a pinch of prepared spices (No. 168). Five minutes later set it in a vessel and incorporate with it the Madeira wine used for marinating the snipe. Cover the bottom and sides of a terrine with slices of unsalted fat pork and these with a layer of the prepared forcemeat; range the pieces of snipe, truffles and ham in the center, alternated with the remainder of the forcemeat; the terrine should now be quite full. Smooth the top with a knife and cover with slices of fat pork; put on the lid and set it in a baking pan with a glassful of hot water; push it into a moderate oven to cook for an hour and a half. When the water in the pan evaporates pour in some more, and when done take it out and leave to cool partly, then set a light weight on top, and when thoroughly cold take the contents from the terrine, divide in two across, return one-half to the terrine, cut up the remaining half into oblong pieces and dress them again in a circle in the same terrine. Garnish the center with chopped jelly.

← No. 2602 Terrine of Pork Liver Garnishings for Cold Dishes No. 2604 Terrine of Wild Rabbits →

For the Modern Kitchen

A full charcuterie project from Ranhofer's Delmonico's kitchen, written for cooks who had a larder of game and a page of cross-references to hand. Nothing here is unsafe, but several ingredients are now hard to buy and one measurement is missing entirely.

The hinge: fat, and enough of itThe forcemeat is lean game and liver bound with chopped raw fresh pork and an equal weight of pounded fat pork, and the mould is lined and capped with more fat besides. Cut the fat back to modern taste and the terrine will be dry and crumbly rather than sliceable, which defeats the whole point of the second half being cut into oblongs and stood up as a garnish.
Moderate ovenThe book gives no figure; somewhere around 325-350F is the usual reading. The terrine sits in a water bath, so the surrounding water buffers it; count on 90 minutes and check for an internal temperature of about 160F at the centre rather than trusting the clock. Top up the bain-marie with boiling, not cold, water.
SnipeSnipe are still legal game birds in season in North America (Wilson's snipe) and in Britain (common snipe), but wild-shot migratory game cannot be sold commercially in the US, so it comes from a hunter or not at all. Farmed quail is the usual stand-in; two snipe are small birds, and four quail breasts and thighs give a comparable volume of meat.
The trail"The birds' intestines" means the trail, the undrawn innards traditionally left in snipe and woodcock and prized for flavour. Discard the gizzard and any gall bladder. It is cooked twice here, once in the pan and again in the terrine, so there is no raw-offal question.
Fat pork and ham fat"Unsalted fat pork" is fresh pork back fat, sold as fatback; do not substitute salt pork or bacon, which will make the terrine harsh. The barding sheets need to be sliced thin enough to be pliable, which is easiest if the fat is very cold or half-frozen.
Prepared spices, No. 168The cross-reference is to Ranhofer's own prepared-spice mixture, a quatre epices type blend of ground spices and dried herbs; see No. 168 for the exact composition. A commercial pate spice works; use it sparingly, since a pinch in his terms is a pinch.
Mortar workThe repeated pounding is what emulsifies the fat into the lean. A food processor does it in seconds, but keep everything refrigerator-cold and pulse rather than run, or the fat smears and the baked terrine weeps.
Vessel and yieldNo size is given. The quantities suit a terrine of about 1 to 1.5 quarts, which serves eight to twelve as a cold course. "A glassful" of water in the baking pan means simply enough to come partway up the sides.
Pressing and keepingA light weight only, once the terrine is partly cooled, and then a full chill. It slices properly on the second or third day and keeps about a week refrigerated. The "chopped jelly" in the centre is set aspic chopped with a wet knife.

A Little History

*The Epicurean* (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years running the kitchens at Delmonico's in New York, and this terrine belongs to the section on cold work: the pieces designed to sit on a buffet or a sideboard and be looked at as much as eaten, which is why the finished loaf is cut in half, half of it cubed and re-arranged in a ring inside its own dish. Snipe, woodcock and hare were staples of the American restaurant table in the second half of the nineteenth century, supplied by market hunters who shot for sale; that trade was curtailed by the Lacey Act of 1900 and effectively ended for migratory birds by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which is why a recipe calling casually for two snipe, a hare leg and a handful of game livers now reads as a period document. The technique itself is older and French: a *terrine* is the earthenware pot, and the practice of lining it with fat, filling it with a pounded forcemeat studded with better cuts and truffle, and baking it sealed in a water bath is the standard charcutier's method that Ranhofer would have learned in France before crossing the Atlantic.