A real French Terrine

It was my birthday this week, ( on a school night, I am of an age when that actually matters....)so I have been out and about and not really keeping my blog updated...........so here I am.

We had a family 80th at the weekend(actually Uncle Laurie looks closer to 70 than 80...), and I was gagging to use my new/old birthday present. A beautiful French terrine dish, which belonged to Anne's in-laws (Anne runs the Antique shop in Paihia, in the beautiful Bay of Islands, go and check it out if you are up that way)

Anyway this lovely dish had spent many years in the production of delicious terrines, a course country-style pate, made from various cuts of meat. My recipe used minced pork & venison, but as I had no luck at all finding venison I used minced Angus beef instead. Along with streaky bacon, juniper berries (I love that Gin sharpness), peppercorns, pistachio nuts, mace, thyme and wine, yummo. The mace was especially interesting, this is the outer covering of the nutmeg, which has a really intriguing flavor, a touch of nutmeg, but spicier yet less medicinal. Yes, you obviously need to go & find some to have any clue about the joy of mace...........

So this is all marinated together, then pressed into my beautiful dish, covered and baked for a couple of hours on low, sitting in a Bain Marie (a water bath, sounds so much better in French non?) If you dont have a terrine a loaf tin will work just as well.

I then popped my beauty in the fridge with a couple of tins of beans on top (which I felt bad about not using before now....) to press it down.

Next day an hour or so out of the fridge and it is ready to roll with some lovely crusty bread, and a little dish of my Spicy Apple & Walnut chutney............I hope I am eating like that on my 80th

xx