Ingredients: |
Ingredients: 1lb pork belly, ground
2oz pork back fat cut into dice
1 rabbit, ready for roasting (or just the saddle)
8 juniper berries
a few sprigs of thyme, leaves removed and chopped
1 tablespoon of finely ground sea salt
5 black peppercorns
15 rashers of bacon
Splash of red wine
Splash of brandy, or apple brandy
olive oil
a few bay leaves (optional)
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Directions: |
Directions:Preheat your oven to 375F
Put the duck in a roasting pan. Put the rabbit (or rabbit pieces) in another roasting pan. Roast both for about 30 minutes. This pre-roasting makes it much easier to take the meat of the carcass of the duck and rabbit. If you are using rabbit pieces, roast them for about 20 minutes.
Remove the skin from the roasted duck, once cooled slightly, along with the layer of fat under it. Use a sharp knife and remove both breasts. Remove any meat that is left on the carcass, if isnt too fatty.
Remove all the desirable looking meat from the rabbit making sure not to get any tendon or fat. Finely chop the rabbit meat.
In a large bowl, mix together the ground pork belly, the diced back fat, the chopped liver and the rabbit meat. Grind the salt, peppercorns and juniper berries together in a pestle and mortar. Add this and the chopped thyme to the meat mix. Add the splash of red wine and brandy to the mix also. Using your hands, gently but thoroughly mix all this together.
If you wish, you can roast the bones of the duck for longer maybe another 20 minutes, then make a quick stock from it and a few vegetables (onion, carrot, celery, leek). Reduce this stock down by half, and then add this to the mix also. This will make the pate a lot more game forward.
Cut the larger pieces of duck meat (breasts mainly) into slices about a fingers width. Add some oil to a hot saute pan, and fry these until golden brown.
Lay a rasher of bacon on a chopping board. Run the back of a chefs knife over the bacon to stretch it out. Repeat for all of the slices of bacon.
Lay this bacon over the inside of the terrine dish. Make sure to overlap each slice slightly. You are wanting to cover most of dish this way. Leave the ends hanging over the edge of the dish.
Put a layer of the ground meat mix in the bottom of the dish, gently pushing it into place making sure there are no gaps. Try not to push the bacon around too much when doing this. Put a scattering layer of the duck meat pieces over this. Now another layer of the meat mix. And another of the duck, and then finally a top layer of the meat mix.
Fold and stretch the bacon ends over the top of the dish. Add more bacon rashers to the top if needed to completely cover the pate in a layer of bacon (if your rashers dont stretch over quite enough). Put a few bay leaves on top, and seal top tightly with some tin foil.
Fill a larger baking dish with water, and stand this terrine dish in that. Carefully place this in a 350F oven for 1.5 to 2 hours. You know it is done when the meat is pulling away from the sides of the dish, and when you stick a skewer into the center of the pate, it comes out really hot. Remove from the oven, and allow to cool on a rack.
Now for an important step for good texture.. When the fat surrounding the pate is starting to set a little, cover the top with greaseproof paper. Find a board, or lid that fits snugly into the dish (so it will sit on the top of the pate, not on the dish rim). Press the board down onto the pate, and put a heavy weight a few cans, or a brick on top as it cools.
Allow to cool for a few hours, or overnight and then bung it in the fridge.
To serve cut into slices, and serve with crusty bread, and some pickled vegetables. |
Personal
Notes: |
Personal
Notes: You could make this with pretty much any game you choose. Rabbit and duck are good choices for a game pate for those that might not be into game that much, since they are relatively mild. Pheasant would yield a slightly gamier pate.
Juniper berries can be found in the spice department of most decent grocery stores (except in the Poconos Mountains)
The pork back fat gives the lovely little white cubes you can see throughout the pate, and helps keep the pate moist. If you can't find back fat, slab bacon or panchetta can be substituted.
Traditionally a terrine dish is used to make pate, you can easily make do with a loaf pan. A loaf pan that is 9 long, 5 wide, and 3 deep would work great..
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This recipe for Game Pate is from