IMBB 9: Layers and layers
I am thrilled to be hosting the latest edition of Is My Blog Burning?, the international culinary exhibition started by Alberto at Il Forno. If you haven't heard of this event, it's simple and ingenious. The host proposes a culinary theme and sets a date. On that date every participant posts something related to that theme. We've seen eight previous themes including soup, fish, barbecue and grilling and most recently, cooking with wine and spirits.
So what's the theme for IMBB 9? Terrines. I love terrines, simple assemblies with beautiful interiors made from a seemingly infinite variety of possible ingredients. I was thinking about that variety one day and thought, hey, that'd be a fun IMBB! Alberto reminded me that most people don't make terrines regularly. It's a good point, so I've added a "terrine primer" to the end of this post, with some thoughts and links to inspire you. It's unfortunate that they've gotten this reputation as being hard, since they're quite easy and they look stunning.
First the rules: on October 24, post an entry about a terrine you made and email me or leave a comment on this post (or mine for that day). I know your efforts will look stunning, so a picture would be fantastic. And since everyone will want to try and reproduce your great dish in their own kitchens, a recipe would be useful as well. You don't have to be a food blogger to participate. You don't even have to be a blogger: you can send me your post via e-mail and I'll put it on my site. So no excuses!
Terrine Primer
Okay. What's a terrine? It's really just a bunch of ingredients packed into a terrine mold, held together somehow and then removed from the mold in a block of yumminess. Or as Hillel once said, "it's like making lasagna with anything." Don't have a terrine mold? Don't sweat it. I use bread loaf pans all the time, and they work fine (some adventurous souls manage to make round ones, but I'd guess if you're going to do that then you're not reading this part). As a general rule you'll assemble the terrine the night before or that morning and eat it the following evening, but below I mention some that don't take that long.
There are lots of things you can use to glue the ingredients together. I often use aspic , but anything that will hold the ingredients together and be sliceable will work. Custard is another option. Sometimes the ingredients themselves provide the glue. Ice cream terrines and cooked meat terrines usually hold themselves together. It's occasionally useful to weight down the terrine (and you should definitely do this with meat terrines, as it smushes out the air that might allow bacteria to grow): cut a piece of wood or thick cardboard to fit your terrine mold, wrap it in saran wrap, put on top of the terrine and load up with cans from your cupboards.
Now go forth and layer!
If you're stuck on what to do, here are some ideas to get your juices flowing:
- terrine recipes from epicurious
- First one and then another from Clotilde.
- from Art Culinaire, issue 66: a brioche terrine stuffed with spinach and feta cheese (layer of brioche, layer of spinach/feta, layer of brioche, layer of spinach/feta, layer of brioche. Hold together with a custard, cool and serve). The full recipe is long, and probably not reliable given the magazine, so I'm only including a description.
- Also from Art Culinaire recently, a smoked salmon and mascarpone terrine (line a small mold with plastic wrap, put one layer of smoked salmon down and have it go up the sides and over the edge, layer smoked salmon and mascarpone over and over, fold first layer of salmon over the whole assembly, wrap and weight and refrigerate until ready to cut).
- the caprese terrine (pictured above) I made recently
- Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking or probably anything by Richard Olney for some classic terrines
- Fergus Henderson's The Whole Beast for some more unusual ones, but let me warn you I'll be very jealous if you make a lamb's brain terrine, since I can't get them in the U.S.
- And when my cake idea failed for IMBB 3, well, I made a terrine
I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's creations!
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