Terrine sensation

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	Bruce Poole

When Michelin-starred chef Bruce Poole makes terrine it's a three-day operation using traditional pig breeds and butchery skills. He shares the knowledge with Michael Raffael. Pork terrine? It's classic. It's simple. Yet how many chefs would make a decent stab at it? How many realise that it takes more than a food processor and some cheap cut of pork to make a good terrine? The words pâté and terrine are pretty well interchangeable now, but at one time the distinction was meaningful. A terrine, cooked in a bain-marie, was always more succulent. It retained its juices. However, it's probably been 50 years since pâté lost its sense of being a pie. Terrines have evolved. One branch of the family has a protein purée, egg and cream base. Another relies on precooking, layering and pressing - mainly vegetables. Foie gras and liver pâtés make up a section of their own. However, somewhere along the line cooks have forgotten why terrines of pork, rabbit, duck or game were special. Perhaps the problem started with pâté maison, an English interpretation that relied on liver, perhaps a dash of Worcester sauce and a splash of brandy to produce a cheap starter. Across the Channel, the charcutier's pâté de campagne seemed too routine, too much of a commonplace to suit posh restaurants. It might taste good, but it didn't look fancy enough. Change in pork A third and critical factor was the change in pork. Ever leaner, ever younger, ever drier, it had little or no fat on it. Put it through a mincer and cook it and its texture became a rubber wad. Even Escoffier or Albert Roux in his prime would have found it impossible to make something decent from it. Without a source of non-intensively reared pork with proper fat cover, a chef was wasting his skill. The next thing to go was the knowledge. To prepare a top terrine, you have to understand the textures and character of meats, how each cut contributes to the end result. At London restaurant Chez Bruce, for example, Bruce Poole works with five different pieces of pork: shoulder, belly, fillet, back-fat (or lardo) and liver. A deeper knowledge is required, though, if preparation requires cuts with varying degrees of lean and fat, for they can't be put willy-nilly into a mincer or processor. They need trimming and chopping by hand. Coupled to this is the technique of cooking. It's not difficult, but doing certain things at certain times affects the recipe: how long to leave the raw mixture; when to add the salt; when to weight the freshly cooked terrine; and how much weight to use. [Bruce Poole's cooking](../archive/articledetail.asp?lSiteSectionID=46&lSectionID=31&articleID=42188)[Choice of meats](../archive/articledetail.asp?lSiteSectionID=46&lSectionID=31&articleID=42189)[Pork terrine (one-litre, serves 12)](../chef/recipedetail.asp?recipeID=783)[Seasoning mixture](../archive/articledetail.asp?lSiteSectionID=46&lSectionID=31&articleID=42192)[How to adapt the basic recipe](../archive/articledetail.asp?lSiteSectionID=46&lSectionID=31&articleID=42190)[Choice of terrines Photo © Sam Bailey