Help a beginning cook out

[halcionne]

I've fallen in love with pictures of terrines on Pinterest. Meat, veggies, fruit, it doesn't matter; I think they're all fascinating and beautiful. I'm about to embark on a special diet that has a strong focus on gelatin, so now is the time for me to start making terrines! Here is my somewhat embarrassing question:

How do you eat it, once it's been served? With a knife and fork? A spoon? Your hands? Between two slices of bread? All of the above? Googling "how do you eat a terrine" gave me wine and cheese suggestions, which aren't what I want. 

I'm excited to give this easy-but-fancy-looking dish a try! But I need to know how to get it from the plate to my mouth first...

Pretty pics, just because:

Spoiler

That last one is the one I'm going to try first. But I want mine to be prettier than that. 

Please don't tell me to eat it like pate, because 1) that's fancy, which means I don't know how to eat it, either; and 2) scraping at it with a cracker could work, I guess, but what if it will be my main dish (because it totally will be!)? 

[samurai_sarah]

Most of the terrines I've come across, were eaten with a knife and fork. The only exception I can think of off the top of my head would be "headcheese", which you'd usually just use as a sandwich filling. Or to gross people out with!

Tip for eating "pate": Step 1, call it "Leberwurst", step 2, smear it on some rye bread, step 3 consume as a sandwich, step 4, if anyone pooh-poohs at you, tell them you aren't eating some fancy French pate, you're eating German Leberwurst, and this is acceptable. Refer them to a German person, who'll back you up, because who eats Leberwurst on a cracker? Pate, sure, but Leberwurst?

Hope this helps a bit. Good luck with your endeavours!

[NewOrleansLady]

I cooked a terrine for hubby when we were first going out.  He ate it for four straight days and on the  fifth  said,"This reminds me of a Timex watch. It keeps on ticking". (Meaning the more he ate the more there was.)

This is the only time in 31 years he has asked me not to cook something.  He'll eat liver and onions, beef tongue in red gravy, hogshead cheese but never another terrine.

[Palimpsest]

For savory terrines - hunk of bread, knife, slice, place on top of bread, eat.

I don't think that is fancy.

 

[halcionne]

Thanks for the tips, everyone. Now, this recipe includes an apple compote, but apples are on my Do Not Eat list. The only fruits that are really an option are citrus, berries, pineapple, and bananas. I'm probably forgetting something. In any case, do you think a cranberry/orange compote would work? 

http://autoimmune-paleo.com/pork-and-chicken-liver-terrine-with-spiced-apple-compote/

[Pretzel]

OMG I just HAVE to try the one with raspberries. You don't have the according recipe on hand by any chance, do you?

[halcionne]

23 hours ago, Pretzel said:

OMG I just HAVE to try the one with raspberries. You don't have the according recipe on hand by any chance, do you?

For you!

http://www.designsponge.com/2016/07/in-the-kitchen-with-frankie-unsworths-icecream-terrine.html

[Roux]

Also consider options similar to tomato aspic.  Slice and place on a bed of lettuce/fresh greens.  Eat with a knife and fork.

[Pretzel]

@halcionne Thank you, thank you. I am considering making this for Christmas. 

[halcionne]

7 hours ago, Pretzel said:

@halcionne Thank you, thank you. I am considering making this for Christmas. 

It's so pretty! I almost want to make it, too, but I'm about to go dairy-free.

I'm still planning on making my terrine with apple cranberry compote, but I'm a bit hesitant over the whole finely chopped/ground raw meat bits. I don't have access to a food processor or a full service butcher to grind the meat. 

[Grimalkin]

On 12/1/2016 at 10:21 AM, halcionne said:

It's so pretty! I almost want to make it, too, but I'm about to go dairy-free.

I'm still planning on making my terrine with apple cranberry compote, but I'm a bit hesitant over the whole finely chopped/ground raw meat bits. I don't have access to a food processor or a full service butcher to grind the meat. 

FWIW I think cranberries would go well with your recipe. Because of stock age space I really try to keep kitchen gadgets to a minimum. I do get a lot of use from my food processor. It comes in handy. I make a lot of cookie doughs with it because I'm lazy and those big kitchen aid mixers are just too big, and baking is. Of my thing.

[NewOrleansLady]

Love my KA and it now comes in a mini size.  Attachments are a bit pricey but asking for the grinder for Christmas.

[Pretzel]

50 minutes ago, NewOrleansLady said:

Love my KA and it now comes in a mini size.  Attachments are a bit pricey but asking for the grinder for Christmas.

KA are so unbelievably expensive in Europe. An Artisan is about $800. With gadgets it can soon become over $1000. I was shocked when I saw that amazon.com/US had an offer for $150 once. Certainly not what I had expected. They're now at $200-400. Still half as much as in Europe. 

[NewOrleansLady]

I got my KA for  $109.00 (10 years ago- it replaced one I had before Katrina)  from Amazon.  It was a factory reconditioned (only thing wrong was the bowl had a scratch), first time Amazon buyer credit and something else ( senior moment)  It is the 5 Qt. model in white.  Granddaughter (age 9) and I have been baking a lot this Christmas season and it never fails us.  Check Amazon reconditioned.

 

[Pretzel]

13 minutes ago, NewOrleansLady said:

I got my KA for  $109.00 (10 years ago- it replaced one I had before Katrina)  from Amazon.  It was a factory reconditioned (only thing wrong was the bowl had a scratch), first time Amazon buyer credit and something else ( senior moment)  It is the 5 Qt. model in white.  Granddaughter (age 9) and I have been baking a lot this Christmas season and it never fails us.  Check Amazon reconditioned.

 

Well, ten years ago that would have been roughly 80€. A dream price, you know? It's so ridiculous to pay over 1000 bucks on a kitchen gadget. Most people here own Bosch mixers for that very reason, me included. Mine is quite nice and functional and came with a lot of extras for under 100€. Kenwood is also great but somewhere in between costs of a Bosch and a Kitchen Aid.

[NewOrleansLady]

I've heard nothing but good about Bosch.  Seems like a good value.  Sometimes we (U.S. citizens)  don't realize that others pay dearly for what we can get for a lot less.

[halcionne]

23 hours ago, Grimalkin said:

FWIW I think cranberries would go well with your recipe. Because of stock age space I really try to keep kitchen gadgets to a minimum. I do get a lot of use from my food processor. It comes in handy. I make a lot of cookie doughs with it because I'm lazy and those big kitchen aid mixers are just too big, and baking is. Of my thing.

Thanks for the feedback wrt cranberries. I don't have a lot of confidence in the kitchen and it's reassuring for someone else to tell me they think it could work.

Yeah, my tiny kitchen is completely stuffed and there's no room for a food processor. I do have two blenders--no idea why--and google tells me I can grind meat in them.

[NewOrleansLady]

Did  Mr Google tell you that the more power you have to grind meat, the easier the task will be?  Small amounts are best to use your blender with and I wouldn't try to grind 5 pounds for sausage.  Hope this helps.

[halcionne]

4 minutes ago, NewOrleansLady said:

Did  Mr Google tell you that the more power you have to grind meat, the easier the task will be?  Small amounts are best to use your blender with and I wouldn't try to grind 5 pounds for sausage.  Hope this helps.

I suspected as much. I've had to put the terrine recipe on the shelf until after the holidays, but iirc it only calls for a small amount of ground meat. I will cross that bridge when I get to it.  

[Grimalkin]

You got me looking at terrines now! I did not look too closely at the meat ones. I dislike handling raw livers and they seemed to all include them. I saw some interesting veggie ones.

10 hours ago, Pretzel said:

Well, ten years ago that would have been roughly 80€. A dream price, you know? It's so ridiculous to pay over 1000 bucks on a kitchen gadget. Most people here own Bosch mixers for that very reason, me included. Mine is quite nice and functional and came with a lot of extras for under 100€. Kenwood is also great but somewhere in between costs of a Bosch and a Kitchen Aid.

I have considerd a Bosch but really don't bake much. I bought a $7.00 hand mixer 15+ years ago when we moved into our first house and it just now went on me. I ended up just getting another hand mixer to save space. 

I have a Belgium waffle iron because I won it at the grocery store. I'm proud of it and annoyed with having to find a home in my kitchen for it.

[Roux]

17 hours ago, halcionne said:

I suspected as much. I've had to put the terrine recipe on the shelf until after the holidays, but iirc it only calls for a small amount of ground meat. I will cross that bridge when I get to it.  

Please keep us posted on the terrine.  I love hearing stories of kitchen experiments, both failures and successes.  You learn from both.  Also, I'm with @Grimalkin.  Cranberries sound like they'd work great with what you're wanting to do.