Pâté lorrain

[Deleted]

"Pâté en croûte" is a standard item throughout France, but it is served cold and is really a disgusting travesty of food in my opinion. I am not a fan of cold pie crust at any time and when combined with a cold meat pie, no thank you! However, in Lorraine it is a hot dish which my grandmother made to perfection. I know that her version was all or mostly veal mixed with verious herbs, onions and white wine, but I have never known her exact recipe. So I allowed the internet to assist me in making my own version.

According to the recipes I consulted, it is suppsed to be half veal and half pork, but I happened to have veal and chicken on hand, so I figured that it would not be a complete travesty. As for some of the other details, I didn't have parsley so I used cilantro, I didn't have shallots so I used an onion and I didn't have thyme, so I used herbes de Provence. I don't think anybody will send me to jail for it.

So here is what I mixed together: chopped veal, chopped chicken, chopped celery, cilantro, onions, garlic. Tarragon and herbes de Provence, salt and pepper. White wine. I churned it all in a bowl.



I let it sit for six hours (12 hours is recommended). Then I squeezed out some of the wine juice and put it on flaky pastry.



Then I folded it into a package and added a little chimney.



I need a kitchen brush because I had to use a spoon to put some egg on the outside and it got a bit messy.



Into a moderate oven for 45 minutes. It came out looking like this.



At this time of year, a Belgian endive salad is required to accompany such a dish. It is a seasonal vegetable. None of this hothouse hydroponic lettuce crap!



Here is a proper serving, piping hot.



Dinner was excellent. I think that even my grandmother would forgive me for deviating a bit from the recipe.

[htmb]

Looks delicious. Almost any seasoned hot food, baked inside thin pastry dough, is good in my book.

[lagatta]

It looks lovely. I have something like that in the freezer; wonder if I can saw it apart neatly? Mine isn't meat-based (it is ewe's milk ricotta and greens) but I think there are some lardons. Hell, if I can't saw it apart with a bread knife, I think I'll heat up the whole thing. I didn't want to eat it alone - I'd made it for company who had to cancel because someone was ill.

Yes, you really should get a brush - nowadays there are silicone ones that are easy to keep clean and can be really cheap. I've seen them at supermarkets and dollar shops - and at euro shops in the Netherlands, as well as places like HEMA and Blokker. You could certainly find one at Monoprix. I like to make empanadas, which require an egg wash. The only problem with empanadas is that people hoover them up at parties in far less time than it takes to make them.

When I'm in Amsterdam, they are very strict about as much seasonal, local produce as possible, so of course, endive, cabbage or other winter salad. Though they do use those local but tasteless Dutch hothouse tomatoes...

And yes, I've pulled it out of the freezer. Why the hell not; it is freezing cold and I don't feel like going to the shops.

[lagatta]

I ate some of my pie; it is delicious. Hope I don't get sick of it in the next few days...

[bixaorellana]

SO pretty! I can't believe how gorgeous you made that pastry, and your method seems so much less fiddly than others I've seen.
I kind of the idea of using herbes de Provence instead of thyme, especially since you were using chicken instead of pork.

For future reference, since it's hard to remember to buy a basting brush ~ simply twist a paper towel or paper napkin so that one edge can be used as a brush and the twisted portion as a handle. It helps to wrap the handle part in foil to make it sturdier.

[onlyMark]

I looked for pastry brush here and couldn't find one. Then I did and it was horrendously expensive. I bought a 1" paintbrush instead. Does the job and a tenth of the price.

[Deleted]

I'll probably take a look in Hema today, but unless they are amazingly cheap I probably won't buy one because I would use it so rarely.

[tod2]

Bixas tip for a pastry brush is an excellent one but Kerouac could also have spooned the egg on using his fingers to spread it around. A nice gooey feeling

[Deleted]

I know that some of you have been losing sleep over the fact that I did not have a basting brush, so I bought one at Hema for 2.50€. That's about a euro more than it is worth, but I figure it will last me until the day I die.

[tod2]

Aagh Gee, I was about to post you the kind we use in Africa....a tail of a goat that was used in a sacrifice. Maybe not a good idea

[bixaorellana]

That's the silicone kind that tolerates high heat, isn't it? Good choice & easier to clean that the old-fashioned brush-type basting brushes.

[lagatta]

Yes, I have both and always use the silicone one.

I've noticed that IKEA now has a few shops in the UK, so one can view at least some items in English. Naturally, I look first at the practical cycling items offered:

www.hemashop.com/gb/shop/hobby-and-leisure/bikes

I most often look at the Belgian site, as it is in French and Dutch (Flemish) so I can use it to increase my vocabulary of everyday items in Dutch.

[tod2]

I'm sure Whatagain and I can assist you too.
Just say the word.

[chexbres]

I went to Leroy Merlin and got a 6 pack of different size brushes for 2 EU - all useful.
Kerouac - you wuz robbed!!!
If I ever need to glop egg wash on something, and I'm fresh out of brushes, I just wipe it on with a paper towel.
Did you reinforce your chimney with a stiff cone of aluminum foil inside?

[Deleted]

Did you see any foil in my photo?

[tod2]

A totally inspired arty farty photo it was too!

Last night I watched Rachel Khoo make some pastry nibbles. She used puff pastry for the first layer, then lightly egg washed the entire surface and placed a sheet of Filo pastry on top before repeating the process once again ending up with a four layer pastry sheet..
She said the pastry bakes so much crispier this way. She placed an apple wedge inside with some creamy stuff then baked the little individual "cream horns". That's what the looked like but I think they were an Italian dessert.

[lagatta]

I'm not familiar with Leroy Merlin - I see that there is one at Rosa Parks.

Dank je, tod. Always useful, but I also have to do active research on my own. I'm trying to find a better free online site.

[tod2]

No problem. In Afrikaans you would be saying "Baie dankie" (many thanks). So you can see where the language developed from.

[lagatta]

I imagine that it also incorporates words from some of the Indigenous African languages there to describe local realities? (Which is the case for the French, and to some extent the English, spoken here).

Yes, I remember an elderly Afrikaans-speaking couple arriving at the railway station at Schipol and speaking halting English to the man at the wicket, and he answered them in slow, careful Dutch - they were delighted and continued chatting, in a Dutch so slow and articulated that I caught it all.

[tod2]

Lagatta, Afrikaans has no incorporated indigenous African language - As far as I know BUT, the African languages ( all 11 of them) have loads of Afrikaans words in their vocabulary. This is only found where their language has no name or description for an item, or the African language has just accepted a bastardisation of an Afrikaans word to make it easier to communicate.

ie. A bedroom in Afrikaans is "kamer" but when I speak zulu to my house maid, I may ask her to put something in the "kamerien" even though she knows the zulu word is in fact igumbi. Pronounced:
E goom bee. Why don't I use the english word, room? Don't really know except I must have learned the afrikaans way of saying it from her.