I made a terrine!!!
Can you believe that? If I’ve not already been challenged enough trying to make jellies everyday, I decided to go a whole leap further and try my hands at making a terrine. I hardly eat terrines much less think of making one.
It’s one of those foods that I try maybe at a really fancy restaurant (like when we went to Chez Panisse) and then don’t even think of attempting at home. That has been one aspect of this Royal Selangor Jellyriffic Challenge that has been good. It has really pushed me to try new things and be adventurous in foods that I would not normally try.
But even then, I decided on baby steps. Some terrines call for pâté-type meats and fats and different animal parts that I’m not so used to working with. I found this recipe which called only for chicken meat. Oh yeah, I can do that!
An Extra Bonus
All it took was a whole chicken, some herbs and spices, some oranges, and gelatine. The bonus? You get extra stock to make soup for another day which then saves me even more time when I’m cooking another weekday meal. And extra chicken which I used this morning to fry some noodles for lunch. It’s a gift that keeps on giving. Yay! ^_^
And I thought it was going to be hard work. Turns out, this recipe is quite easy. It’s no harder than making chicken rice or boiling some chicken for soup.
You do have to prepare this dish in advance, as the terrine needs a day to set. The humbug part is waiting for the chicken to cool so that you can peel off the meat and return the carcass to the stock to boil down some more. (Ok, assembling the terrine took a bit more time too but seriously, not very much at all.)
Even after a busy day at work, prepping this dinner was super easy. This was because the chicken terrine was already made the day before. In no time at all, our whole family sat down to a fantastic meal. My kids not only gave it two thumbs up, Esther even exclaimed that this was the best meal EVER! (Oh, she’s fickle; in two days she’ll call something else the best meal EVER but for today, it really felt true and made me feel like SUPERMOM!).
Chicken Terrine Recipe
adapted from Delicous Magazine, Feb 2010 edition, p 62.
Prep time: 1 hour 30 min / Total time: 1 day
Ingredients
1.5 kg whole chicken
1 onion, halved
3-4 bay leaves
1 Tbsp dried thyme
4-5 cloves
2-3 strips orange peel (orange part only)
enough water to cover chicken
1 Tbsp gelatine powder
zest and juice from 2 large oranges
1 Tbsp dried parsley flakes (if you can get fresh, use 2 Tbsps)
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup mustard aioli (recipe to follow)
Method
1. Place the bay leaves, thyme, cloves and orange peel in a stock bag.
2. In a large pot, place the whole chicken with the onion and stock bag. Cover the chicken with cold water and then boil over medium high heat. If you want, add a little bit of salt to the water (I added 1 tsp salt). Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for about 30-45 minutes until chicken is cooked through.
3. Remove chicken from stock and leave to cool. Once the chicken is cold enough to handle, remove chicken skin and shred meat into large chunks (about one inch pieces). Return the bones and any liquid back to the stock and let that simmer, uncovered, for another 45 minutes to an hour to reduce to about half (mine only reduced by 1/3 but that was fine).
Cooking Chicken and Straining Stock
4. Once stock is done, strain out solids. At this point, you can put the whole pot into the fridge overnight (doing this allows the fat to congeal which makes removing it a cinch).
5. Sprinkle the gelatine powder over the orange juice to let it bloom.
6. In the meantime, if you have cooled the stock overnight, heat one cup till it is warm. Add the stock to the orange juice with gelatine, orange zest and parsley flakes and stir to mix till gelatine has been completely incorporated into the stock. Season WELL with salt and pepper. Take the stock and put it in the fridge for about 30 minutes to an hour to let the stock set a little.
Mixing Orange Juice with Chicken Stock
7. Take your moulds and pour in a spoonful of stock (make sure to stir so that you get a little bit of zest and parsley with each spoonful). Place chicken pieces into the mould (get a little bit of both dark and white meat). Spoon more stock between layers of chicken meat. Use the back of the spoon to pack the chicken in tightly. Do the same with the second mold. I ended up having just a little bit of stock left and made an extra small bowl of chicken terrine. You will have some chicken meat leftover (use it in some other application).
Assembling the Chicken Terrines
8. Press down on the chicken so that the top layer gets some stock on top. Tightly cover with plastic wrap and leave to set overnight.
9. Unmold and serve.
Decide on Your Sides
Other than the terrine, you just have to decide on your sides. Since orange is a big flavor component in this dish, I decided to bake some sweet potatoes with orange juice and zest to tie it all together. I also blanched up some green beans. All of that got sauced with a mustard aioli that is to die for.
Let me tell you, it turns out the mustard aioli is the glue that holds all the different components together. It was so good, I’m going to share that recipe with you too. I can already see myself making it again to go with just about everything!
Mustard Aioli Recipe
adapted from Bon Appétit, January 2008
Ingredients
2 garlic cloves
1/2 tsp coarse Himalayan salt (kosher salt is better but I can’t get that here in Kuching)
1 cup mayonnaise
2 Tbsp spicy brown mustard (original recipe called for whole grain mustard but I used what we had on hand)
1 Tbsp lemon juice (or more to taste)
Method
1. Mash garlic and the coarse salt in a mortar till you get a paste.
2. Place garlic paste with all the other ingredients in a bowl and mix. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.
I used a few spoonfuls of this aioli to coat my blanched green beans and then drizzled some over the chicken terrine. It was wonderful. The garlic was a little strong so if you don’t like garlic, just use one clove (but you know me likes!).
This chicken terrine is so easy and so tasty, you should try it! Get yourself a jelly mould from Royal Selangor – the proceeds go towards supporting the Breast Cancer Welfare Association of Malaysia, and Malaysian customers can enter to win an Olympus Pen Lite E-PL3 camera – and start playing around.
Enjoy!
Cheers, Annie
Malay women appear to have larger tumours and a later stage at diagnosis than other ethnic groups in Malaysia; 50% to 60% were in late stages (Stages 3 and 4). This is attributed to a strong belief in traditional medicine, the negative perception of the disease, poverty and poor education, coupled with fear and denial. For more information, please visit the Breast Cancer Welfare Association website.
come to KL the next time, we shall go Sek Yuen to try the very very old school gelatine chicken!
Babe–You’re on! I might be back in November.
Nice terrine! Looks really delicious!
I am definitely going to try one of these for the holidays! Totally forgot about terrines and now you’ve tickled my fancy. Yours is absolutely beautiful. Hope you share more…. Come visit when you can.
Your Terrine Looks Magnificent, Annie!!! You make it sound so easy and yet, I’m sure I could never make such a glorious presentation…
Thank you so much for sharing…
Amazing terrine, we call it chicken in jelly which is much less of an appealing name, but this looks as good as it sounds. And orange? Yum!
Your terrine looks fantastic! One of the more unique jellyrific recipes that I’ve seen!!!
Well done Annie, I reckon this is the best way to eat cold chicken and such a clever idea of using the mustard aioli as a bind! Beautiful recipe!
I have never cooked with Himalayan salt though, what is the difference between that and regular sea salt or salt flakes? I sometimes use pink salt flakes to sprinkle over pasta and it is absolutely awesome. I guess the spicy brown mustard could be hot English mustard?
Never had this before..gotta give a try!!Look beautiful!
annie, this must be SOOO good! i made an aspic too but it was too hard *sigh*
btw, when i click onto your profile, i get to your previous blog. pls update so that readers can go directly here!
am waiting for your kk tribute jelly:)