The French Chef (1962–1973): Season 1, Episode 15 - Apple Dessert - full transcript

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JULIA: Ground veal,

ground pork,

strips of veal,

and strips of ham,

plus fine wine, spices and truffles,

these are the makings for a real French pâté,

today's recipe on The French Chef.

♪

Welcome to The French Chef.



I'm Julia Child.

Today we're gonna make a real French pâté in a terrine.

This is a terrine.

It comes from "terre,"
meaning "earth."

And these used to be made out of earthenware.

Or you can make it in a glass bread pan like this,

that is fireproof.

And pâté means, actually,

if you go back into history,

it means a pastry crust

which is surrounding a mixture of meat.

But the term has come to mean--

pâté has come to mean the meat mixture itself.

And the meat mixture in a meat pâté



is ground pork, ground veal, and spices and wines,

and anything else that you would like to put into it,

such as strips of veal

or ham or chicken livers.

But you always have your basic meat mixture,

which we are now going to make.

And then it bakes in the oven...

and you chill it,

and it makes a perfectly delicious first course

or buffet or whatever you'd like to use it for.

And we're gonna start out

with our strips of veal here.

And this is fillet of veal which is cut into strips

about a quarter of an inch across.

It's about a quarter of an inch thick,

And you cut it into strips.

And then, these strips are going to act--

going to be put in layers over the meat mixture.

But you want to marinate them first

in some wine and spices.

I'm going to use some cognac,

about, oh, a tablespoon of cognac.

And about a tablespoon and a half

of port wine.

And then we're going to use some shallots.

These are shallots, which you're probably familiar with,

small onions, and there's one that's peeled.

If you can't get shallots, you use green onion, like that.

And the marination of the veal always gives it

a little nice extra flavor.

And you should really let it marinate at least half an hour,

or it's even better if you do it overnight.

And there go in your shallots,

and then you put a little tiny bit of pepper in,

just about... a swish or two.

And a little bit of salt,

I'm putting in about a quarter of a teaspoon there.

And a little bit of thyme.

I'm putting in about an eighth of a teaspoon of thyme,

and then some allspice, which is a very nice spice

because it tastes like nutmeg, cinnamon,

and a few other things together.

And then you stir that up.

And if you want to add truffles, which are always awfully nice

but very expensive...

This little, tiny can of truffles cost

$2.71.

You don't have to use these, but we're going to make a pâté

in the real manner, with no adaptations.

It's gonna taste just like a French pâté.

And so you take your truffles out of the can.

A truffle is sort of an underground spore.

And nobody knows exactly how it propagates itself.

And you get them in France and Italy in the wintertime,

around Christmastime, and they just smell lovely

when they're fresh.

And if you get them in the can, you want to put them

with a little bit of Madeira before you use them,

because it gives them a better flavor.

And we're just going to cut these in quarters.

And then, when you slice your pâté,

you'll have black and white accents.

And then you set that aside.

And then, we're going to get to our basic meat mixture,

which we're gonna beat up in a great big bowl.

We have...

We have here...um--

This is two and a half cups of fat pork,

and this is one and a half cups

of ground, lean veal.

That would be about three quarters of a pound

of veal.

And the pork, you always want to have fat pork because--

You can either use lean pork, and then some pork fat...

'Cause you have to have fat in the pâté mixture

to give it the lightness that it's supposed to have.

Because the fat all cooks out when the pâté cooks

and just leaves the... sort of fat filaments,

which gives a lightness to the mixture.

And then, we're gonna have onions,

which we want about half of a cup of minced onions,

which we cook in butter.

I'm going to put in half a cup of minced onions

and about a tablespoon and a half

or two tablespoons of butter.

And then, while the onions are cooking,

we'll start flavoring and mixing up our meat.

And this will-- I'm gonna put in

a teaspoon and a half of salt.

And we're gonna have two whole eggs.

And we're going to have pepper.

About a... a good eighth of a teaspoon of pepper.

And we're gonna have half a teaspoon of thyme...

...and some more allspice; a great big pinch.

And then we take the marinade

from our... from our veal strips,

and pour that in.

You can make a pâté without wine,

but it isn't going to taste like a French pâté.

And you can make it without pork and veal,

but then again, you'll have...

so that it doesn't taste like a French pâté.

I'm gonna watch our onions here.

They need to cook about five minutes or so,

until they're soft and translucent.

They can just cook quietly while we start beating this up.

You put the eggs in

so that the pâté will hold together.

If you don't have it in, it gets crumbly.

You could do this in an electric mixer

if you had the kind of mixer that had

one of those dough hooks, which is sort of a hook

that comes around like that,

and then it just goes 'round and 'round.

But I think it's a good idea to beat things by hand

because it's good exercise.

And you beat it up thoroughly until you notice that

the mixture begins to lighten up.

Now, also, if you were going to

make the pâté out of something else,

such as game or duck,

you'd slice up the breast and use the breast meat in strips,

the way we used the veal,

and then you'd grind the rest of the meat,

such as the legs and other things,

and mix it up into your basic meat mixture here.

Now we'll look at our onions.

And those have just become soft and translucent.

So we put them into the meat mixture.

And then...

we want to... we're going to add some port.

So we're gonna add about a half of a cup of port here.

You can use either port wine or Madeira.

Port has a very nice flavor.

But whenever you're going to add wine to something like this

in this quantity, you always want to be sure

to cook it down so that you get rid of the alcohol.

It's very unpleasant to eat something

and have it taste of alcohol.

What you're really using your wine for

is the flavor of the wine,

'cause port has a delicious flavor.

So we boil it down by about half

to evaporate all the alcohol from it,

and to concentrate its flavor.

And now, when that's boiled down like that,

we pour that into our meat mixture

and then we beat it up again.

And then after we've beaten it up,

we're going to taste it for seasoning.

This is something you always want to do,

and particularly when you're making a pâté,

'cause it's a shame to go to all this work

and then find you haven't put enough salt in it.

And remember one thing: whenever you're serving something

that is going to be served cold,

you have to oversalt it a little bit,

because salt loses its savor in a cold dish.

And whenever you're using a pork mixture,

you want to be-- never want to taste raw pork.

So you always have to sauté it until it's cooked through,

and then we'll taste it and see how it is.

And now the meat mixture's all done,

so we're now going to go to the lining of our terrine.

And I'm going to use this

ordinary glass ovenproof bread pan,

just to show that you don't have to have any fancy stuff

to do a French terrine.

That, um...

Oh, no, get that out of here.

Now, this is lined with fat

because it's going to cook slowly in the oven.

And you don't want to have any crust on it at all.

It's supposed to be just a lovely,

fragrant cooked meat mixture.

But if you were in France,

what you'd use is a sheet of fresh pork fat.

Which in France is called... [speaks French]

And this is often hard to get.

This is fresh, unsmoked, and it comes from the back of the pig.

I'm gonna look at my...

Look at our meat mixture here, to see how it's coming along.

Think I had the heat on a little bit too high.

We just want to cook it through.

Now to get back to our pork.

This-- when you get fat salt pork,

it comes from the same part of the pig, but it's salted.

And I've got a wonderful butcher

who can really get me anything I want,

and he got this for me and had it cut

into a sheet about a sixteenth of an inch thick.

And this is what you'd use

if you were roasting something on a spit.

But as that's hard to get,

you have to be able to find other alternatives.

In another words, Yankee ingenuity.

Now, you can use salt pork.

And if you can't get your butcher to cut it for you,

you have to cut it yourself, which is something of a problem.

If you have a big ham-slicing knife, like that,

you can slice it down very thinly like that,

...which works perfectly well.

And when I was in the hardware store the other day,

I found this Swiss knife,

which has a serrated edge along there,

and then it has this kind of a guide,

that you can set any way you want.

So if you set it like that,

then you can slice your pork this way and the guide

arranges it so that you don't slice any thicker

than you want, like that.

And then if you-- your other alternative

is to use thick-sliced bacon,

which you can use to line your terrine.

But if you use either salt pork or bacon,

you have to blanch it, to get the extra salt out.

Or all the smoky taste, 'cause it would be terrible

to have your terrine taste just of bacon.

'Cause it's supposed to be pork and veal.

Now you just lay that in like that.

And then take the knife and cut off the edge.

And push it well down in.

And then, you want another piece of pork

on either side like that.

And if this is too thick here, you trim if off.

There.

We have a little piece that doesn't fit in.

And now we're ready to fill the terrine,

but first, we want to taste our...

taste our basic meat mixture

to make sure that it has just the right amount of seasonings.

So just be sure to do this,

and remember that you always taste it first.

Awfully good, I must say.

Now, we're gonna fill the terrine.

And when you're using raw meat,

have a bowl of water to dip your hands in.

Because then the meat doesn't stick to your hands.

So you just dip your hands into water,

and then fill the terrine, we'll use--

'cause this is not a very high one,

we'll just use one layer of decorative strips.

And you press it all nicely down to the bottom like that.

And then here are our veal strips.

And we also have ham to alternate with it.

So you just lay the ham in it.

Doesn't make any difference

whether the strips are as long as the terrine,

'cause it's going to be cut that way,

so you can't tell whether or not it's a long strip,

so you just alternate them, like this.

And this is always nice to do because when you cut down,

you... it makes a pattern.

Now I'll put our truffles right along in there.

You can use just as many truffles

as your purse can afford, and at $2.71 a box,

I don't know how many you'll want to use.

But they're lovely, 'cause when they cook in with the pâté,

they give a delicious flavor.

[clears throat]

Now, if you were using duck breast,

you'd just arrange it exactly the same way.

There.

And then if you had a higher baking dish,

you could have two layers of these strips.

You'd fill it with one-third of your basic meat mixture,

and then one layer of these strips, and then you'd...

and then you'd put on some more meat

and then make another layer of strips.

And just build it up that way.

Now we have our final layer of meat...

See what a good idea it is to have that bowl of water there,

'cause it really doesn't stick to your hands.

I'm gonna cut off that little bit there.

You want to make it look as neat as possible

because when you unmold it...

Think I'll get a little more... fat here.

Now-- looks very nice.

Think I'll put a little tiny bit more on there.

This shrinks up a little bit as it cooks.

There, now we have a bay leaf,

which we put on the top.

And then, I'm going to put the rest of my pork--

it's down here somewhere...

I brought this little piece of fat along.

If you can't get any other kind of fresh pork,

you can sometimes get your butcher

to cut you a piece of fat off of a pork loin.

There.

And then that goes on top.

You see, you don't want any of this to brown.

And then you're gonna cover that with a piece of aluminum foil.

You see, that isn't too difficult to do

if you can get the right kind of fat.

Then cover it closely with aluminum foil.

If you had one of those heavy terrines

you saw at the beginning with the cover,

you'd still use your aluminum foil on it

and put your cover on top of that.

Now, I didn't find, around my kitchen, any proper cover,

but I just want to show

that you can use anything you want as a cover.

I have a dish like this.

I'm gonna put it on that, and then weight it down.

And then we're gonna cook it in a pan of water.

This in France is called a bain-marie.

And you have simmering water there.

And you let it heat it up a little more,

and then put whatever cover you're going to use...

See, I put this in to weight it down

because this isn't a heavy enough cover.

And then the aluminum foil covers it very closely.

And then it goes into the oven.

I'm going to put it in a 350-degree oven.

Then that's gonna cook for about an hour and a quarter.

And you can tell when it's done.

When you remove it from the oven,

take off the aluminum foil and press with your hand.

The pâté mixture will have sunk a little, uh...

will have shrunk a little bit from the sides

of your baking pan.

And when you press down, all the fat and juices are

perfectly clear, with no rosy color.

And this, depending on the size of it,

I think this will probably take about

an hour and 15 minutes.

And the big terrine, like this, would take...

would take about an hour and a half.

And I'm gonna clear up here and wash up.

One thing that you want to be sure to do

when you are working with fresh pork is to be sure,

when you're through working,

that you wash your hands thoroughly.

Now, pork-- So many people--

I mean, pork does have to be cooked to be well-done

to have the right flavor, but a lot of people are so...

have such a feeling about well-done pork

that they overcook it.

And about 185 degrees is considered good

for roast pork, but if you're doing

something like a terrine,

actually, all the trichinosis are out of it

at a temperature of 137 to 140.

And that's an official figure

from the Department of Agriculture.

Now, when your pâté is done--

I will illustrate how it will be when it's done--

you take it out of the pan of water that it's cooked in,

and put it in another pan,

because there's going to be fat, which is dripping out of it.

And you take your cover off of it.

You see, this one I cooked yesterday,

and it's been chilled in the refrigerator.

And then you put your... this back on again,

and then you get either a pan that will fit into it,

or a board like that.

Put it on top and then weight it down

with a four-pound weight.

And the reason you weight it down is that,

as it's cooled, you want it to press it down

to press down-- out-- any air bubbles,

so that you're going to have a perfectly solid

piece of meat with no holes.

You don't want it to look like a badly baked loaf of bread,

for instance.

Then, you allow it to cool at room temperature.

And as you press it down, you'll notice that

quite a bit of fat comes out from here,

and that's why you want to put it in another pan.

And then, when it's perfectly cool,

you then refrigerate it.

Probably about eight hours, at least,

it needs of refrigeration.

And then you take off your mold and your weight,

and you're ready to unmold it.

Or you can, if you're going to eat it right away,

you can serve it right from the mold, which is...

which would be a French family way of doing.

And you just would take your knife

and cut right... cut slices like that.

And this is, when a pâté is cooked this way,

it's called a pâté en terrine.

And if you cooked it in the pastry crust,

then you just carve right down the pastry crust.

But I'm going to unmold it

because I think you'd like to see

everything that we can do for a pâté.

So you put it over heat.

One reason it's nice to have one of these fireproof,

heavy iron with enamel things is that you can put them

right over heat, and it doesn't hurt it.

Then you take a big knife and push it around a little bit

until you see that it's loosened from the side.

It's beginning to loosen now.

You can hear it making... making little noises.

Now, that is loosened enough, so it will unmold, so...

And then, again, you want a board or a plate

that has something that's gonna catch any fat

that comes out.

There it is.

Now, you can also serve it just like this,

which would be done very much in a French country...

country house or restaurant.

You notice there's this lovely jelly there,

which is absolutely delicious.

One should always taste it, 'cause it is so good,

'cause it has all those meat juices

and everything else in it.

Mm. Well...

Now, if you're going to cook it ahead of time

and keep it for several days,

it is this lovely jelly that's gonna turn first.

So we're gonna say that you want to keep it

for several days.

Do scrape all the jelly off.

But be sure to keep all that jelly

because if you want to chill the pâté

and serve it in aspic,

you would add this jelly to the aspic.

Because it has a lovely flavor with the wines

and the meats and the herbs and the spices.

Then, after you've taken all the jelly off--

and be very careful that you do get all of it off--

you would then put it back into the terrine, or baking pan,

and then pour melted fat around, and that would seal it.

And you could then keep it for--

Oh, it'll keep for a good ten days under refrigeration.

Pâtés you can freeze, but they never taste the same.

They have a sort of damp taste.

And if you've once frozen your own pâté

and then tasted it, and tasted it against a fresh one,

you notice that... a sort of damp consistency about it.

There. And now,

if you also... if you wanted to serve it in aspic,

you can take the fat off.

You see that just...

That's that fat lining there.

And you just... take it off like that,

all the way around.

And then you can put a layer of aspic

in the bottom of a mold, put the pâté in,

and pour cold aspic around it.

So now--

Actually, this has to go on another board.

So I'm just gonna lift it off,

and it's ready to eat, just like that.

I'm going to carve a piece of this

so you'll see how it is.

This is really, it's just a lovely dish.

As you see, we've assembled the whole thing

in just no time at all.

Here, I'll cut two slices. There.

Now, this is rich... a rich concoction,

so, really, people shouldn't eat more than one slice.

You notice there... you see, there are some

little specks of truffles in there, and there's your ham,

and there's your veal.

And we're going to serve this for a Sunday lunch.

We have our pâté, and we have sliced tomatoes

and a green salad and a rosé wine.

And that makes about as nice a meal

as anyone could possibly have.

A pâté is also good on a cold buffet.

And it's lovely on a picnic. And, as you can see,

it's not difficult to make.

It's not an inexpensive dish, but if you want it to taste

like the real thing, you have to put in

your veal and your pork.

And, as you remember, we used one part veal,

one part pork, and one third the amount

of the pork fat.

And that was your basic meat mixture.

And you can use that meat mixture also for

stuffing a goose with chestnuts, or a turkey.

And it makes a delicious stuffing.

And then we put in our port and our brandy

and the onions and the spices.

Now, next time we're gonna do aspics.

And you could do your pâté in aspic,

so don't miss that show if you're interested in them.

Well, that's all for today on The French Chef.

This is Julia Child. Bon appétit.

♪

ANNOUNCER: Julia Child is
co-author of the book

Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

The French Chef is made possible
by a grant from Safeway Stores.