After Tom and I came back from our Thanksgiving trip to France, I got that idea to loosely base our annual holiday party menu on the theme of "French Christmas." I decided to try making my own pâté for the first time. I love pâté as a spread or in a terrine, and Tom and I ate a huge amount of it while we were in France. I found a highly-rated country pâté recipe on epicurious.com that looked easy enough.
The recipe is surprisingly simple. You line a loaf pan with bacon (I used a 10-inch by 5-inch pan); press in half of a mixture of ground pork, chopped bacon, sautéed onions, herbs, eggs, cream, and reduced cognac; arrange strips of ham steak on top; press in the remaining pork mixture; fold the bacon strips over; cover with foil; and bake in a bain marie for a few hours until the mixture reaches 155 degrees.
Everything was going along swimmingly until I took the pâté out of the oven after two hours and fifteen minutes to check the temperature. It was only about 115 degrees. And the pan and water didn't seem very hot. I quickly realized that the oven was off and I couldn't figure out why. I had already baked several hundred cookies earlier that day and the oven worked just fine the entire time. After my husband Tom and I futzed around with the oven and reset the circuit breaker, we still couldn't get the gas oven to light. At that point I started to panic. It was 9:30 in the evening and our holiday party was starting in less than 48 hours. Not only did I have a half-cooked pâté on my hands, but I had lot of other items remaining on my to-bake list. I started making a desperation contingency plan -- maybe I could serve our party guests shots of frosting?
Thankfully, it occurred to me that I should call my friend Gail. My first job out of law school was at the Department of Justice, where Gail and I worked at the same Division. She and her husband Zev happen to live three blocks away. I gave them a ring and without a moment's hesitation they invited me over to finish baking my pâté at their house.
I emptied the water out of the bain marie and headed over to Gail and Zev's. They had the oven preheated and a kettle of boiling water ready, along with a kitchen so immaculate that it was ready for a magazine shoot. We chatted during the time it took for the pâté to finish baking and Gail and Zev generously offered to let me use their kitchen the following day as well. I took the pâté back home, placed a sheet pan on top, weighed it down with several cans, and put it in the fridge. I also emailed and left phone messages for several appliance repair companies before going to bed.
The following morning I took a peek at the pâté. Even though it was still covered by a pan and canned goods, the entire refrigerator smelled amazing. None of the repair places had returned my messages, so I did some prep work at home and then packed up a bunch of ingredients and baking equipment and headed back to Gail and Zev's house. While I was there, I baked eight dozen sweet and salty brownies, three tart crusts, six dozen madeleines, and roasted several pounds of butternut squash. Gail and Zev's kitchen is quite a bit larger than mine, and they have two ovens -- so even though I lost quite a bit of time by having to pack up so much stuff and drive it back and forth, I was able to get a lot done in a few hours.
While I was there, my husband Tom was able to get a repair person over to the house who diagnosed a shorted out spark module and got the oven working again. The first thing I did when I got home was to unmold the pâté and give it a taste. I thought it looked terrific -- it had a dense, uniform shape after being weighed down in the refrigerator, and the pink strip of ham steak in the middle was a nice touch. To be honest, I didn't think that the bacon around the outside was particularly appetizing -- it was pale and not browned at all. But holy cow did this pâté taste amazing. It was perfectly seasoned, intensely flavorful but not too rich, and delicious all by itself -- and even better with whole-grain mustard and cornichons on a baguette. I am kind of stunned that it is so easy to make a wonderful pâté at home.
Gail and Zev helped save not just the pâté, but also our holiday party. I can never thank them enough!
Recipe: "Country Pâté" from epicurious.com.
The recipe is surprisingly simple. You line a loaf pan with bacon (I used a 10-inch by 5-inch pan); press in half of a mixture of ground pork, chopped bacon, sautéed onions, herbs, eggs, cream, and reduced cognac; arrange strips of ham steak on top; press in the remaining pork mixture; fold the bacon strips over; cover with foil; and bake in a bain marie for a few hours until the mixture reaches 155 degrees.
Everything was going along swimmingly until I took the pâté out of the oven after two hours and fifteen minutes to check the temperature. It was only about 115 degrees. And the pan and water didn't seem very hot. I quickly realized that the oven was off and I couldn't figure out why. I had already baked several hundred cookies earlier that day and the oven worked just fine the entire time. After my husband Tom and I futzed around with the oven and reset the circuit breaker, we still couldn't get the gas oven to light. At that point I started to panic. It was 9:30 in the evening and our holiday party was starting in less than 48 hours. Not only did I have a half-cooked pâté on my hands, but I had lot of other items remaining on my to-bake list. I started making a desperation contingency plan -- maybe I could serve our party guests shots of frosting?
I emptied the water out of the bain marie and headed over to Gail and Zev's. They had the oven preheated and a kettle of boiling water ready, along with a kitchen so immaculate that it was ready for a magazine shoot. We chatted during the time it took for the pâté to finish baking and Gail and Zev generously offered to let me use their kitchen the following day as well. I took the pâté back home, placed a sheet pan on top, weighed it down with several cans, and put it in the fridge. I also emailed and left phone messages for several appliance repair companies before going to bed.
The following morning I took a peek at the pâté. Even though it was still covered by a pan and canned goods, the entire refrigerator smelled amazing. None of the repair places had returned my messages, so I did some prep work at home and then packed up a bunch of ingredients and baking equipment and headed back to Gail and Zev's house. While I was there, I baked eight dozen sweet and salty brownies, three tart crusts, six dozen madeleines, and roasted several pounds of butternut squash. Gail and Zev's kitchen is quite a bit larger than mine, and they have two ovens -- so even though I lost quite a bit of time by having to pack up so much stuff and drive it back and forth, I was able to get a lot done in a few hours.
While I was there, my husband Tom was able to get a repair person over to the house who diagnosed a shorted out spark module and got the oven working again. The first thing I did when I got home was to unmold the pâté and give it a taste. I thought it looked terrific -- it had a dense, uniform shape after being weighed down in the refrigerator, and the pink strip of ham steak in the middle was a nice touch. To be honest, I didn't think that the bacon around the outside was particularly appetizing -- it was pale and not browned at all. But holy cow did this pâté taste amazing. It was perfectly seasoned, intensely flavorful but not too rich, and delicious all by itself -- and even better with whole-grain mustard and cornichons on a baguette. I am kind of stunned that it is so easy to make a wonderful pâté at home.
Gail and Zev helped save not just the pâté, but also our holiday party. I can never thank them enough!
Recipe: "Country Pâté" from epicurious.com.
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