Something new: a Turkey Terrine

Today i realised i haven't made any recipe with meat yet. Not that i'm a big fan actually, i have been a vegetarian for a few years as a young adult, and now it's just not on top of my shopping list most of the time. I tend to eat meat mostly at my parents, where i have lunch a few times a week.

I turned vegetarian during the whole "mad cow" crisis. And if anything good came out of it, it has been the transparency of producers, aswell as the will to propose better quality product. I look for labels, organic production, and here more than ever i go for quality over quantity.

For my birthday, i got some accessories for Nigella, my Kitchenaid. Including a food grinder and something i will be using in a futur post: a sausage stuffer kit. But now is the food grinder's turn to be used. If you have a kitchenaid, it's really an accessory i'd advice you to get, it turned out to be handy and easy to clean.

Now for the recipe, it's a tad too hot for a lamb stew, which i like very much too. So this is what is called "terrine" in french, it's eaten cold and i like it in the summer next to a salad. I choose turkey, but chicken would do the trick too.

Turkey Terrine with chive and Hazelnuts

For 2 individuals portions

200gr of Turkey
100gr of Bread
100ml of Milk
8 Slices of Bacon
1 Egg
1 Tablespoon of Fresh Chive, chopped
1 Tablespoon of Hazelnuts, chopped and roasted
1 Tablespoon of Porto Wine
1 Teaspoon of Paprika
1 Teaspoon of Cumin
Salt, Pepper
2 Bay Leaves

Cut the bread (i choose rustic bread leftover) into cubes, and let it soak into the milk for about 5 minutes.

Slice about 6 stripes of the turkey breast, that will be put in the middle of the terrine. Put the rest of the meat thru the grinder.

Press the milk out of the bread a little, and put it thru the grinder aswell. Mix those two together.

Now add one egg, the chopped chive, the hazelnuts, the spicies and Porto wine. Season with salt and pepper. Combine everything well together.

Preheat your oven to 180°C.

Lay the bacon stripes into your oven form, in a star shape pattern so it covers it all (as shown on the picture above). Fill the first half with the turkey mixture, and lay the turkey stripes you've cut in the beginning on it.

Now fill the form up with some more mixture, and fold the bacon stripes on top of it to "close" it. Put one bay leaf on top of each terrine.

Place the two forms in a bigger tray, and fill it halfway up with water. Put in the oven for 1 hour. Let it cool completly before serving.

You can switch hazelnuts for pistachios, used other spicies like curry or nutmeg depending on your taste, or switch Porto wine for a different alcohol.

Bacon aside, this is actually quite on the healthy side, served with a mixed green salad, some good mustard and a couple of pickles.