Terrines, Galantines, Pates, Roulades, and Timbales

Thursday and Friday we made more cold dishes. Supposedly, people at fine dining restaurants eat this stuff. But I don't see why. it takes a really long time and effort to make, so I could see why it's only served at expensive places, but why anyone would want to eat it...I don't really get. It just looks gross.

Thursday we made Seafood Roulade, Pate de Campagne, Fennel Mousse. On Friday we made Roasted Vegetable Terrine with Goat Milk Cheese, Roasted Red Pepper Mousee, Red Bean Timbale, and Classic Chicken Galantine.

Terrines and pates are baked forcemeats (ground meat) - terrines are baked in a dish but pates typically have a crust. In our case, the crust is made from pork fatback. A galantine is forcemeat that is wrapped in the skin of the animal it comes from (duck, chicken) and then usually poached. A mousse as the base of the terrine is the pureed meat/fish/vegetable bound with gelatin and lightened with lightly whipped heavy cream.

This, I think, is the seafood roulade - a smooth paste is made out of pike, seasonings, white bread, egg white, and heavy cream (this makes a mousseline) and then diced salmon, diced shrimp, and spices are folded in.

This is Chef working on his Chicken Galantine. First, he deboned the chicken while barely using his knife. This was really impressive to watch. And so much easier than the way we had been taught.

Then this is layering - skin, proscuitto, chicken breasts, mousseline, tenderloins. Then is was rolled up and wrapped in cheesecloth and poached.

This is what my team's looked like:

Not quite as pretty at all - Chef said T tried to overstuff, a common early mistake for chefs.

Lessons Learned

People will pay good money to eat things that aren't even appetizing. Or maybe I just don't know what's good. No major lessons these nights, except that I'm getting worn out. I wish they would allow us breaks in our training besides one institute day every few months.