Duck Pâté en Croûte

A pâté baked in a pastry crust: a coarse duck, chicken-thigh and chicken-liver farce seasoned with anise, porcini and fennel pollen, sealed in a rich egg-yolk pastry, baked, then filled with aspic through a foil chimney.

Untested: not yet made in this kitchen. It is here for the Pâtés and Terrines section and is adapted from the source named in the Notes.

Ingredients

Dough

• 3½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 2 sticks chilled unsalted butter, in ½-inch cubes
• 5 egg yolks
• 1 whole egg, beaten, for egg wash

Farce

• 2 teaspoons chopped thyme
• ½ teaspoon anise seed
• 1 dried porcini mushroom
• 2 tablespoons kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• ½ teaspoon fennel pollen
• ¼ teaspoon Insta Cure No. 1 (pink curing salt)
• 14 ounces skinless duck breast, in 1-inch pieces
• 8 ounces boneless skinless chicken thighs, in 1-inch pieces
• 5 ounces chicken livers
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• ½ medium onion, minced
• 2 king trumpet mushrooms (3 ounces), sliced

Aspic

• 1½ tablespoons powdered gelatin
• 2 cups chicken stock
• Mostarda, to serve

Directions

Dough

1. Pulse the flour and 1 tablespoon salt in a food processor. Pulse in the butter until pea-sized, then the yolks, until the dough just comes together. Knead 2 minutes. Divide into ⅓ and ⅔, shape each into a disc and chill 30 minutes.

Farce

2. Grind the thyme, anise and porcini to a powder. Mix with the 2 tablespoons salt, the pepper, fennel pollen and curing salt, and toss with the duck, chicken and livers.
3. Freeze 30 minutes until firm. Grind coarse, then pass half through the grinder a second time. Mix and chill at least 8 hours.
4. Sauté the onion in the oil 3 minutes, add the mushrooms and cook 5 minutes more. Cool and mix into the farce.

Assemble and bake

5. Heat the oven to 350 °F. Roll the larger disc to 12 × 18 inches (about ⅙ inch thick) and line a 1½-quart terrine mold, leaving an overhang.
6. Pack in the farce, fold the overhang over it and egg-wash. Roll the smaller disc to a 12 × 4-inch lid, lay it on and seal the edges.
7. Cut a ½-inch vent in the lid and ring it with a strip of dough. Decorate, egg-wash, and set a foil chimney in the vent.
8. Bake until golden and 165 °F in the center, about 1 hour. Cool 1 hour, then refrigerate.

Aspic

9. Bloom the gelatin in ¼ cup of the stock, dissolve it in the rest of the stock, heated, and cool to room temperature.
10. Pour it through the chimney into the gap between crust and filling. Chill at least 8 hours.
11. Unmold and slice 1 inch thick. Serve with mostarda.

Notes

Source Adapted from Francis Derby, “Pâté en Croûte,” Saveur. The recipe’s “3 tablespoons kosher salt” is split 1 to the dough and 2 to the farce, as its steps say.

Why the aspic The meat shrinks from the crust as it bakes; the aspic fills the gap, seals the filling from the air and is a component in its own right — the Championnat du Monde de Pâté-Croûte scores the jelly out of 30, the same as the pastry.

On the curing salt ¼ teaspoon of Cure No. 1 keeps the farce pink rather than gray. It is optional for a pâté that is fully cooked and eaten within days.

Equipment A hinged pâté-en-croûte mold makes unmolding easy; a solid terrine mold works but the pie must be lifted out.

The Pâtés and Terrines section’s En Croûte and Galantine page (/pates-and-terrines/en-croute-and-galantine/) covers the history and technique behind this dish.

The photo The photograph is a stand-in: a pâté en croûte made with foie gras and pistachios, not this duck version.