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JUNE-JULY COOK'S CHALLENGE--The Results Thread

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JUNE-JULY COOK'S CHALLENGE--The Results Thread

by Jenise » Sun Jul 13, 2008 7:15 pm

Looks like I'm the first one in. Here's my creation, a sunny Meditterrean summer lunch dish: Lentil, chevre and chicken terrine with cold steamed potatoes and basil-cumin-shallot vinaigrette.

ChickLentilTerrine-2.JPG


The lentils are the small green grand puy lentils, and they were lightly poached in chicken broth and then suspended in a sherried chicken aspic. The chicken mousse was made by pureeing about 3/4 lb chicken breast meat with cream and egg white. The mousse was seasoned with salt and fennel seed. It was baked in the same form I would eventually build the terrine in and was about one inch high. It had been my intention to slice it laterally to create two layers in a terrine that would go lentil, chicken, lentil, chevre, lentil, chicken, lentil with additional fine clear layers with a stronger gelatin top and bottom, but I clumsily dropped the terrine about a foot onto my work surface upon removing it from the oven, and it shattered apart laterally and unevenly, ending that plan. What I did instead, then, was piece it more or less back together and cut it into five verterical strips of about 1/2" each with a plan to use the prettiest four and using the fifth to fix the holes I would surely have. Two strips, snuggling on their sides, would now create the layers. The chevre, about 6 ounces, was crumbled into a food processor and creamed with chopped sun-dried tomatoes and just a bit milk which contained melted gelatine.

I built the layers one at a time, popping the terrine form into the freezer to chill down each layer before adding the next.

The vinaigrette was made by emulsifying white wine vinegar, EVOO, paprika, cumin, black pepper, dried basil, salt and a single clove of garlic and allowing that to marinate with finely diced shallots. Fresh chopped basil was added just before service.

The dish should have been lunch yesterday, but a near-migraine put me off my feed and so it made a lovely patio lunch today. Would I make it again? Yes, I love this kind of food, and the flavors and textures blended harmoniously. I would use fewer lentils--in the end, they were too dark and they muddied the crystaline purity of my honey-colored sherry aspic. And it really needed to be done the way I initially imagined it with the many thin, parfait-like layers which I would partially freeze before slicing for perfect, clean slices.
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My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov

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