Pates, Terrines and Galantines

When asking people if they have ever tried some form of pate, most people will say no. This style of making meat is just not very popular but also goes unnoticed when people do make them. Almost everyone at some point in there life has made meat loaf? Well that is a form of a pate. A Pate, Terrine or a Galantine is simply ground meat, known as forcemeat in the culinary world, wrapped in some form of lining and then baked. The different styles of these pates differ in the from of what it is wrapped in, if the meat is emulsified or how it is cooked. Most pates and terrines are baked while a galantine is usually poached.
First off i want to talk about how a galantine works and differs from other pates. For example we made a chicken galantine in class. The first step is to cut one whole chicken from the back to take off all of the skin and meat off the body of the chicken. This can prove to be harder for some people because you neek to keep all of the skin in one sheet without holes.

After carefully cutting the chicken you tenderize it and place it in the fridge. Now yet another tricky part shows up, the part on emulsifying the chicken. We use the 1:1:1 rule (1 lb chicken, 1 cup cream, 1 egg) in which you place the chicken, spices and the egg in a blender or more preferably a robotcoupe and pulse till smooth. Now the tricky cream part, if the cream isn't cold enough or the robotcoupe is too warm the cream will break and you got to do it all over again. After this you just place the mousse into your flattened chicken, roll it up with cheese cloth and poach it till it hits 155 internally.  Your end result is a rolled chicken galantine:

 
  All in all it is hard work but regular pates and terrines are a bit more simple. A pate uses a dough to wrap the meat in and if you don't keep the meat cold enough before baking it turns into a hollowed piece of bread. Terrines are the same concept but wrapped in bacon, ham, and other very thin meat cuts. The difference from the galantine too is how you bake it and not poach it. You need to bake it in a water bath unless it is wrapped in dough then after it is cooked in needs to be weighed down overnight. This makes it so the meat fully binds and will not have pockets or meat that is like sausage in the middle.

(see pictures page for full presentation)