Shrimp and Salmon Terrine for Charcutepalooza

There's a show business truism that dictates that if you say "ta-da!" enthusiastically enough at the end of the show, people will think your act was a success, no matter what came before. Since cooking is a form of show business, allow me without further ado to say:

"TA-DAAAA!!!"

I launched a book and embarked on a house painting project this month, and Charcutepalooza kind of got away from me. Also, I really was all primed to do a pig's head, especially since one of my heroes, Ruth Goodman, tackles one with ease at some point in Victorian Farm. However, since there are only two of us in the house, and as I don't eat much meat, and as Jonathan doesn't really like leftovers, when the reports began to come in about the large quantity of head cheese you get from one pig, I decided I needed to rework my strategy.

Thus, on the last possible day, I tackled the Shrimp and Salmon Terrine with Spinach and Mushrooms, encouragingly described as "probably the simplest terrine to make at home". It calls for a food processor to reduce the shrimp to paste, the modern equivalent of forcing the shrimp meat through a sieve. Now I don't own a food processor; what to do? I tried chopping with a knife. I tried a food mill. I even tried a sieve.

Allow me to inform you at this point what a pitiful grey teaspoon of sludge you get after forcing a perfectly good, $10-a-pound tiger shrimp through what I think of as a sieve.

Reader, we will draw a curtain across the lamentable kitchen scene that constituted the middle section of the exercise. We will rejoin our heroine as she drizzles one cup of light cream (not 1¼ cups of heavy cream, as per the recipe) into a mush of shrimps and egg white, when things were starting to look up again.


We may even follow her to the kitchen garden where she chooses some beans and very pretty chard, a head of dill and a few cloves of garlic for the rest of the meal. It's starting to feel more like a French country kitchen again, thank goodness. (There will be a baguette too, from yesterday's market. Better and better.)

It was pretty much all good news from there on in. Despite the shrimp-chopping difficulties, the texture was pleasant. Despite the use of light cream, it set just fine. Despite a hurry-up chill-and-press involving cold-water baths, it held its shape. And despite the omission of plastic wrap inside the mold (because I like to avoid contact between plastic and food when possible), it unmolded beautifully – with a little help from a spatula (thank you, Le Creuset!)

Now, if only my poor old camera would take photos in indoor light, I could show you a picture of a lovely meal! The best I can do, by morning light, is show you the leftovers: