SV terrine general guidelines

I'm looking to make a couple of terrines soon, and sous vide is the way I'm gonna go. I'm immersion-circulator experienced, but somehow I'm choking on the time-temp for these, especially the vegetable. Does anyone know of any general guidelines for terrines, or do I just make sure to pasteurize?

I'm definitely doing an all-vegetable terrine - layers of creamed spinach and turnip in stripes, bound with egg. Should I just use whatever temp will set both whites and yolks, and enough time to pasteurize to core?

I'm overthinking.

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Chris_Young_80640

Trial-and-error will be required. But your thought process of choose a temperature that will set the yolks and whites is a good starting point. These are more than high enough temperatures to pasteurize, and fairly quickly.

com-chefsteps

Thanks for your thoughts! I wonder if old-school terrines and pates might come back into fashion, thanks to nudges from nose-to-tail and sous vide. I'll report my results when they come in.

com-chefsteps

Okay, here's my report and some pics. This was a nineteen-course tea for 14 people, our largest project to date. The "client" was a friend hosting a "Victorian steampunk party," which we interpreted to mean "use old-school presentations, Devon/Cornwall ingredients, and make it fancy."

The two terrines for this were Rick Tramonto's asparagus terrine, made vegetarian by attempting to replace the gelatin with xanthan/agar as recommended by MC. This dish required no sous-vide - just layer and chill - so was the easier of the two to make. I'm sorry to say I took shortcuts with the agar and xanthan which resulted in a cloudy, unpalatably-textured gel. The gel also did not bond to the asparagus spears so after cutting into slices, the spears had a strong tendency to fall out of the center or tear the gel at the edge. I admit I plated in such a way as to make this the eater's problem. Garnishes were loosened chèvre (from Tramonto) and vacuum-jarred chioggia-beet/chervil pickles which, while a lovely pink, lost their stripes after a day vacuum-sealed in the jar - so they looked a lot like sushi gari. I did like the pink/white/green.

The second terrine was a major revision of a recipe from culinary school, combining three purées: carrot, turnip and spinach. These are all cooked down massively (3 pounds of raw spinach reduced down to about a cup of puree), run through a tamis, fortified with cream and reduced again - really old-fart French. I was pretty concerned about piping the purées into the mold, so thickened with xanthan gum, which helped a lot. Egg, in differing ratios of yolk/white, served as a binder (I'd love to find a suitable binder that's not yellow, so I could keep those turnips whiter - both the cream and yolk were notably yellowing). Even adding as much xanthan as I could tolerate, all the purees seemed pretty loose and I felt lucky to have piped as well as I did.

Cooked in a steel mold for 90 minutes at around 167°F, but when my toothpick wasn't clean I gave it another 30 minutes at around 190°F (sorry, I gave up on disciplined control of variables). Toothpick came out clean, and I chilled it in the fridge overnight.

Top view:

View after some slices had been served. Somehow, somehow, it unmolded wonderfully - both sliceable and spreadable.

By the way, you can also see in the background there a couple pieces of ChefSteps' tuna confit and cured lemon peel on watercress toast (our nod to Stargazy pie, which we figured nobody would eat). I couldn't get albacore loin so was steered by my fishmonger to "tuna tips" - a mistake - too much connective tissue.

They all tasted wonderful, though the texture on the asparagus terrine was problematic, and plating remains my weakest point. This is about as good as it gets, presentation-wise, for me - pickled "cornucopias" and all.