Citrus-berry terrine

Not sure what I can tell you about this, except that it was delicious! I made a half recipe sometime back in June, with oranges and an assortment of berries and enjoyed it for dessert with whipped cream, for breakfast (it's just fruit after all) and probably for lunch too, as I needed to clean out the fridge before leaving town. I may even have had it for a midnight snack if the photos of it sliced are any indication. So, you get the big picture and the end piece, okay? 

This is a French Fridays post--we don't publish recipes. Thanks to Laws of the Kitchen for being in a much earlier time zone--I was avoiding packing last night and saw her post, which reminded me to put my own up.

The Daring Bakers get steamy!

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet. 

Suet? The stuff we feed to birds? Yup, that's the stuff:) This challenge caused a bit of controversy in the forums, right from the moment it was posted. Some declined to participate this month, while others looked for suet substitutes. Many got right to it and started producing puddings. I wasn't one of those, of course. I thought it sounded like a really interesting challenge, as I had never cooked with suet, but we were having a freak heat wave when it was announced, and the idea of steaming something for 5 hours did not appeal. Luckily (?) the weather reverted to seasonal chilliness and the challenge was on!


I went to the butcher shop looking for suet, and I swear the butcher did a happy dance when I asked for it. He came racing across the store to with a container of veal suet and questions about what I was going to do with it. He was quite happy that I was making something to eat and not bird food with it. Butchers are so enthusiastic about their craft! I don't eat that much meat, so I rarely go to the butcher's, but this one is my new go-to shop. In fact I went back later in the week to get the ingredients for the filling, but first let me tell you about rendering the suet.


Do not do this at home! The suet has no smell when cold, but when heated it immediately filled my apartment with this super-greasy smell. I do believe I sat there for the whole hour it took with a wrinkled up nose, feeling nauseous, and waiting for it to be ready. Of course, this was after I had separated the fat from all the attached membranes, but that part was fine--I'm not squeamish in the kitchen at all. I won't show you any photos of the suet, as it may be harrowing for some (like me--no need to relive the smell). The suet pastry was odourless, though, and very easy to make and work with. 


Now I needed to decide what to fill the puddings with. I decided to go with veal, as I was using veal suet. I know this doesn't make much sense, but bear with me. Most recipes seemed to include chunks of meat, as in steak and kidney pudding. I wondered if a larger cut of meat would work, so I bought some veal shanks and made osso bucco. I seasoned and browned the veal shanks, but removed one and refrigerated it, browned, but still raw inside, for the pudding. I didn't want it to be overcooked inside the crust, and I was afraid this was going to be a very expensive waste, with the price of veal shanks. I cooked one shank in the sauce made with marsala (remember the tiramisu challenge?), reduced and cooled the sauce, and then used it with the reserved piece of veal shank in the pudding.


I lined the 0.5L pudding basin with the pastry and put in lots of the sauce and vegetables, with the veal shank nestled in the middle. I then covered it with more pastry and trussed it like a turkey (actually, wrapped it in pleated wax paper and foil, tied the layers tightly to the bowl, and made a string handle). It was now ready to steam, which I did stovetop in a large pot, with an inch or two of gently boiling water, for 3.5 hours. It was well past bedtime then, so I put it in the fridge and reheated it for dinner the next day by steaming it for an hour.

Not the best photo, but this is the inside of the osso bucco pudding, with some gremolata sprinkled on top. It was delicious! The veal shank I cooked inside the pudding was much more tender and flavourful than the one I cooked on top of the stove. The sauce had that wonderful gelatinous quality and the bone marrow was fantastic with some salt and gremolata. The suet crust, however, I didn't like at all. It browned beautifully, and rose, but it was just a bit odd in texture and didn't seem to have much flavour. Maybe I was still disturbed by the rendering, or maybe it just needed more salt, but I ended up throwing it all away. 


For the sweet pudding, I decided to go with a Sussex Pond pudding. This pudding is made by encasing a whole lemon with lots of brown sugar and butter in a suet crush and steaming until a sauce is formed. I just wanted to make a tiny one, so I used a small Meyer lemon and a few kumquats. 

I sliced the fruit thinly, and refrigerated it overnight with the brown sugar and a few crushed pods of cardamom. The next day, I put it in the crust in a 0.2L pudding basin, layering an obscene amount of butter above and below the fruit. I should only have steamed this for an hour, as it was so small, but I left it for 2 hours, so I did not get the pond effect of the sauce running out. Instead it was a thick marmalade-like filling. It was absolutely delicious, and I ate most of it before I managed to stop myself and get a picture, hence the copious amount of whipped cream. I still didn't love the suet crust, but it was better here. 

Update! I came home from work today and decided to make a third pudding. This time I chose a chocolate sponge pudding made with butter. I followed this recipe, but lined the buttered pudding basin with sliced almonds and sugar, and added a few tablespoons of Amaretto to the batter. A half recipe steamed in a 0.5L basin for 45 minutes, and was rich, dense and delicious. 

This was such an interesting challenge--it was the first time since I joined that I used a totally new ingredient! Check out the slideshow to see all the fantastic pudding creations by the Daring Bakers. 

Daring Bakers' March Challenge: Orange Tian

Tian? What? It certainly sounds fancy, doesn't it? A tian is a layered dish, either sweet or savoury. The required components for this month's challenge were:

• the pastry base (pâte sablée)
• the orange marmalade
• the whipped cream
• the citrus segments
• and a caramel sauce 

I was excited about making marmalade, as I have made all sorts of preserves before, but never marmalade. I got so excited that I made about 3 litres of the stuff, or 14 jars! I used a tablespoon in the tian recipe, so there are leftovers. Want some? I've been eating it instead of ginger honey on my toast, but considering I don't eat much toast, it could last a while. I made it with Seville oranges, and it was delicious, but there was definitely a bitter undertone.  The colour was beautiful, so I may just hang a jar in my window as a suncatcher. Except I don't get much sun in my apartment. This photo was taken at my mother's--she gets lots of sun.

I really spaced out the components of this challenge. About a week after the marmalade I made the caramel and segmented the oranges (navel and blood) and grapefruit as they had to sit overnight in the caramel. The next day I made the pâte sablée and realized I had no whipping cream to make the filling. So, the citrus got an extra day in the caramel. At least some of it did--it was pretty tasty.

The next day it rained and was completely grey outside, so I postponed again. My north-facing apartment gets little enough light as it is, and I couldn't get enough to photograph anything in natural light. Of course I haven't got lights--I'm using a point and shoot camera! So, I just ate a bit more of the fruit and hoped I'd have enough to put the dessert together.

Once I finally remembered to pick up the whipping cream and the weather cleared up it came together really quickly. The recipe called for stabilizing the cream with gelatin, but since I was only making 2 small tians I didn't think this was necessary. I had read in Rose's Heavenly Cakes that dulce de leche could be used to sweeten and stabilize whipped cream, so I did that, as I thought that it would be nice with the caramel sauce, and it was. I already knew that dulce de leche went very nicely with the pastry, as I had made cookies out of the leftover pastry, sandwiched them together with dulce de leche and used them for Tuesdays with Dorie just a day earlier. Recycling is in, people!

These were delicious! The crisp and buttery pâte sablée base with the caramel whipped cream, fresh citrus and more caramel sauce made for a great combination. I used Seville orange juice in the caramel sauce, so it was not very sweet. The marmalade in the cream was a nice surprise too. Well, not really a surprise, since I had just made it, but I was still somewhat surprised to find it there. Not paying attention can have its benefits!

Mandatory blog-checking lines: The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris. 

Thanks Jennifer for a great challenge! Check out the slideshow to see what all the rest of the fabulous Daring Bakers have come up with this month.
:)

Recipes after the jump.