Fish terrine and rice mousse with aromatic herbs
Fish terrine as an inspiration
This is one of those recipes that tells you how to easily implement Michelin secrets into your home and everyday cooking.
Fish was the inspiration for me this time, because I had leftovers of it in the fridge, but you can certainly substitute it with any other type of meat, even ham.
components
- 400 gr bream or some other fish/meat
- 1 lemon and lemon zest
- 10 chive stems
- 5 parsley stems
- 2 eggs
- 250 gr of cottage cheese or substitute
- 50 cl of chicken broth for terrine mixture and 25 cl of broth for rice mousse
- 1/2 cup of rice
- 150 gr of peas
- 250 ml of cooking cream
- rice water if necessary
- salt, pepper to taste
- 1 teaspoon of turmeric
Instruction
- Heat up the oven to 180°C.
- Fillet the fish, take out the bones and bake in a saucepan for 2-4 minutes on each side depending on the size of the fillet. Make sure you don't overdo it.
- Mix eggs, cottage cheese, chive, parsley, lemon zest in a separate bowl. You can also put a bit of lemon juice, 50 cl of broth or a substitute (up in the text) and salt and pepper to taste. Put chopped fish in this mixture.
- Pour this mixture together with pieces of fish in a mold that you previously coated with butter/margarine/or oil and baking paper.
- Bake in the oven, in water bath (explained how in the text above) for about 50-60 minutes depending on your oven. Baking time should be adjusted to your conditions and never forget that.
- Cook rice al dente in much larger amount of water than what it says on the packaging instructions. You should have leftover rice water for later.
- Strain the rice, keep the water.
- Mix rice, salt, pepper, turmeric, 25 cl of chicken broth, cooking cream with a hand mixer along with adding rice water so as to get sauce structure. Not too thin, not too thick.
- Transfer the mousse into a separate bowl and keep it the same temperature in water bath on the stove until serving with occasional stirring (explained how in the text above).
- Blanch the peas for 3 minutes in boiling water, then transfer them in cold water with ice to protect the colour and stop further cooking.
- Peel the peas by hand, grain by grain (this is optional). Leave them aside to wait for serving.
- First serve sauce, terrine on top of the sauce and peas around terrine. Serve either tomato salad with this fish terrine or green salad.
The most important thing is to remember the techniques, and after you can improvise with the ingredients you have.
Now it’s already time to turn up the heat to 180°C. Here we go.
What is a terrine?
Let’s not get confused. Terrine is not a dish, let alone a traditional one. Terrine is a ceramic mold where you prepare food. It originates in the French cuisine. And it seems that today it’s popular to give names of the molds to food such as this famous dish.
What do you need for fish terrine?
Fish, eggs, cottage cheese (you can use some other, a bit milder white cheese with or without sour cream or just sour cream), chicken broth, chive, parsley, lemon zest, salt and pepper.
I already had fish fillets that I baked in a teflon saucepan with a bit of salt (I took the bones out and skin off).
First advice I can give to you is to use baking paper while baking fish in a saucepan. Coat it with a bit of olive oil on both sides and put it in a saucepan, then put the fish. You should not bake fish fillets for more than a few minutes, depending on the size of the fillet.
Sometimes it’s not even necessary to turn the fish over. It’s enough to just wait for the heat to spread from the part of the fish in the direct contact with the saucepan through the entire fish.
You can substitute the chicken broth (a bit reduced – thicker) with a simple chicken soup or cube with additional liquid.
What’s left is to whisk eggs, add cottage cheese or its substitute, chopped fresh chive and parsley, a bit of broth, lemon zest, a few drops of lemon and salt and pepper. Throw in chopped and already baked fish in the mixture.
Step „bain-marie“ for fish terrine
The oven should have heated up by now. Make a water bath in the oven, the same as if you were making crème brûlée.
Put your terrine mixture in one bowl, and in the other hot water. Put the bowl with terrine mixture in the bigger bowl with water and then put everything together in the oven and cook until it’s done 🙂 I cooked for about 50-60 minutes.
Improvisation is an important moment for water bath or „bain-marie“, as the French call it.
If you don’t have all the elements, that is, one bowl or another bowl…here’s my idea for improvisation.
I had water in the biggest bowl, while in the smaller aluminum one I put these small containers made out of baking paper in which I put the terrine mixture.
If the bowl in which you put the terrine mixture is firm (some type of metal) be sure to coat it with oil or butter and baking paper.
Rice mousse and how it is made
Rice mousse is a big discovery for me. You need a bit of chicken broth, cooking cream, rice and its water, salt, pepper and turmeric.
Simply cook the rice, but put significantly more water than what’s stated on the packaging. The goal is to cook the rice al dente and have a bit of leftover water.
Strain the rice and keep the rice water.
Put the strained rice, cooking cream, rice water, turmeric for the color, salt and pepper in the bowl for hand blender. Mix it all well and you should get sauce – not too thick, not too thin. Regulate the thickness of the sauce with rice water. That means that you should put more water for thinner sauce and vice versa.
Tips & Tricks for the mousse
Try making this kind of mousse with any type of grain – chickpeas, lentils etc.
You can also put different ingredients into it such as beetroot for colour, parmigiano for the perfect flavour 🙂
Peas – no small matter
Peas is also a part of this plate and it cost me the most time, considering the quantity I made. So, only for me – a few dozen grains.
These types of techniques make restaurants with Michelin stars expensive – everything is made from zero, there are no purchased sauces, mayonnaise…For better digestion skin is taken off paprika, beans or fish. While we’re at fish, did you know that mackerel doesn’t have the skin we are used to with other types of fish? Its skin is a membrane. This membrane precisely bothers me with digestion and mackerel in general doesn’t sit well with me. But when I take the skin off, it sits perfectly 🙂
Everything I said about vegetables and fish is done by hand and there are no machines for it.
I blanched the peas in boiling water for 3 minutes, and then shook them with cold water to keep the colour and stop the cooking.
And then I peeled them by hand…grain by grain. In the end, I got what you can see in the picture.
You know that you can have gasses from peas…well, to avoid them you should peel 🙂
You can certainly leave the peas with the membrane on, if you don’t want to be bothered with it.
How to keep the right temperature of the ingredients for serving?
Hard, but not impossible.
Put the sauces on the stove with the option of water bath (heated by hot water). Put the stove on the lowest temperature.
You can heat up the blanched vegetables right before serving in a saucepan with a bit of butter…not more than two or three turns of the saucepan to mix the vegetables. Avoid mixing with spatulas so as not to damage the texture.
Serving
You can do this part how you like it, or for a start like me.
Sauce, fish terrine in the middle, light tomato salad on the terrine (I threw out seeds and water, but will use them for another recipe), and I put peas around terrine .
Of course, I ate a lot more than what’s in the picture. This quantity is ideal only for the photos 🙂
This was an entire meal for me along with the French baguette 🙂