Wild Pork Terrine with Pistachio

Shot a pig? Great. Now to do something with all that mince the butcher gave you or if you’re doing it yourself and you’ve a mincer, you can keep all that trim and turn it into mince. Mince is really versatile and a really good way of maximising your animal. This recipe is a classic French dish and is pretty much a flash meat loaf that you eat cold. You can eat it as a snack with bread and pickle or as part of a cheese board or antipasto or do as the French do and put it in a baguette and make a sandwich!

Makes 1 big loaf tin

Wild Pork Terrine

1.5kg Wild Pork mince

350g Pork fat

1 egg

200g pistachios (optional but a good addition)

2cl Garlic

2tbs chopped Parsley

2tbs chopped Sage

4tsp salt

1tsp ground black pepper

500g Bacon (streaky is best)

Red wine reduction

3 sprigs Thyme

4 Bay leaves

3 Cloves

250ml Red wine

6 Juniper berries

50ml brandy

For the terrine base: Cut the pork fat into small dice and combine with the mince and pistachios. Mix in the beaten egg, the salt and pepper, minced garlic and chopped herbs.

For the red wine reduction: Reduce the thyme, bay leaves, cloves and juniper berries with the red wine and brandy, cool, strain out all the bit and then mix the reduced and flavored red wine into the meat mix.

To assemble: Line a greased loaf tin with over lapping slices of bacon then press your meat mix into the tin and fold the bacon over the top. Bake at 160 for about 45mins or until internal temp is 72 degrees when probed with a meat thermometer. To give the terrine a nice firm texture without any air pockets you can place the terrine in a baking dish to catch all the juices that overflow, put some baking paper on top and then press with a heavy weight overnight in your fridge. Once set you can turn it out and slice it.