Although preparing this pate might seem like a lot of work, if you prefer charcuterie, it would be a very enjoyable, lovely, and tasty activity.
| Prep Time: | 1 hr 10 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr 45 mins |
| Additional Time: | 10 hrs 15 mins |
| Total Time: | 13 hrs 10 mins |
| Servings: | 12 |
| Yield: | 1 9×5-inch loaf pan |
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 ¼ pounds boneless pork shoulder, cut into 1-inch cubes
- 6 ounces duck leg meat
- 4 ounces fatty bacon, chopped
- 4 ounces chicken livers, roughly chopped
- 1 small yellow onion, diced
- 1 shallot, thinly sliced
- ⅓ cup chopped Italian parsley
- ¼ cup cognac
- 5 teaspoons kosher salt
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- ⅛ teaspoon pink curing salt (such as Instacure™ #1) (Optional)
- ½ cup heavy whipping cream
- ⅓ cup dry bread crumbs
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup dried cherries (Optional)
- ½ cup shelled whole pistachios (Optional)
- 8 strips bacon, or as needed
Instructions
- Combine cloves, nutmeg, ginger, and cayenne pepper in a small bowl to make spice mixture.
- Place pork shoulder, duck meat, chopped bacon, chicken livers, onion, shallot, parsley, cognac, salt, garlic, pepper, 3/4 teaspoon spice mixture, and pink curing salt in a large bowl. Mix thoroughly until evenly distributed. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate about 2 hours.
- Whisk cream, bread crumbs, and eggs together in a bowl.
- Transfer pork mixture to a rimmed baking sheet lined with a silicone mat or parchment. Freeze for 15 to 20 minutes to facilitate grinding the meat.
- Grind pork mixture into a bowl using the meat-grinder attachment of a stand mixer. Add dried cherries and pistachios. Add the cream mixture; fold gently until just combined.
- Arrange bacon strips crosswise in a 9×5-inch loaf pan, letting ends hang over the edges of the pan. Trim some strips to fit the ends of the pan.
- Fill pan to the top with the ground pork mixture; smooth the top. Cover surface with strips of bacon. Fold side bacon piece edges over the top. Cover with a piece of parchment cut to fit the top of the pan; wrap tightly with heavy duty aluminum foil.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- Transfer pan to a deep pot or Dutch oven. Pour in hot tap water to reach 1/2 to 2/3 of the way up the side of the pan. Cover.
- Bake in the preheated oven until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center reads 155 degrees F (68 degrees C), 1 3/4 to 2 hours.
- Transfer pan to a paper-towel lined surface to absorb any moisture. If mixture has risen above the top edge of the pan, press it down with a heavy pan. Remove the aluminum foil, leaving the parchment paper on top. Transfer pan to a paper-towel-lined baking dish. Cut a piece of cardboard to be slightly smaller than the top of the pan. Wrap with aluminum foil and place on the parchment paper. Press down with weights like canned food.
- Refrigerate at least 8 hours to chill and compress the pate.
- To unmold the pate, pour very hot water into a large bowl. Dip mold into hot water for 1 to 2 seconds. Turn out onto a paper-towel-lined dish; chill again before slicing.
- Cook’s Notes:
- Coarsely grinding the meat is probably the most crucial step, but if the meat is very cold, the attachment on your stand mixer will do an adequate job. If you don’t have one, you can pulse on and off in a food processor, and as long as your meat was partially frozen, this will work.
- I suggest using bacon that’s lightly smoked, so as not to overpower the rest of the flavors.
- Substitute brandy for the cognac if desired.
- Add dried cherries and pistachios in step 5 if desired.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 250 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 11 g |
| Cholesterol | 114 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Protein | 15 g |
| Saturated Fat | 6 g |
| Sodium | 1121 mg |
| Sugars | 4 g |
| Fat | 15 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I followed the recipe and video exactly and the end product was pretty good for a first attempt. I have a few notes on what I would change the next time, and wanted to share these. 1) I am not sure why Chef John specifies mixing 4 tsp of spices when all that is needed is 3/4 tsp. in this recipe. Seems like a waste of spices unless you are going to make this again a few times. I wish I read thru the instructions fully before I did that. I would add more spice next time as well. 2) Salt – this should be given in weight, not tsp. Some readers noted that the end product was very salty. To avoid this, I used Diamond Crystal Salt which has much less salt per volume than Morten’s Kosher. I actually felt like the end product needed a bit more salt to bring out the flavor. 5 Tsp of Mortens is like 8 Tsp of Diamond to get same salt level. I would use 6 tsp of Diamond Crystal or just about 4 tsp of Morten’s. 3) Onions and shallots – next time, I would probably use a little less (I had a big shallot) and saute them first. I watched the video and Chef John added them raw, so I did as well but that stood out in the end product more than I would like. Other recipes call for 1/4 cup of onions and this produced a lot more, at least for me. 4) I would add some herbs to the mix besides parsley. 5) Working with chicken livers is not for the squeamish! Overall, the end product had the texture, look and feel I would want. The changes to recipe would be to suit my taste.
This Pate was the “bomb”. My wife wants to have it all the time. Great flavour and consistency.
This is an incredible recipe. Relatively easy to prepare and bake. The finished pate has an excellent texture and flavor profile. I will make this again and again. I have gotten rave reviews. This pate goes well with Brie’s, gruyere and multiple cheeses, cornichons, olives and fruit. It also freezes well. Thank you Chef John!
the cloves punch through ruthlessly, also seems like too much salt. Will make it again definitely.
I made this for a wine dinner and it was very good indeed. A bit laborious, but so worth it. I don’t have a special container, etc. So I used 2 loaf pans. The first was the pan in which I cooked the pate. The second (which stacks inside the first) was for the weights. I was able to get cans of tomatoes in to weight it down. Also, when removing the foil, the pate will have some liquid, rendered fat. Make sure that you have a bowl or cup ready to catch those drippings. Served with an arugula and pink endive salad, spicy cranberry brown mustard and a pecan vinaigrette. The wine pairing was a 2016 Grand Cru Chablis. Altogether not bad for a first attempt. The assembled company loved it.
I went Old School with this grinder/chopper.
Made it exactly to the recipe. It was amazing
Excellent recipe. I modified it a little and used duck breast and a lot more of it. I also used pancetta as the liner instead of bacon.
This is well worth the effort I found it a little salty and would cut back on the salt next time. I used ground pork, ground turkey, chopped beef liver( the stores were out of chicken liver), spicey sausage meet and 0.5 centimetre square slices of cooked ham. When placing the meat mix in the pan I placed 1/3 then a layer of the ham slices another 1/3 rd of the meat, another layer of ham strips and then the rest of the meat. Texture was marvellous and great tasting. Only problem was the speed with which it disappeared.
We have used other recipes for pate de campagne, but we like this one the best! Others we have tried were lacking in spices, they just needed something extra. This one has a good spice mix, and we like the addition of the dried cherries and the pistachios. We used our meat grinding attachment for the first time and felt the flavor of the meats was better as we knew exactly what went into it, instead of buying ground meats to use which can be made from several different cuts of meat. I used boneless country rib meat for the pork, and chicken thigh meat instead of duck, which is not easy to find here. I also used twice as much chicken liver as the recipe calls for as you want to be able to taste it over the spices. About the spices, the recipe lists a total of 4 tablespoons of spices, yet after they are mixed and set aside it only ever tells you to add 3/4 of a teaspoon of the mix! We knew that this was not near enough spices from previous attempts, so added half of the mix (2 tablespoons) instead. This was better than other pates we had made as to spices but it still needed more. Next time I make this I will add the entire 4 tablespoons of the spice mix to the meat. We have been enjoying this pate with grainy mustard, ground horseradish, and cornichons and froze about 2/3 of it in smaller packages to use over the next few months. Very good recipe!
After watching the video of Chef John making this (a million times) I decided to give it a try. Given that I had devoured the pistachio’s and dried cherries during a snack binge the previous night my substitution of pecans and dried cranberries had to suffice. Even though pistachios look much better, the pecans worked. Assembling the ingredients could well have been the 13th labor of Hercules (and cleaning the kitchen, pots, pans and tools the 14th). I felt that screaming for some French serf’s to help with the prep-work would have worked but my family reminded me to consider how well that worked out for Louis XVI. I tried to stick with the recipe as written, down to the last cardboard cutout for pressing the finished product. It has great texture and flavor but next time I’ll go with the caul fat mentioned in the video.