Terrine au Piment d’Espelette

Yet another (presumably) proper noun, and a word I’ve never seen before. I wonder if Espelette is another type of booze? What with it being the day after St.Patrick’s Day, I kind of hope it isn’t. I'm glad I have a variety of terrines to try, I didn't expect them to be as different as they are. 

Huh, I didn’t expect it to be so pinkish. I suspect that this either means it’s has salmon in it, or it’s spicy. As I have a somewhat masochistic relationship with spicy food and love salmon, I think I’m in for a win-win here.

It is spicy, but just the tiniest bit. It’s more of an aftertaste really.  It’s coarser than the other two terrines. The texture is more like sausage filling than the others, and it’s definitely heavier. The flavor is very subtle, there’s only a hint of liver, but it’s very nuanced. It’s got these little flecks of red, and orange in it. I guess that’s some kind of mild chili peppers. 

Overall quite good. I get the feeling that so far this would be the most popular terrine with Americans so far. Make it spicier, dunk it in cheese, have it with a beer, and you got yourself a hit. Let’s see, apparently, aside from ingredients in common with the other two it has: pepper (I guess what means hot pepper), and Espelette pepper…what the hell does that mean? To the internet! Ok, according to Wikipedia, Espelette peppers are a type of mild pepper grown in France. It has a heat rating of about 4,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). To put that in perspective, jalapenos rate from 2,500 to 5,000 SHU. I’m sorry for the brevity, but the sound of my room mate throwing up is very distracting. Enjoy another French  video. If the blog isn’t gay enough for you as is, this may do the trick. Stay queer!

Terrine de canard a l'Armagnac

Eh, what the hell? Might as well give the others reviews. After translating the ingredients I decided that the video to go with this post should be a bit less toddler-mistaking-mom's-cries-of-ecstasy-for-permission-y and more pretty-French-music-y. 

What better way to acquaint yourself with a melange of organ and who knows what else than with the accompaniment of one of France's most beloved chanteuses? Kind of makes you want to stop listening to that dubstep shit so the rest of us don't have to listen to you blast what sounds like an early 90's dialup connection fucking a synthesizer, right? Anyway:

I know canard means duck, so a bit of the mystery is gone. Not sure what Armagnac is. I guess it's a proper noun, but that's all I got. BTW, just to prove I wasn't lying about it looking like cat food earlier:

This one smells a bit more like tuna. 

The flavor is stronger and less nuanced. It tastes more like regular liverwurst. It’s textured similarly to the last terrine, but slightly more coarse. I think this has more liver in it than the last one. I'm not sure if it has duck liver, duck meat, or both, but it does feel and taste slightly more meaty. It’s a bit more like a meat paste, or sausage filling. Something heavier is in there too, somehow it seems to have a touch more bite than the last one. This one is also quite good. I think people who prefer stronger flavors would like this better than the last terrine. Let’s see. The ingredients are:  lean pork fat, chicken liver, duck, eggs, milk, Armagnac (a type of brandy), salt, and pepper. Ok, so it was brandy. Damn, that's fancy. Stay classy, France and stay queer, readers!

Terrine aux Cepes

Apologies for the lack of accent marks in this post. Feel free to draw them on your computer screen to compensate.

Despite prayer, all of the letters I sent to the French military, and no fewer than 3 separate facebook petitions, my sister (author of Jennyphoria) came back from the Paris for a brief visit. She was kind enough to bring some gifts, presumably as an apology for breaching her containment overseas, among which was a variety pack of terrine.

According to Wikipedia terrine is “a French forcemeat loaf, similar to pate.” You had me at forcemeat loaf. I’m still deciding if I want to review one or several terrines because I don’t know how similar they are. We’ll see I guess. You know, I keep looking on the back to look at the nutrition info, and ingredients despite the facts that 1) there are no nutrition facts, which I have been well aware of since the first time I checked, and 2) the writing on the box requires far more skill with French than I have, which I have also been well aware of since the first time I checked.

Ok, enough fucking about. Let’s get down to business. I’m going to try…

You know, I never thought I'd see fancy French food with a pop tab on it.

Smells a bit like cat food, looks a bit like cat food, has taken the shape of the can in a manner similar to cat food. You're supposed to eat it on crackers or toast points. At this point in my life, I know better than to turn my nose up at something simply because it reminds me a bit of cat food. I realize that that previous sentence must have raised a few eyebrows, so I’d like to clarify that if something looks and smells a bit like cat food, it probably has liver in it.

Wikipedia was accurate, the texture is similar to pate, only less smooth. It tastes moderately like liver, and its got a hint of black pepper, and cheese, even though I don’t see fromage anywhere on the ingredients list. The flavor is a bit mild, but that works just fine, as it allows the spices to shine through more. There’s something more I can’t quite place, but it’s familiar, and flavorful. There’s also a slight hint of…bacon? Let’s see. According to google translate, this is made of lean pork fat (explains the bacon), chicken liver, eggs, milk, mushrooms, salt, and pepper. Mushrooms! That’s what it was. This was tasty. French food is generally pretty awesome. Also, they make way better condom commercials there.

Stay queer!

Baked Quail Eggs

For whatever reason, quail eggs are really easy to find in NYC.  Cheap too. For whatever reason, I'm intrigued by the prospect of eating eggs that don't come from chickens, especially if their visually distinct and/or not from an avian. Lemme give you a sense of scale compared to a chicken egg.  

Kinda cute, right?

They seem to be as versatile as chicken eggs, although you do need more of them.  Just take any recipe with eggs, multiply the amount you need by 6, and you'll be golden. For example, most quail egg omelette recipes call for 20. It's not really worth in for day to day cooking though, since a carton costs as much or a bit more than a carton of chicken eggs. This particular dish is a French hors d'oeuvre, of which there are a billion variations.  

Frozen pie crust

Carton of quail eggs

Black lumpfish caviar

Price Range: $10 - $20

You could always splurge on caviar that isn't disgusting, but obviously it'll cost more. If you're going to spread fish embryos over quail embryos, you might as well go all out, amirite? To start I need to make some mini pie crusts.

Press baking parchment into a muffin tin and put uncooked crust into it, bake for 15 minutes at 450.

Crack an egg or two (which ever fits) into the shell.  By the way, cracking these things is kind of difficult because the shells are kind of thik.  You have to sort of forcefully slap them with the blade of a butter knife and crack them in half. 

Spread baking parchment over a baking sheet and place the crusts on it.  Return it to the oven at 350 for 10 minutes.  Remove them from the oven and spread some caviar on them.

Well, this is…unremarkable.   Apparently quail eggs taste just like chicken eggs.  It’s like a poached egg in crust.  Not bad at all but nothing special.   It’s a bit like walking 3 city blocks to a restaurant, spending $15 on a semi-exotic sounding sausage dish and getting a regular hot dog with some soy sauce on it. Maybe experimenting with different toppings would improve it. The caviar is like hateful little balls of salt and I really can't recommend it. In all fairness, lump fish caviar from Key Food probably isn't the best around. Hot sauce probably would have been better. Oh well.  If nothing else you can now rest assured that there’s no reason to shy away from quail eggs. 

Stay queer!