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Chef: Gary Townsend
Smoked salmon terrine
LOOKING for a salmon starter for Christmas Day? Look no further. With a bit of time and effort you can recreate this recipe which can be made well in advance.
Ingredients, serves 10
Approximately 800g smoked salmon, sliced
500g soft Butter
1 bunch chopped dill
Capers
2-3 large potatoes, peeled, diced and cooked
Mayonnaise
1 red onion, diced
Salt
Mixed salad leaves
Method
Line a terrine mould/loaf tin with cling film
First the butter mix needs to be made. Place the soft butter in a mixing bowl and whisk until pale-white in colour. Use an electric mixer if you have one. Once whipped, fold in the dill and keep at room temperature until needed.
Next trim any dark blood line from the salmon. Have your mould ready lined with cling film then start to lay in the salmon along the bottom and up the sides of the mould with a slight overlap. Next spoon in a spoonful of the butter mix and spread over.
Now cut the salmon to fit inside the mould and layer this on top of the butter.
Repeat this process until you near the top. Fold over the edges and cling film closed.
If you have a heavy weight – something a similar size to the mould lay this on top to press down the layers.
Place in the fridge and leave overnight.
For the potato salad mix the cooked potatoes with the red onions, pinch of salt and mayonnaise until combined.
Slice the terrine with a sharp hot knife and garnish with capers, mixed leaves and your potato salad.
more or less irrelevant add-ons, compared to the meat and egg.
Many, maybe most people, would consider a pizza to be a meal, but I’m not one of them.
Yes, they are hot, which adds to the sense of meal occasion, but this is a psychological, not a physical, reaction.
And, yes, pizza might have a very modest amount of nutrient-rich food on top: melted cheese and cured meat. As we eat a pizza, we might develop a sensation of fullness quite quickly.
But am I the only person who struggles to finish an entire pizza yet who feels hungry again a few hours later?
The same applies to a “lunch” that consists of soup and bread.
Satisfaction is short-lived here,
I’m afraid.
Satiety, a dish’s ability to keep you going for a reasonable time, is surely an acid test for “substantial”.
There are three macronutrient groups in food: fat, protein, carbohydrate. I liken them to fuel on a fire.
Fat is the most sustaining. It’s the coal. It will keep the digestive fire burning longest.
Protein is the logs, a slow burner, but not as long lasting as the coal. Carbohydrates are like newspaper.
They ignite spectacularly and burn up quickly but then, as many nutrition experts will warn you, they rapidly become problematic, with sugar coursing through your bloodstream.
Biology apart, what about anthropological considerations, that big world of diverse cultural eating habits?
The traditional Anglo-Saxon meal paradigm is meat and two veg. A Sunday roast is its apotheosis.
But who wants to pay £10 upwards for that merely because you fancy an alcoholic drink?
Some desperate publicans have argued that hummus and warm pitta bread qualifies as a substantial meal. Nice try.
I’d much rather eat that than a