For this course, I was inspired by two things: one was my stage at McCrady's, where I had lots of fun breaking down several whole country hams, and the other was this post on a summer squash terrine by Chris Windus at bluezoo restaurant.

Chris's squash terrine looked awesome, and we had an abundance of gorgeous squash in SF, particularly from The Peach Farm and Balakian Farms. Loosely following the procedure he outlined, I made this terrine, and it turned out awesomely!

The squash terrine was set on a bed of Iacopi Farms English peas, raw diced summer squash, and braised dice of Benton's ham, all warmed in a ham cream sauce. It was garnished with thinly sliced squash and nasturtiums, and then further sauced with foamed up, heavily reduced Benton's ham stock (made by browning the trim of the ham, then simmering in chicken stock).

To make the terrine, I sliced a ton of summer squash thinly on a mandoline, laid out the slices on paper towels on sheet pans, salted them, waited around an hour, then dried the slices with fresh paper towels, pressing to get as much water out as possible. It took occasional work all day, around twenty sheet pans worth to yield one hotel pan of summer squash terrine. Then I layered them in a hotel pan, brushing each layer with a mix of heavy cream and egg white (direct from Chris's post). I baked the terrine in a water bath for about two hours with a weighted pan on top of it pressing it down. Then I took the terrine out of the oven and drained the copious amount of water that had collected--a couple quarts!--by simply tilting the pan while keeping the other pan on top of it pressing it in place. Then I returned it to the oven (still in a water bath, but now uncovered) to bake for another hour or so to evaporate additional liquid. Finally, I returned the weight pan to the top of the terrine and cooled the whole thing in an ice bath followed by the refrigerator. I portioned it out and held the portions on a sheet pan which I baked in a medium-hot oven for about fifteen minutes just before serving. It held together beautifully, and was so flavorful!

As for the ham, I learned to break down a whole country ham at McCrady's. They serve a ham tasting course, so I ended up slicing about 30 portions of five different hams. The Finchville ham they were serving was new, so I had to break down the whole ham, and one of the line cooks graciously showed me what to do. Finchville hams are amazing, by the way. It gave the McCrady's housemade ham a run for its money. When I came up with this course, it was partially just a good excuse to get a whole Benton's ham, which I'd been wanting to do for a while!

Posted by Barzelay on 2010/08/08 @ 23:16 | Comments (0) | Lazy Bear, Meat, Veggies, Fruit, Grain, Cheese