Food & drink pairing

Game terrine with Tukker Oude Jenever

On the plate lies a slice of game terrine of rabbit, pheasant and chicken liver with pistachios, wrapped in pancetta and slowly cooked in a water bath, with gherkins and toasted spelt bread alongside. Opposite stands an old genever of thirty-eight percent whose malt wine picks up the liver and the game.

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From the shelf

The bottle

Tukker Oude Jenever is an oude jenever of 38% vol in a 100 cl bottle. The bottle comes from the Netherlands; nothing about the distillery, the malt wine share or the ageing period is established that we have been able to verify, so we only mention what is certain. By law, the designation oude jenever requires at least 35% vol and at least 15% of the alcohol from malt wine, with at most 20 grams of sugar per litre. At 38% vol this bottle is above the legal minimum.

Tukker Oude Jenever

The combination

Why this works together

A game terrine is heavy in a way few dishes are: chicken liver brings a metallic bitterness, pancetta and bacon bring fat and salt, and rabbit and pheasant give a dry, muscular meat flavour. The cornichons alongside are there to cut through that fat again and again. A young jenever can cut it too, but then leaves the liver bare. An old jenever of 38% vol does both at once: the alcohol clears the pancetta fat, and the malt wine brings a grain-sweet roundness that softens the bitterness of the liver the way onion confit or apple syrup does. The juniper berry finds the sage and thyme from the terrine again. That is also the classic order of things: in the Netherlands, game and liver always belonged with an old jenever and not a young one.

At the table

The dish

For 4 people
Ready in 35 minutes, plus 4 hours marinating, 1.5 hours in the oven and 6 hours chilling
Type starter

What you need

1 rabbit leg
270 g pheasant thigh
190 g chicken livers
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
75 g bacon
1 shallot
half a teaspoon of ras el hanout
3 fresh sage leaves
half a teaspoon of salt
50 ml dry white wine
25 ml vieux
160 g pancetta, sliced
50 g unsalted pistachios
a loaf tin, aluminium foil, an oven dish and cling film

How to make it

Carefully debone the rabbit leg. Cut the rabbit, the pheasant and the livers into cubes of 1 cm and strip the thyme leaves from the sprigs.
Grind half of the meat finely in the food processor with the thyme, bacon, shallot, ras el hanout, sage and salt. Mix this with the remaining meat and add the wine and the vieux. Cover and leave to marinate in the fridge for 4 hours.
Preheat the oven to 140 °C. Line the loaf tin with three quarters of the pancetta, with the slices slightly overlapping and the edges hanging over the rim.
Mix the pistachios into the meat mixture, fill the tin and lay the rest of the pancetta over it; fold the overhanging edges over the top.
Cover the tin with foil and place it in an ovenproof dish. Pour boiling water into the dish until the terrine stands two thirds under water and bake it for about 1.5 hours.
Remove the foil, pour away excess liquid and let the terrine cool completely for about 2 hours. Cover it with cling film.
Place an upside-down empty cake tin on the terrine, weigh it down with tins of preserves and let the terrine press in the fridge for at least 4 hours. Take it out of the fridge an hour before serving and turn it out onto a board.
Slice the terrine and serve with gherkins and toasted spelt bread.

In the glass

Serving

Pour the Tukker Oude Jenever at room temperature into a tulip glass, filled to the rim. With a cold terrine that matters all the more: the fat on the plate is cold and stiff, and only a genever of around 18 °C has enough warmth and alcohol to dissolve it. Chilled genever makes the mouth even colder and leaves the layer of fat in place.

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Wij verkopen geen alcohol aan personen onder de 18 jaar. NIX18