Pâtés and Terrines

A pâté [pah-TAY] is a forcemeat baked in a pastry crust and usually served cold. This technical, culinary definition is the one generally accepted among chefs and food-service professionals worldwide. However, to the average North American consumer, the definition is much broader, encompassing pâtés with and without crusts as well as spread-like mixtures and cold seafood mousse-lines. Today, the term pâté can even include loaflike cold vegetable preparations.

In this chapter, we use the term pâté when generally referring to meat- and poultry-based pâté products of all kinds—with and without crusts. When specifying a crusted pâté we use the term pâté en croûte, and when specifying a pâté without a crust we use the term terrine.