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Herbed Pork and Spinach Terrine

A terrine of pork, bacon, livers, spinach, herbs, and pistachios baked in a loaf tin.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,009 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

Ovenmoderate oven
Time90 minutes

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the spinach and filling

  1. Remove stalks from spinach, wash spinach leaves, tear up roughly, place in steamer or large pan.

  2. Cover tightly and cook until leaves are tender.

  3. Drain the spinach and press out all moisture.

  4. Place spinach in a food processor and process until finely chopped.

  5. Transfer the chopped spinach to a bowl and add pork mince, 125 g finely chopped bacon, chopped parsley, crushed garlic, basil, thyme, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

  6. Cover the chicken livers with water and leave for 30 minutes.

  7. Melt butter in a pan, add finely chopped onions, and cook until the onions are just tender.

  8. Drain the chicken livers, clean them, and cut them into 1 cm pieces.

  9. Add the livers to the pan and cook for 2 minutes.

  10. Pour brandy over the livers, mix well, then stir in madeira and cream.

  11. Bring the mixture to a boil, remove from heat, let it cool, then stir in the spinach mixture with lightly beaten eggs and mix well.

  12. Shell the pistachio nuts, cover them with hot water, leave for 5 minutes, then remove the skins.

  13. Add the pistachio nuts to the mixture and mix well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line the base and sides of a loaf tin (12 cm × 22 cm) with bacon, removing the rind first.

  2. Add half of the spinach mixture to the tin.

  3. Place speck on top of ham slices, roll them up, and arrange the ham rolls along the furrow.

  4. Spoon the remaining spinach mixture on top.

  5. Cover the top with the remaining bacon.

  6. Cover the tin with aluminium foil, secure with string, and place it in a baking dish with hot water that comes halfway up the sides of the loaf tin.

  7. Bake in a moderate oven for 90 minutes.

Chill

  1. Remove from the oven, place a weight on top, cool, and refrigerate overnight.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Spinach + porktop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,009 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Basil + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Parsley + basiltop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the filling so it sets firm when baked and sliced.
Pork mince
Provides the main body and meaty structure of the terrine.
Bacon
Lines the tin and wraps the filling, adding salt, fat and savoury flavour.
Chicken livers
Add rich, creamy texture and a deep savoury flavour to the filling.
Spinach
Adds moisture, colour and a mild earthy flavour to the filling.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the filling tender.

The step that matters

Bake in a water bath. Surrounding the covered tin with hot water moderates the oven heat, so the terrine cooks gently and evenly, keeping the texture smooth rather than dry or rubbery as the eggs set.

Flavor stand-ins for the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spinach, pork, parsley, garlic, basil, thyme, pepper):

  1. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  2. Oreganobetter flavor fit
  3. Rosemarybetter flavor fit
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against spinach, pork, parsley, garlic, basil, thyme, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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