When you look up terrine—also known as pâté en terrine or just pâté—you’ll come across a lot of French words, at least I did! Some of these words I didn’t know and had to look up. I decided that I’m probably not the only one who needs a glossary of French/English terrine terms, so I made one here for you too. Who knew there were so many types of terrines?
Types of terrines in French and English: Quick glance
| French | English |
| Terrine | Terrine, pâté (We take the French words as our own) |
| Terrine au cèpes | Terrine with porcini mushrooms |
| Terrine Alsaciennes | Artisanal terrine molds made in Alsace |
| Terrine Bretonne | Terrine, Brittany style (Brittany is a region in northwestern France) |
| Terrine Basque | Basque Pork Pâté (Basque is a region in northwestern France) |
| Terrine Baeckeoffe | Baker’s oven terrine: A type of artisanal terrine mold made in Alsace |
| Terrine campagnarde | Country pâté |
| Terrine de canard | Duck terrine |
| Terrine de fois gras | Liver pàté and pàté fois gras (More stolen French words!) |
| Terrine de gibier | Game terrine |
| Terrine de saumon | Salmon terrine |
| Terrine de lapin | Rabbit terrine |
| Terrine de cerf | Deer or venison terrine |
| Terrine en croute | Pâté en croûte meaning in pastry |
| Forestière Terrine | Forest terrine (Do we say that in English though?) |
| Terrine foie de volaille, | Poultry liver terrine or pâté |
| Terrine jambon | Ham hock terrine |
| Terrine joue de boeuf | Beef cheek terrine |
| Terrine de Noël | Christmas terrine |
| Terrine de poisson | Fish terrine |
| Terrine Quercynoise | Pork liver terrine made by La Quercynoise producers’ group |
| Terrine queue de veau | Calf’s tail terrine |
| Terrine de queue de bœuf | Oxtail terrine |
| Terrine queue de langouste | Lobster (tail) terrine |
| Terrine de lotte | Monkfish terrine |
Now that you know there are so many types of pâté en terrine (in French and English!), you might be curious about them, like I was. Keep reading to find out more about each of these dishes, including what they’re made of, links to recipes and other fascinating tidbits.
This is an interesting list because you won’t find a lot of these types of terrines if you’re simply searching in English. Today, we’re exploring the hidden wonders of the French internet (and my brain hurts).
One note about the two terms terrine and pâté
In this glossary, I’m defining types of terrines. But when you read this, know that it also applies to pâtés.
So, when I say terrine aux cèpes is also known as [SPOILER ALERT!] terrine with porcini mushrooms, it also means it’s the same as pâté with porcini mushrooms. It’s basically okay to use the two terms interchangeably.
[For more on this, have a look at my article, Are Pâtés & Terrines the Same? Mostly Yes: 10 Chefs Tell You Why.]
Quick glance: Terrine aux cèpes, also known as terrine with porcini mushrooms
Porcini mushrooms are expensive brown mushrooms loved by chefs, particularly for French and Italian cuisine. According to the Spruce Eats article, What Are Porcini Mushrooms?, “A pound of fresh porcini costs between $30-$60 depending on the quality, with dried mushrooms priced a little lower.”
If you can’t get porcini mushrooms—or you would rather spend $50 on anything other than mushrooms—you can substitute shitake mushrooms. They’re cheaper and have a “meatier” taste than the porcinis.
In a Cook’s Illustrated soup and sauce taste test (here: Mushrooms: Porcini versus Shiitake), they concluded, “The soup made with shiitakes was deemed meatier, with less pronounced mushroomy flavor, than its porcini counterpart—a plus for a majority of our tasters. The shiitake sauce, on the other hand, lost out to the porcini version for its relatively mild mushroom flavor.”
Because terrines are served cold, they’re aggressively salted and seasoned (our taste buds register less flavour when eating cold foods than hot foods). I don’t know how a mild mushroom flavour would hold up against all the other ingredients.
However, that doesn’t stop people from using porcini mushrooms in pâté en terrine and it shouldn’t stop you either, if that’s what you want to try out!
Recipe suggestion for terrine with porcini mushrooms: Chicken and Pancetta Terrine
With Wild Mushrooms by Terry Marsh on his Love French Food site.
Quick glance: Terrines Alsaciennes, also known as artisanal terrine molds
These artisanal, terracotta terrine molds are made in Alsace, in the northeast part of France. So, in this case, you don’t eat terrines Alsaciennes; you cook what you want to eat in them. These terrines come in rectangular, oval and round shapes.
These traditional pots are shaped and painted by hand and are functional pieces of art. The French company, Alsace Tradition sells a wide variety of these terrines though I don’t know if they ship worldwide (their shipping page didn’t mention anything about that).
Quick glance: Terrine Bretonne, also known as Terrine, Brittany style
Brittany is a region in northwestern France. Terrine Bretonne seems to be the name of several types of pâtés for sale but recipes are scarce. For example, the most common brand I could find is Hénaff. Their Terrine Bretonne won the 2009 Concours Général Agricole award and is a certified Red Label (Label Rouge) product.
According to The National Institute of Origin and Quality in France, “The Label Rouge is a national sign, which refers to products which by their terms of production or manufacture have a higher level of quality compared to other similar products usually marketed.”
The other option I found for buying terrine Bretonne is called Le Pâté Breton, made in an artisanal cannery in Chateauneuf du Faou. These recipes are based on secret family recipes. You can find these pâtés at the French website, La Baie des Saveurs.
What I’m learning is there sure are a lot more tinned and jarred pâté options in France than in Toronto.
Quick glance: Terrine Basque, also known as Basque pork pâté
Terrine Basque is another type of artisanal terrine you can buy in jars in France (Basque is a region in northwestern France). According to Maison Argaud, a company specializing in artisanal foods since 1982, Terrine Basque is made of pork, pork liver, salt, pepper, garlic and Espelette peppers. (Espelette peppers are grown in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques area of France.)
Like the terrines from Brittany, these seem to be for sale only, with few recipes available outside of France. If you search for Basque terrines, you’ll find a couple, mentioned below, but also recipes from the Basque region of Spain, which is a little different.
Recipe suggestion for Basque pâté (if you read French): Pâté Basque recipe on the Le Chaudron de ma Tribu website.
Recipe suggestion for Basque pâté: Basque Chicken Terrine by Ferdzy on the Seasonal Ontario Food website. No peppers in this one though.
Quick glance: Terrine à baeckeoffe, also known as baker’s oven terrine
Well, here’s another type of artisanal terrine mold made in Alsace. To my untrained eye, this version of the artisanal terrine mold made in Alsace is similar to the Terrines Alsaciennes, mentioned earlier.
One difference is that the baeckeoffe seems to be a round or oval dish for cooking stews rather than also encompassing the rectangular style of terrine for cooking pâtés.
And according to Gourmetpedia, the baeckeoffe refers to the dish and what’s in the dish. They say, “The famous “baeckeoffe,” a traditional Alsatian dish consisting of three different meats cooked with potatoes, is prepared in this earthenware casserole.”
The more I write this article, the more I think you’ll never need to worry about most of these words. But it will be nice to know you don’t need to worry about them, right?
Alas, let’s get to the recipe suggestion!
Master Class: Andre Soltner Makes Bacheofe
Recipe suggestion for Bacheofe: Alsatian Meat and Vegetable Stew (Bacheofe) by the folks at Saveur (this goes along with the André Soltner recipe in the above video).
Quick glance: Terrine campagnarde, also known as terrine de campagne and country pâté
This is a great example of why learning terms that fall under the forcemeat category can be confusing.
Campagnarde means country in French so this would mean country pàté. Terrine de campagne and pâté de campagne maison also mean country pàté. Terrine campagnarde is also translated as rustic pàté.
Okay, so what is a country or rustic pàté anyway?
In their book, Pâté, Confit, Rillette: Recipes from the Craft of Charcuterie, Brian Polcyn and Michael Ruhlman say, “The country pàté uses humble ingredients—pork shoulder and liver, onion, and garlic—coarsely ground. It’s an unfussy but richly flavoured pàté. Part of the meat is ground twice to develop enough myosin to ensure a good bind.”
[For more on binders, including myosin, check out my article, Binders in Forcemeat: What They Are and What They Do.]
Recipe suggestion for country pâté: Pâté de Campagne (Country Pâté) by Molly Wizenberg on the Bon Appetit website. Also recommended reading is this story of pâté, A Taste of Pâté Past by Molly Wizenberg and Misha Gravenor.
Quick glance: Terrine de canard, also known as duck terrine
Duck terrine is made with duck breasts, legs and/or liver and pork. Duck is much more flavourful than chicken so expect a tasty terrine. Unless you don’t like the flavour of duck, of course.
Recipe suggestion for duck terrine: Duck, chicken and sour cherry terrine by the contributors at the Olive website. They say it’s an easy one, by the way.
But if you want a liver pâté that’s not cooked in a terrine, you can do that too. Who can resist a parfait?
Recipe suggestion for duck liver pâté: Velvety duck liver parfait by Barney Desmazery on the BBC Good Food website.
Quick glance: Terrine de fois gras, also known as liver pàté and pàté fois gras
Terrine or pâté fois gras is made with duck or goose livers that are especially fatty due to the overfeeding of the ducks or geese. Whereas a regular duck liver is brown, a fois gras liver is a pale colour. Fois gras comes in three quality grades: A, B and C. Grade A is the best and it must weigh at least 680 grams to qualify for this classification.
Fois gras is even more expensive than porcini mushrooms.
According to the article, What Is Foie Gras, and Why Is It Being Banned?, “This buttery French delicacy of fattened duck or goose liver can sell for as much as $125 for 2 pounds (0.9 kilograms).”
But if this is on your wish list, I found a simple recipe for you to try. It does look glorious.
Recipe suggestion for fois gras terrine: Foie gras terrine by Stephen Crane on the Great British Chefs website.
Quick glance: Terrine de gibier, also known as game terrine
Game terrine can include terrines made of pheasants, rabbits/hares, deer/venison, pigeon, etc., plus pork as the main meat.
Recipe suggestion for game terrine: Press to impress: Terrine, potted meat and confit (three recipes including game terrine) by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in The Guardian.
Quick glance: Terrine de saumon, also known as salmon terrine
Salmon terrines can also be mousses, stiffened up with cream cheese or gelatin. You can make them formed, as in a terrine, or more like a dip.
Recipe suggestion for terrine de saumon (if you read French or want to use Google translate): Terrine de saumon by Bernard Laurance on his La Cuisine de Bernard website. Looks so creamy and delicious, plus has a layer of eggs in it.
Recipe suggestion for salmon pâté dip: Smoked salmon, dill & lemon paté by Barney Desmazery on the BBC Good Food website.
Quick glance: Terrine de lapin, also known as rabbit terrine
Rabbit terrine is another variation of game terrine, as mentioned earlier. Rabbit can be a little hard to find in most grocery stores so you might have to make a special trip to the butcher shop to get one. Actually, you might want to call ahead because even your butcher might not have these little bunnies in stock all the time.
Recipe suggestion for rabbit terrine: Rabbit Terrine with Green Olives and Pistachios by Gourmet Magazine. Some commenters point out that this is an aspic not a terrine, but they love it regardless.
Quick glance: Terrine de cerf, also known as deer or venison terrine
Here’s another type of game terrine. If you’d like to make deer terrine, time to get friendly with a local hunter! Venison is a little like liver—not everyone loves the pungent flavour. If you don’t love venison, a terrine is a great option because it’s naturally toned down by other meats and spices.
Recipe suggestion for venison terrine: Venison terrine with prunes, orange, juniper and thyme by Gill Meller on the Delicious website.
If you are a hunter and have a collection of odd bits in your freezer—such as dove hearts and snipe breasts—there’s a perfect game terrine recipe for you, written by hunter and angler, Hank Shaw.
Recipe suggestion for venison terrine if you’re a hunter: Game Terrine by Hank Shaw on his Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook website.
Quick glance: Terrine en croute, also known as pâté en croûte meaning in pastry
Well, this one’s gonna be quick. In English, we’ve stolen some French words and incorporated them as our own. You can find some recipes for terrine in pastry or pâté in pastry, but most English results simply use the French terms.
The pâté en croûte is the most visually stunning and difficult type of pâté to make. Just look at the recipe below, it goes on and on and on…but that’s what you get with this type of cooking adventure. At least that’s what I hear, I haven’t tried making pâté en croûte yet as the bazillion steps are too many for me, ha ha.
Recipe suggestion for terrine en croute: Pâté en Croûte with ground liver and pork in a brioche dough by Janine Farzin on her Offally Good Cooking website.
[If you’re going to make pâté en croûte, you might want to read my article first, Pâté en Croute: 17 Tips for Avoiding Crusty Mistakes.]
Quick glance: Forestière Terrine, also known as forest terrine (do we say that in English though?)
Forestière terrine uses boletus edulis which are also called cep, penny bun, porcino and porcini mushrooms. But as far as I can tell from the research, forestière terrine inspires more wonder than the terrine aux cèpes mentioned earlier.
Forest terrine is about eating a terrine that includes mushrooms you find in a forest and when you eat it, you have that delightful sensation of being in a forest. Even though the mushrooms are the same, I didn’t get the impression you’ll be transported to another land when eating terrine aux cèpes.
According to the Bien Manger website that sells Forestière terrine and other gourmet French foods, says, “This forest terrine made by craftsmen in the Aveyron is an invitation to walk in the woods.”
Recipe suggestion for forestière terrine that gives you that woodsy feeling: Duck Terrine Forestière from the one-star French chef Patrick Asfaux on the site, AFTouch-Cuisine.
One star refers to the Michelin star ratings given to outstanding restaurant chefs. According to the article, How to become a Michelin star chef, “A single star means the food served at the restaurant is of excellent quality in its category. Two stars means the food is good enough to take a detour for and three stars means the restaurant serves such excellent food that it deserves a special visit.”
Quick glance: Terrine foie de volaille, also known as poultry liver terrine or pâté
This is an all-encompassing term covering pâté made from any poultry. We probably wouldn’t say this much in English. Instead, we’d use the actual bird in the name or leave it out altogether. Such as liver pâté or chicken liver pâté or duck liver pâté. Or, if you’re Hank Snow (mentioned above), maybe squab liver pâté, ha ha.
Recipe suggestion for liver pâté: The Best Ever Chicken Liver Pâté by Sam Linsell on her Drizzle and Dip website.
Quick glance: Terrine jambon, also known as ham terrine
It’s this French search that let me know that French people are also a little loosey-goosey with forcemeat definitions. Terrine jambon is a very flexible ham dish that could be like rillettes, a ham and potato cold casserole or a jellied (or aspic) terrine, to name a few. There’s also the terrine de jambon persillé which is a chunky ham terrine with parsley.
On the other hand, in English, we see the search for ham terrine result in primarily recipes for jellied ham hock terrines.
Recipe suggestion for ham hock terrine: Ham Hock Terrine by Jacqueline Bellefontaine on her Recipes Made Easy site.
Quick glance: Terrine joue de boeuf, also known as beef cheek terrine
Well, this is interesting as terrines aren’t commonly made with beef, but I could see how a beef cheek terrine would be tender and wonderfully gelatinous. If you’ve never had slow-cooked beef cheek, you gotta try it! It’s so tasty.
Recipe suggestion for beef cheek terrine: Berbere-spiced Beef Cheek Terrine, Deviled Egg Yolk Purée, Asparagus Gribiche, Trout Roe, and Smoked Dates by John Blevins on the Star Chefs website.
Quick glance: Terrine de Noël, also known as Christmas terrine
A Christmas terrine isn’t an exact thing but rather a terrine that’s good to serve at Christmas. This could be because it has Christmas-like ingredients like cranberries and all spice berries. Terrines are also welcomed at Christmas because they’re easy to make a few days in advance, which allows us to manage our holiday obligations better.
Recipe suggestion for Christmas terrine: The Hairy Bikers classic Christmas: Christmassy country terrine by the Hairy Bikers on the Daily Mail website.
[For more ideas on how to incorporate terrines into your Christmas holidays, have a look at my article, Terrine for Christmas: 7 Ways to Get on Santa’s Nice List.]
Quick glance: Terrine de poisson, also known as fish terrine
Fish terrine is similar to the salmon terrine except it includes other fish. Many fish terrine recipes call for salmon and another type of fish. Fish terrine tends to be heavy on the dairy such as crème fraiche and heavy cream. Which translates into heavy on the deliciousness.
I checked out a lot of easy fish terrines on the English internet and found one for you. But the fish terrines on the French internet seemed a bit more interesting to me so I’ve included one of them here for you as well.
Recipe suggestion for fish terrine: Mary Berry’s 3 Fish Terrine as rewritten on the Staal’s Smokehouse website.
Recipe suggestion for fish terrine (if you read French or want to use Google translate): Terrine de poisson by Pauline on her site, La p’tite cuisine de Pauline.
Quick glance: Terrine Quercynoise, also known as pork liver terrine made by La Quercynoise producers’ group
Okay, so there’s not really an English translation as Terrine Quercynoise is a type of pâté made by La Quercynoise producers’ group in Gramat, France. They sell under the brand Clos Saint Sozy. It seems like the terrine called Quercynoise has pork liver in it. According to the Clos Saint Sozy website, “Our agricultural cooperative is composed of men and women who work hard to create the finest foie gras, with the utmost respect for southwestern traditions, from raising to fattening, slaughtering, cutting and processing to the marketing of top-of-the-range products.”
Whoo, that looks like a short paragraph but it sure took me a bit to figure this one out!
Quick glance: Terrine queue de veau, also known as calf’s tail terrine
When I looked for calf tail terrine/veal tail terrine in French and English, the baby cow version didn’t come up. Just the adult cow version. So, since this is basically the same as the next entry, we’ll skip right to it!
Quick glance: Terrine de queue de bœuf, also known as oxtail terrine
So, oxtail is a fancy word for beef tail. No need to get a supply of oxen meat to discover oxtail terrine. Of course, oxtail terrine can also be a spreadable oxtail pâté.
Recipe suggestion for oxtail pâté: Oxtail Pâté (Pate) Recipe by Elise Bauer on the Simply Recipes website.
Recipe suggestion for oxtail terrine: Oxtail Terrine published by Flourish Magazine who say, “Recipe courtesy of Bistro Felix chef at the time, Helen Platt.”
Quick glance: Terrine queue de langouste, also known as lobster (tail) terrine
These lobster terrine recipes can get pretty complicated, especially if you’re bringing home some live lobsters to cook. You can use already cooked lobster meat if you prefer. Like the fish terrines, a lobster terrine will be lighter and may include a generous amount of dairy products.
Recipe suggestion for lobster terrine: Lobster Terrine Recipe by the folks at the Tablas Creek Vineyard blog.
Quick glance: Terrine de lotte, also known as monkfish terrine
Besides learning a new French word, I also had to look up what a monk fish looks like. Let’s just say you wouldn’t want to be surprised by one while swimming.
According to The Spruce Eats article, What Is Monkfish?, “Monkfish are known as the “poor man’s lobster,” with a similar texture, look, and flavor to its fellow bottom-dweller. The fish has a meaty texture, a mild, sweet flavor, and is often used in fine dining and French cooking.”
Recipe suggestion for monkfish terrine: Monk Fish Delight by Graham on the Need A Recipe website. This recipe gets bonus points for only having six ingredients.
Conclusion
Okay, folks, that’s all for now. I hope this glossary of English and French terrine terms has helped you learn a little bit more about some of the more obscure types of terrines (for English speakers anyway). May all your terrines be wonderful no matter what language you enjoy them in!
