Terrine de Campagne

The water bath 13 recipes

• The water stands two thirds of the way up the side of the inner dish and is still standing there at the end: filled only to the halfway mark, the upper band sets hard and pale long before the centre moves, and water lapping the rim or splashed over the top has thinned the surface into a loose, watery skin.
• The bath is silent, steaming, with at most one slow bubble rising at the wall of the outer vessel, held between 80C and 85C (176F and 185F). Any chatter of the dish against the base, any steady string of bubbles, any rolling of the surface means the water has run to 100C (212F) and the damage is already done.
• Nudged, the centre trembles as one piece, a coin of movement in a face that is otherwise still. A ripple that travels outward in waves means it is still liquid beneath the skin; a face that does not move at all has been carried past the set and will eat firm and grainy.
• Cut, the face is dense and glossy from edge to edge: no honeycomb of small bubbles along the outer band, and no bead of clear liquid weeping from the cut or pooling between the set and the side of the dish, which is the mark of protein wrung out by heat.
• It left the water before it was done and rested clear of it: the centre reads 78C (172F) as it is lifted out and climbs to roughly 82C (180F) standing. Anything left sitting in the hot bath after the heat was cut has gone on cooking, and it reaches the pass tight and split however well it looked when it went in.

Where it goes wrong The bath was pushed too hot and allowed to boil, usually an outer vessel set over direct heat that was never turned down, or a bath topped up part way through with boiling water, so the mixture against the wall of the dish ran past 85C (185F) and its protein seized and squeezed out its liquid. The outer band is pitted and grainy, a ring of watery liquid weeps into the dish as soon as it is cut, and the centre is still slack, because the outside was overcooked long before the middle set.

Pounding a curry paste 23 recipes

• Smeared thin across a pale surface it reads as one substance, edge to edge: no pale gritty specks standing proud of the smear, no shard that drags a line through it as the smear is pulled. Flecks mean something hard went in after something wet and skated instead of shattering.
• Rubbed between finger and thumb it feels like wet clay, dense and smooth, and takes the print of the thumb. Anything that rolls into a hard grain or grits like sand has not been broken down, and the order of work was wrong.
• The fibrous aromatics have surrendered: pinch a little and pull, and nothing draws out as a thread or a hair. Listen to the last minutes of work as well, which should be a dull wet slap in the mortar; a dry knock or rattle still present means hard pieces are being chased around rather than crushed.
• One even colour throughout when it is turned under the light, deep and saturated, with no marbling and no streak in which a single component can still be read. A dull grey cast over the surface says it was worked long past its point.
• Heaped up and left alone it stands in a soft peak and holds the mark of the pestle for a full minute: no clear or coloured liquid creeps out at the base, no oily film separates on top. It should also come to the pass cool, no warmer than about 25 C (77 F); a mortar warm to the back of the hand means friction has driven off the top aroma and the paste will smell flat.

Where it goes wrong Everything went into the mortar together, or the wet ingredients arrived before the hard, dry ones had been reduced to dust, so the moisture cushioned every blow and the hard pieces slid rather than broke. What comes to the pass is a wet mince rather than a paste: hard flecks and fibrous threads through a loose slurry, liquid weeping out of the heap within a minute, colour marbled instead of single, and on the plate it reads as separate raw items sitting next to each other rather than one flavour.