Just spent a little time in Paris and had some great food, so I couldn't wait to make some French type food when I got back. I've been wanting to make a county pate anyway, so this was a good opportunity. Instead of grinding the pork I went to work on it with a cleaver old-school. I wanted larger, nonuniform pieces so it looked more interesting when sliced and also provides different textures. I've seen a lot of recipes where dried cranberries are used as the fruit component, but I had these really good, fresh dried apricots (and I love apricots-- they also go well with pork) so I used them.
I put it in the oven en a bain-marie for five hours and the smell was increadable. After it came out of the oven I put a piece of plastic wrapped cardboard over it and then weighed it down with a gallon of milk in the refrigerator to compact it. The next day I put it in a warm bath for a couple of minutes to loosen it up, ran a knife around the edges, and put it on a cutting board.
After it was on the cutting board, I put it in the freezer for about 20 minutes to firm up so it would slice easily. You can see that it did. The pieces are great looking with the spices, fruit and nuts and smell really good. I will freeze these so that they can be brought out a couple of hours before serving.
Here they are vacum sealed and ready to go into the freezer. Great for a dinner party or when company drops by unexpectedly.
This is just a close-up so you can see all the good bits in the sliced pieces.
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