Pork, chicken and herb terrine

For several weeks now I've been wanting to have a chance to use my new terrine, and the sunny bank holiday weekend provided an excellent opportunity.

The quantities given here fill a small terrine, well, to be honest they OVER fill it, but I wasn't going to waste any so we have a domed top! The recipe was inspired by one in a Good Housekeeping recipe book about 30 years ago, but is my own version of it.

Note this is best cooked the day before eating. I thought I'd better mention that because of the number of times I've reached "refrigerate overnight" partway through a recipe I was cooking for that evening.

Ingredients

½ medium onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 tbs oil (I used sunflower but any lightly flavoured oil would do - not a strong olive oil though!)
100g mushrooms, finely chopped
60ml dry sherry
1 level tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
generous grating of nutmeg
300g minced pork
200g skinless chicken breast
1 egg
about 200g  thin sliced streaky bacon (the exact quantity will depend on the measurements  of your terrine)
4 tbs chopped fresh parsley
50g pistachio nuts - I was lucky enough to get hold of slivered ones, but if you can only get whole ones, they need to be roughly chopped.
seasoning

Heat the oil and gently fry the onion, mushroom and garlic until soft but not coloured, then stir in the sherry, thyme, nutmeg and seasoning (as tasting at this stage would be meaningless, you'll need to guess the seasoning - be quite generous as it is to be eaten cold), bring to boil, cover and simmer for 5 minutes.  Remove from heat and leave to cool.

Meanwhile heat the oven to 180C, 160 fan, 350 F, gas 4. Prepare the terrine by lining with rashers of bacon, overlapping very slightly and allowing to drape over the edges. Fill in the ends with a couple of bits and keep 3 or 4 rashers back to finish the top.

Pulse the chicken in a food processor until coarsely chopped, or chop by hand - you want the pieces to vary in size from almost minced to about 1cm cubes. Beat the egg.

When the onion-mushroom mixture is cool,  add the pork, chicken, egg, parsley and pistachios, beating well to mix thoroughly. Pack very firmly into the terrine, topping with the reserved bacon,  and place it on a baking tray in the oven for 1 hour 20 minutes.

Allow to cool, then cover and chill overnight.

Run a palette knife around the edges to loosen and turn out onto a plate.

Serve sliced with salads and pickles. We added home made crusty bread, mayonnaise made with hazelnut oil, green salad, tomatoes, home grown radishes and pasta-pesto salad (last night's left over pasta tossed in a spoonful of pesto while still warm then cooled and refrigerated).

As well as being delicious, it looks  so pretty too with the herbs and pistachios studding the meat. And all those gorgeous herbs mean I'm joining in the Cooking With Herbs linky at Lavender and Lovage