Pumpkin and Ricotta Terrine

January 5, 2020

Pumpkin and Ricotta Terrine

Serves 6-8:

  • 500 g of ricotta (cow’s milk)
  • 450 g of pumpkin flesh, cubed
  • 110 g of rice flour
  • 4 eggs
  • salt
  • a few pinches of cinnamon 
  • a few pinches of nutmeg 
  • some fresh black pepper
  • 5-6 thin slices of pancetta or bacon (for the garnish)

Lay flat in a pan in a single layer the pancetta slices and on a medium heat fry them on both sides until crispy (there shouldn’t be any need to use any oil for frying). Leave them to cool down and then finally chop. Set aside until needed.

In the same pan that you’ve used to fry the pancetta heat up two table spoons of olive oil and fry on a low to medium heat the pumpkin cubes for about 10 minutes. Add some salt, a few tablespoons of vegetable stock or water (or more if needed) and carry on cooking until the pumpkin cubes turn soft enough to blend them into a puree (it should take about 15 minutes). Add more water or stock if needed but be careful not to add too much (you should obtain a fairly thick puree rather than a watery one). Once that is done blend the pumpkin into a creamy consistency.

Mix the ricotta with a generous pinch of salt, some black pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg. Next stir in the pumpkin puree, rice flour and the eggs. Taste and add more seasoning if needed. Be careful with black pepper, you don’t want it to overpower the delicate flavour of the terrine.

Prepare a terrine mould. Grease it with butter and lay the bottom and the sides with the baking parchment, a step which will help when turning the terrine onto a serving plate.

Pour in the pumpkin and ricotta mixture and even out the surface.

Place the terrine mould into another baking dish with high borders. Next pour into the baking dish hot water. The water level should be more or less half the hight of the terrine.

Bake the terrine in the hot water bath (bain marie) in the preheated oven to 150 C for about 45 minutes.

Garnish the terrine with the chopped pancetta.

Serve with a green salad but it also works extremely well as a side dish when serving roast chicken, turkey or veal.