Caul Fat Terrine

What is caul fat, you say? That is an excellent question. To be honest, I had heard of it before but I had to look it up myself. Caul fat is also known as lace fat, mesentery, crépine or fat netting, and is the thin membrane which surrounds the stomach internal organs of some animals, such as cows, sheep, and pigs. It honestly looks just like lace, and is used to wrap items such as pork tenderloin and such, to add moisture. It is used much like barding, and a really common dish is called crepinettes, which are sausage patties wrapped in caul fat.

I had caul fat as a black box ingredient for a recent competition, and I had never worked with it before. I did a few quick experiments with it beforehand. I didn't want to take the easy way out and just use it to wrap something, I wanted to use it in a terrine. I tried wrapping it around the terrine to see what happened, but I didn't like to outcome. Although the lace was visible in some areas, it melted away in others leaving a greasy layer. Frying caul fat caused it to melt away as well. I decided to use it inside the terrine along with the ground chicken to replace the pork fat that would normally be used. This worked quite successfully!