Terrine shrunk during cooking I did my first terrine this weekend. I used this recipe with 300g rabbit meat, 100g rabbit livers, 300g pork cheeks and 300g lard, marinaded in armagnac, white wine and salt overnight, minced, mixed with shallots and herbs, put in the mould and cooked.

During cooking the meat seemed to shrink about 1cm from each side and fat seeped in on the sides. When refrigerated the fat turned to solid so there’s a white chunk of fat on both sides which I don't think is desired.

Any ideas what went wrong? I believe I followed the recipe to the letter. Could it be a problem with the recipe - is the ratio of meat to fat wrong here?



Update:
The meat did not fill all the terrine mould. Had there been enough meat to just over-fill the terrine and put something on top to press the meat down, would the shrinkage not have happened?
Actually, it sounds like everything went right to me, that's a classic terrine. You simply picked the wrong recipe if you don't want fat - 1/4 of it is lard after all. When you cooked it the fat melted and got squeezed out to the sides, that's perfectly normal. 

If you want less fat then replace fat with gelatine which will solidify to hold it all together.