A pâté en croûte looks almost architectural once it’s sliced. That’s part of the trick. Few dishes in classical cuisine hide their labor this elegantly. Beyond the neat cross-section is a rigorous four-day sequence of curing, grinding, seasoning, folding, lining, baking, resting, draining, and filling. Chef Luis Locsin likes that the dish hides its difficulty so well. Or perhaps, more accurately, he likes that it doesn’t hide it from him. (Article continues after the video.) Video: Locsin speaks of pâté en croûte with the wary affection of someone who knows how quickly it can punish confidence. Too much fat dulls the palate. A weak farce turns the slice timid. One crack in the pastry can send hours of work leaking onto the tray. At this point, he’s made close to a hundred of them, chasing the dish through every possible failure point: the seasoning, the pastry, the fat, the aspic..
