Nicholas Gavin is the Culinary Creative Director of ChefSteps, where he develops recipes and is responsible for making all the food look beautiful. Nick has worked at ChefSteps for over a decade; he and ChefSteps co-founder Grant Crilly worked together at Modernist Cuisine. Nick has worked in professional kitchens both in the United States and abroad, most notably at Mugaritz in San Sebastian, Spain.

Nicholas Gavin

If you love the Cinderella meatloaf that is <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/pate-en-croute">pâté en croûte</a> and you get a little thrill when you see a knife slide through a perfectly made <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-ultimate-beef-wellington">beef Wellington</a> to reveal its glorious insides, then you’re going to love this pithivier. A pithivier is basically a French puff pastry pie. It originated as a sweet treat—layers of puff encasing something like <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/classic-frangipane">frangipane</a>, as in the iconic galette des rois, but the pie evolved to include savory variations as well. In some fine-dining French restaurants, savory pithiviers have become exercises in luxury—our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-pithivier">Ultimate Pithivier</a> is a great example, with its layers of squab breast, foie gras torchon, and chicken-and-mushroom farce. But enjoying a pithivier doesn’t have to involve a pilgrimage to a Michelin restaurant. This level-one pithivier is a great entry point for cooks looking to dabble with fancy, layered, puff pastry pies. It demonstrates many of the core techniques of pithivier construction, and in doing so, also offers instruction on some basic operations in the French kitchen—working with puff pastry, making farce, transforming humble ingredients like ground beef and chicken thighs into a delicacy that’s both delicious and visually stunning.

“Meatloaf” Pithivier