Tag Archives: pate

Mushroom paté

We served this rich meaty vegan paté at our pop-up café last June on our vegetarian Surrey Platters. Much lower fat than meat based paté makes it a healthy option too. Providing you use some field mushrooms in your mix you will achieve the rich coloured mix shown here. Use a low salt yeast extract at it develops the meaty flavour without escalating the sodium content.

Ingredientsmushroom_pate_6x9
2 tablespoons olive oil
100g butter or vegan margarine
2 red onions, finely diced
4 cloves crushed garlic
500g field mushrooms, finely diced
50g mixed dried wild mushrooms, soaked in enough boiling water to cover
1 teaspoon low salt yeast extract, mix with the mushroom water
2 dessertspoons fresh chopped mixed herbs
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
50g fresh brown breadcrumbs
Some fresh herbs to garnish

Heat the oil and butter in a large pan with a lid. Sweat the onions and garlic until softened and ever so slightly browned. Add the diced fresh and dried mushrooms to the pan and cook with the lid on stirring occasionally for 5 minutes over a low heat. Mix the yeast extract with the reserved soaking water from the dried mushrooms, add to the pan with the herbs and cook gently for a further five minutes.Remove from the heat and stir in the breadcrumbs. Allow to cool, then pulse the mixture in a food processor for a few seconds. Mix thoroughly, adjust the seasoning and place in a serving dish. Garnish with fresh herbs and chill until required.

If you don’t have a food processor just very finely chop the ingredients before cooking.

Serve as a starter or light lunch with salad or use as a sandwich filling.

Download the  recipe for Mushroom Pate

mushroom pate

Text and images Shirlee
Text and images Shirlee

Smoked mackerel pâté

Whole smoked mackerel

Smoked mackerel pâté

I couldn’t resist buying a wonderful whole smoked mackerel from the Chelsea fishmonger. It’s a tiny bit more work using a whole fish but the superior flavour is worth the effort.

Simply remove the head, open up the fish to pull out the back bone (which should come away in one piece) and peel back the skin.

Place 250-300g of crumbled smoked mackerel fillet in a mixing bowl. Add 200ml of half-fat crème fraîche, the juice and finely grated zest of one unwaxed lemon and some finely chopped fresh chives. Season the mixture with freshly ground black pepper and mix to combine all the ingredients – it should retain some texture.  This is great piled on cucumber discs instead of bread for pre-dinner drinks. It also makes a lovely starter served with piping hot toast.

Smoked mackerel pâté

Shirlee and Jane Eat Surrey
Recipe and Images Shirlee