Mushroom Pâté
This coarse, country-style mushroom pâté is very easy to make (you need a food processor) and has wonderful earthy, herby flavours. A slice or two of it makes a wonderful starter with some pepper jelly on the side, or it makes a great base to build a cold lunch or salad plate around. It will keep for up to a week in the fridge. Best of all, it's very low in calories, so you can help yourself to a second slice.
Cooking Temperature 200 C / 400 F / Gas Mark 6
Ingredients
- 1 pound Mushrooms
- 2 cloves Garlic
- 1 Carrot medium
- 2 stalks Celery
- 1 stalk Green Onion large
- 1 handful Parsley fresh
- ½ Green Pepper
- ½ teaspoon Sage dried
- ½ teaspoon Rosemary ground, dried
- ½ teaspoon Thyme dried
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- ½ teaspoon Ground Pepper
- ½ pound Pressed Cottage Cheese
- 1 tablespoon Lemon Juice
- 1 ½ teaspoon Soy Sauce
- ¼ teaspoon Liquid Smoke
- 2 tablespoons Egg White
- 2 tablespoons Instant Mashed Potato Flakes
Instructions
- Take a 20 cm by 10 cm (8 x 4) bread loaf pan. Spray it lightly with cooking spray. Line with waxed paper or parchment paper. Spray that lightly as well. Set aside.
- Wash the mushrooms. Whiz through a food processor until finely chopped; turn out into a large bowl.
- Start the oven heating around now to 200 C / 400 F / Gas Mark 6.
- Put everything from the garlic down to and including the ground black pepper into the food processor bowl. Whiz until everything is finely minced. Add to the mushroom in the large bowl.
- Now add to the large bowl all the remaining ingredients. Mix well with your hands until all blended. Using your hands still, transfer it to the prepared loaf pan and pat it down evenly.
- Wash your hands, then cut a piece of waxed paper to fit loaf pan. Spray it on one side lightly with cooking spray, and place it sprayed-side down on top the mixture in the loaf pan.
- Place in oven, bake for 1 ½ hours. Remove from oven. Let cool before turning out to serve. Garnish if desired.
- Cut into 2 cm / ¾ inch slices to serve; you'll get about 10 slices out of it.
Notes
Veg prep for food processor: wash the carrot, top and tail it, no need to peel, chop into large chunks. Wash and chop into large pieces the celery, green onion (including stalk) and bell pepper (seed it as well.) No need to chop the parsley -- use about 15g / ½ oz in weight fresh (don't forget to wash it and shake dry) or about 1 tablespoon dried.
Obviously, feel free to play with the seasoning and herbs called for.
You may wish to make this a day ahead. If so, after the loaf pan has cooled, place it in the fridge with the waxed paper still on top and then turn it out the next day.
Invert carefully with a plate or board so that it doesn't crack too much on you.
Depending on the phase of the moon, this can turn out a bit crumbly and be hard to lift by the slice without a flipper to do it with. So, you may wish to consider baking it in a round or other such form, and serving it with a pate knife.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
A slice (2cm thick by 10 cm long by 2 ½ cm tall) weighs 50g / 1 ½ oz. ©CooksInfo / 2013