Autumn smells of mushrooms. In soups, with pasta, preserved in jars and covered with vinegar. Every homemaker has her own method, each one the best. Mine is… mushroom pâté. Creamy, delicate and incredibly delicious. With pieces of crusty baguette – poetry..
I love mushrooms with the greedy passion of a sweet tooth. As soon as they appear, they grace my table almost every day. The first harvest simply ends up in a frying pan with a little butter and onion. Only once I have had my fill do I let my imagination run wild.
Soups and pasta come first. Then Italian risottos. Some go into jars. And then he enters the scene – mushroom pâté. This is one of my greatest culinary discoveries. Mushrooms were associated with many things for me, but pâté was not one of them.
In pâté, mushrooms are usually merely an addition that highlights the taste and aroma of meat. I also used to add a few to vegan pâtés, which I have been having a fling with since my student days. I like those made from lentils, chickpeas or beans. Then I discovered zucchini pâté, which now regularly graces my table. However, it was mushroom pâté that won over my palate.
MUSHROOM PÂTÉ – A DELICACY FOR VEGETARIANS
I found the idea in one of the foreign cooking magazines I had been collecting on my shelves for years. While tidying up, instead of throwing them away to make room for more cookbooks, I started looking through them. And then I found it: an interview with an American chef who served a platter of vegetarian cold cuts at his restaurant. One of them was mushroom pâté.
The problem was that although the chef revealed in the interview what his signature dish was made from, he unfortunately did not disclose the proportions. So I started experimenting. The most important ingredient on the list was cremini mushrooms? They are simply brown button mushrooms, but very small ones; because they are small, they have more aroma than large, mature mushrooms. They can easily be replaced with ordinary button mushrooms. Or – and this is my trick – mixed half and half with wild mushrooms.
The most important thing in this recipe, however, is patience. And the baking method. Mushroom pâté must be handled gently. Bake it in a water bath. Cover the pâté tin tightly with aluminum foil, place it in a larger dish, and fill it with hot water, preferably freshly boiled. Then cool the pâté very slowly. I put it in the refrigerator overnight. After that, all you need is toast, gherkins and the feast is ready.
P.S. If you like mushrooms, especially chanterelles, be sure to try the chanterelle soup with meatballs.
Be sure to check out my other recipes at www.platebykate.com.
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Enjoy!
Recipe
Ingredients
- 500 g button mushrooms or 250 g button mushrooms and 250 g wild mushrooms
- 1 onion
- 3 eggs
- 30 g butter
- 100 g walnuts
- 100 g spreadable cream cheese, e.g. Bieluch
- 3 garlic cloves
- 100 g young spinach leaves
- 1/2 bunch parsley
- 1/2 teaspoon rosemary
- salt, pepper.
Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Chop the onion into small pieces in a food processor. Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed frying pan. Add the chopped onion and fry over low heat for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic pressed through a garlic press and the rosemary.
- Clean the mushrooms and chop them into the smallest possible pieces in a food processor. Add them to the fried onion and garlic and mix thoroughly. Fry for about 10 minutes, stirring from time to time so that the liquid evaporates from the mushrooms. Cool the mushrooms.
- Grind the walnuts into flour in a food processor. Add the eggs, spinach, parsley leaves and cream cheese to the food processor and process thoroughly. Combine the resulting mixture with the mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper.
- Line a loaf tin with parchment paper. Pour in the prepared mixture. Cover the tin with aluminum foil. Place the pâté tin in a larger dish and pour in hot water until it reaches three-quarters of the way up the pâté tin. Bake for about 2 hours and 15 minutes. Remove the aluminum foil from the tin for the final 15 minutes of baking. Cool and refrigerate for at least 5 hours, preferably overnight.