Jellied Pate Picnic Food Ideas
Frankly speaking I like pates – be it meat or vegetable pate. Each time I do it either spicier or more tender – depending on the occasion and picnic team preferences. Pates are especially great for picnics with kids! Just spread some pate over slightly crusty bread slice, add a couple of fresh herb shoots – and you have got a pleasant snack for an outdoor eating-out. Also pates are great for mundane fast breakfasts. What I like most about them is that each time you can experiment with ingredients and cooking techniques. The recipe I provide below was much of an experiment. It taught me cooking lessons I will keep in mind when preparing pate as a picnic food next time. I hope the recipe, tips and my considerations below will be interesting and useful to you as well. Enjoy!
Jellied Pate with Mushrooms as Picnic Food Ideas
Preparation time: 30 minutes; cooking time: 50 minutes; freezing time: 1,5-2 hours; yields: about 6 servings.
Note: If you don’t have boiled meat fillet cooked then add time for that too.
Ingredients:
100 g chicken breast fillet (or liver) or beef fillet (or liver)
1 dried cepe
1 hot chilli pepper
4 medium champignons
1 small carrot
1 small onion
100g butter
20g plain gelatin
2 tbsp pomegranate seeds or canned corn seeds
salt and seasoning to taste
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 180°С.
Place the dried cepe in a cup of warm water for half an hour.
Rinse and pat-dry fillet; put in the boiling water and cook for 4-5 hours to your desired doneness. If you are using chicken liver then just rinse and pat-dry it – no need to cook it. Process the liver, champignons, cepe, hot chilli pepper, onion and carrot in the meat grinder. Add melted butter, salt, black pepper, and paprika (optional) to the mixture. Mix to incorporate well. Transfer into a mold, cover with foil. Bake in the oven for 50 minutes at 180°С.
Soak gelatin in mushroom broth for 10 minutes. Then place over low heat till hot but not boiling. Heating will allow gelatin melt well. Stir frequently while the liquid is over heat to prevent sticking of gelatin. When done set aside for 5 minutes till slightly cooled; then add pomegranate or canned popcorn seeds to the liquid.
When baked take the pate out of oven, allow to cool completely then pour jelly mixture over it. Place in the fridge for 1.5-2 hours.
So that was classic recipe however this time I did it other way. Instead of canned popcorn seeds I used pomegranate. I squeezed it for juice. I made pomegranate jelly with fresh pomegranate seeds separately – and poured the mushroom broth jelly over the pate.
For pate I used boiled beef fillet. I cut it in small pieces and blended it with boiled carrot, champignons, and bell pepper. Now I know that blending meat and veggies in the recipe do not work fine. Thus my advice is to follow the above classic recipe variation to get a less moist pate. My mistake was I added boiled onion too although I knew I don’t like it this way in a meal. Besides it added unwanted moisture to the pate. Then I also added diced carrot, bell pepper, salt, seasoning and melted butter to the mixture.
When done I placed the pate in the fridge for 30 minutes, then poured the mushroom jelly over and returned the pate into the fridge for another 2 hours.
As concerns the pomegranate jelly, I read it goes well with this pate so I tried making it instead of adding canned popcorn seeds. I added just little water to soak gelatin a bit, then added fresh pomegranate juice (50g), added a tbsp of seeds, allowed to cool a bit and then placed the mixture into the fridge for 2 hours too.
When done I very shortly kept the containers over heat to help the jellied picnic food come out of the containers. Then I took a piece of jellied pate put it over a bread crust, added a pomegranate jelly above and for a fresher taste added a small piece of lemon on top. The picnic food tasted okay but I didn’t like that there was not enough jelly over the pate. Next time I will not blend but will grind the fresh ingredients, will bake them instead of boiling, and will use a double portion of spicy jelly. I may also add some bright color to jelly and will add fresh cilantro.
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