Pate

Initially, the pate was considered a delicacy, which was served to the table only on a big occasion. ^[1]. Today, there are many simplified beef, pork, and turkey liver versions that are easy to make at home with step-by-step instructions. ^[2].

Now the dish is prepared not only from the liver of a chicken or other poultry. The recipe may include ingredients that are a little strange at first glance, like oranges or olives. If you know how to cook a liver pate, you will get a real meal.

The classic meat version is now cooked as often as beans, onions, mushrooms, eggs, herring, carrots. Often, not only selected breasts of birds and other animals are used, but also offal. Today’s food industry, thanks to the development of industrial equipment, even offers similar gastronomic offers for cats and dogs.

Regardless of whether the dish will be served at the table for a holiday, whether it is intended for children, adults or beloved pets, a home-made product will still prove to be more useful than a store-bought alternative. This applies even to cases where production was guided by the approved GOST ^[3].

Battle to make pâté the national dish

Despite the fact that people have been able to figure out how to make a delicious pate for a long time, researchers still cannot put an end to the endless disputes between countries about whether the dish belongs to any national cuisine. The controversy is inspired by several conflicting legends.

So, historians were able to find out that the goose liver dish can be called a French invention, since it was officially talked about back in 1778. It appeared thanks to the creative approach to his work of one of the chefs of Strasbourg. The chef had to think through all the preparation from start to finish in order to impress the eminent guests at the dinner party.

The guests liked the idea so much that the fame of an unusual dish on the menu quickly reached Louis XVI. Initially, it was considered only a privilege of the aristocracy, but over time, ordinary people also began to use sandwiches with cooked goose. The baguette that French bakeries are so famous for goes well with it.

But, despite the documented information, Germany has been fighting for the right to call itself the birthplace of pate for many years.

The basis for the name of the traditional adaptation of the appetizer is the French phrase “pate de foie gras”, which translates as “goose liver pate” ^[4]. A little later, when culinary specialists from all over the world began to change the recipe, based on the products prevailing in certain regions, the so-called “Strasbourg pie” appeared. Even Pushkin mentioned him in one of his famous works.

The pate began to be cooked in the oven, and the workpiece was additionally wrapped in dough with butter. Such a creamy baked version, although it had a higher calorie content, was stored for a long time both at home and on the road without the need for additional preservation.

Travelers and townsfolk liked the unusual pie so much that at that time special establishments were opened where it was served in a different way – pate.

If we are talking about a product made from tuna, cod, bacon, boiled pork, avocado, rabbit, they still have a common consistency. It is not for nothing that literally the term “pate” is translated as “dough”.

After the fashion for this dish spread throughout Europe, at the end of the XNUMXth century it was customary to call it the representative of the menu of primordially French cuisine. Then, when people came up with fish, duck, and sprat recipes, each region had its own peculiarities of cooking.

In the vast Slavic countries, the pate went on sale in the fifties of the last century. Despite the fact that for some time it seemed almost impossible to get it in a bank due to a shortage, after forty years everyone could get a delicate pate to the table.

During the Soviet Union, the authorities even tried to attach this kind of canned food to the mandatory army rations. That variation was far from being a classic delicacy. But people willingly consumed industrial varieties of pâté. It is easy to make tartlets out of them, if you add cheese, garlic, wrap everything in pita bread or spread on bread, you get a quick and satisfying snack.

Main pate classification

Despite the fact that today it is easy to create this kind of goodies from lentils, artichokes, salted herring, hearts, mackerel in an autoclave or slow cooker, goose liver is still considered a classic of the genre as the main component.

All varieties of pate can be divided into three categories:

• meat, which is prepared even from the heads of animals;
• fish, including burbot and also a delicacy from milk;
• vegetarian.

The latter are sometimes also called lean, because instead of poultry, the dish is prepared from champignons and other food products allowed during fasting. Experienced housewives even know how to preserve such blanks for the winter, because their storage does not require any special conditions, and the benefits of the product are preserved.

According to those who seek to choose a good solution at minimal cost, the best cooking recipe is chicken liver pate, which must first be fried with cream or butter, and then rubbed, mixing with sautéed onions and carrots.

The resulting puree is often decorated with herbs, and some types of recipes involve twisting the cooled base into a roll with the addition of a layer of butter to the core.

Usually, at least half a day should pass between preparing a dish (whether it be from nuts or processed foie gras for a New Year’s feast) and eating it. All the set time, the mass is stored in the refrigerator in a closed package.

On the shelves today you can find many offers with names like “Belarusian”, “Ukrainian”, “Polish” pate. But still, many consumers prefer to make it on their own from liver and even boiled sausage, including then in a salad. And aristocratic adaptations include a composition of red fish and caviar, the quality of which is beyond doubt.

The traditional vegetarian roll, which is easy to freeze, is made on the basis of:

• olives
• mushrooms (oyster mushrooms, mushrooms);
• zucchini;
• legumes;
• pumpkin.

Grated vegetables are associated with starch, and then various herbs or dairy products such as cottage cheese, processed cheese are added. Food is served entirely at the discretion of the chef.

To save money, in addition to the liver, additional offal, such as pork skin or trimmings, is whipped in a blender. The taste turns out to be quite unusual, but some lovers of experimenting are willing to try non-standard modifications of the dish from offal, light, river fish. Depending on the predominance of a certain ingredient, not only the taste, but also the color of the dish varies. A white shade will be obtained from a lamb snack with an abundance of butter, which goes well with canapes. And the green color often indicates lean food, where a lot of greenery appears. Interesting combinations are obtained with cucumbers, eggplant delicacies baked in dough or exotic tofu.

If you want to taste gourmet gourmet cuisine, then you should pay attention to inexpensive recipes with cognac, wine, other types of alcoholic beverages or walnuts. Sometimes, to increase the shelf life, a large portion of the pate is mixed with animal or vegetable gelatin.

Store-bought pies stand apart, which often only harm the human body, in particular for the figure and the cardiovascular system. The reason for this are:

• stabilizers;
• colorants;
• flavors.

Nutritionists recommend cooking the delicacy on your own. Moreover, today there are many “smart” techniques that allow you to quickly get a creamy consistency, even pate with prunes. It is only necessary to observe the correct storage conditions. It is unlikely that it will be possible to answer unequivocally how long the pate is stored, because each dish has its own terms.

The benefits and harms of pate

The leader of healthy pates is the cod liver dish due to its rich content of nutrients, which is especially valuable for pregnant women and the growing body of a child. Almost the same effect will be achieved if you use other types of fish, because from saury, pike, pink salmon, salmon, pollock, sprat, crucian carp, you can also make a culinary masterpiece that is allowed to be consumed by nursing mothers in the absence of food allergies. Some housewives even make smoked mackerel pates. Looks great jellied pate stuffed with olives.

Nutritionists say that in one word it will not work to describe how useful this dish is. ^[5]. Its composition is replete with useful components:

• fish fat;
• vitamins of groups E, PP, B;
• collagen;
• carotene;
• iodine;
• phosphorus;
• calcium;
• potassium;
• zinc ^[6].

The liver increases the level of hemoglobin and helps to cope with underweight with anemia. The offal dish, which is rich in nutrients, will also delight in the presence of three important amino acids:

• lysine;
• methionine;
• tryptophan.

Vegetable pate often acts as a powerful prevention of the development of pathologies of the gastrointestinal tract, if its recipe has been followed. And the traditional village pate with boiled liver is recommended in the postoperative period as an aid for cell renewal due to glycogen polysaccharides.

The above positive properties of the dish make sense with its moderate consumption, with the proviso that this is not a store product. Reviews of pâté lovers confirm that an industrially prepared appetizer, with frequent use, can even result in a food allergy.

You also need to be careful for those who like soy pâtés or their meat alternatives of minced meat and tongue, olives along with lots of bread. This will definitely “come around” with extra pounds in the waist and an increase in the level of “bad” cholesterol. Instead of a long loaf and a baguette, experts advise eating cold pates only with black bread or whole grain flour buns ^[7].

It should be understood that even a couple of pieces of your favorite treat has a high glycemic index. This suggests that a slight snack provokes the release of insulin, the production of glucose, which ends with the processing of food into fat cells. As soon as the pate begins to be actively digested, the glucose level drops rapidly, which causes a recurrence of an attack of hunger.

Despite this, some varieties of pate are allowed to be consumed even with the Dukan diet. To minimize the possible negative consequences of such dishes from stew, red beans, boiled eggs, veal, salmon, it is better to eat them at lunchtime, but you need to monitor portions ^[8]. When overeating, there may be a feeling of heaviness in the stomach.

Add calories to the product:

• excess oil;
• cream;
• fat.

Regular use of pate negatively affects the elasticity of blood vessels, and also increases the risk of high blood pressure.

Those who are overweight should not add pate to pasta, use it for gastritis along with white bread. But the rule usually does not apply to a vegan option that can be served for breakfast.

The energy value of meat pate is especially high in a dish with chicken liver. The average indicator for a given parameter without additives like truffle is about 275 kcal per 100 grams of product.

General cooking technology and rules for choosing store pates

If you can’t master even simple recipes on your own, but you still want to eat pate from time to time, then you can try to find the safest store-bought alternative.

First of all, you need to look not at the name like “Finnish”, but at the expiration date. The mass released in a polymer shell is stored for about a month from the date of production. If a manufacturer indicates that their product has a longer shelf life, this is a reason to think about content with many synthetic additives that extend the life of the product.

If the supermarket has its own culinary department, then their signature pâté will remain tasty and nutritious for even less time. The longest stored pates in cans, even without the addition of substances to increase the shelf life. But here the danger lies elsewhere. Once the jar is opened, you need to eat the contents within a few days, as the risks of getting dangerous microorganisms inside increase significantly. Instead of using sauces to mask the weathered mass, it is better to transfer it to a glass dish with a tight lid immediately after opening the jar.

A high-quality pate should contain a liver percentage of at least 55%. Of course, you can experiment with the dish at home by adding 80% rice and tomatoes to reduce the cost.

The purchased product must have a uniform consistency and one of three shades:

• light brown;
• grayish;
• beige.

But the pink or dark brown tone should alert, even if we are talking about pastries stuffed with pate mass.

Despite the many tips for preparing a delicacy, the technology for its preparation always includes three main stages. ^[9].

At the first stage, the primary processing of raw materials takes place, such as the removal of bones, hymen, veins and other components that interfere with the future homogeneous structure. This is followed by heat treatment: boiling or stewing ^[10]. Then comes the phase of grinding the semi-finished product through a meat grinder, blender.

The second stage involves the preparation of auxiliary ingredients such as spices, vegetables, citrus fruits, alcohol, mushrooms, eggs and other components that can be combined with the bulk. To add juiciness, it is recommended to use milk, which is poured in at the stage of mixing pre-prepared ingredients.

The final stage is to combine and mix the components until smooth.

Very rarely, the cooking phase is skipped, using raw meat in the work. Then the workpiece after mixing is stewed in the oven until fully cooked.

Original recipe with cognac

If the simplest recipes, which are not difficult to deal with, have already set your teeth on edge, then you can always try the original version. ^[11]. For her, as for the traditional pate, take 500 grams of chicken liver and 220 grams of butter.

Additionally, you will need 1 medium apple, 2 small onions, 3 tablespoons of cognac, 2 tablespoons of 20% fat cream. Seasonings are 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, one and a half teaspoons of salt, a quarter teaspoon of ground black pepper.

Cooking begins with peeling and cutting the onions. Then they peel the apple, removing the seeds, and chop it finely. Approximately 30 grams of butter are measured and put in a frying pan for melting, where the prepared apple and onion are later transferred. It is necessary to simmer the workpiece until softened.

The liver is washed under running water, and then each piece is divided in half. As soon as the fruit and vegetable preparation is ready, about 50 grams of oil is added to the pan, and then the liver is laid out. It should be fried over high heat for about 15 minutes until cooked.

Then the fire is turned off. The contents of the container are set on fire to evaporate the alcohol. The resulting semi-finished product is loaded into a blender for grinding, adding cream to the bowl.

The puree is transferred to a glass bowl, and 100 grams of pre-softened butter and a third of the pate are poured into a blender. The mass is mixed, and then another half of the rest of the pate is laid out there. After mixing, add the last part of the workpiece, pouring spices and pouring in lemon juice.

The almost ready delicacy is transferred into molds, pouring a thin layer of melted butter on top. The top of the form is covered with cling film. The container is sent to the refrigerator for 3-5 hours.

If desired, it is allowed to vary the set of seasonings, as well as decorate the dish at your own discretion.

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