Quick & Easy Mushroom Pâté
I love versatile recipes that you can serve friends and family with different dietary requirements, with just a few tweaks.
The Quick & Easy Mushroom Pâté can be served as a starter at a dinner party, it would make a great addition to your snack or nibbles table served with freshly baked bread, crudités or crackers and would be a delicious light lunch. My batch has been a lovely after school snack eaten as a sandwich.
This recipe was developed as I walked into my local Supermarket and they had portobellini and chestnut mushrooms reduced to 19p and 29p for 500g punnets. Having just posted and served my family my mushroom soup, I had to think of something different to make. I bought 6 punnets of mushrooms, unfortunately my Caterer, Greek/Cypriot blood does not always allow me to be sensible in situations like these. So the recipe for pate was adapted from my Cream of Mushroom Soup Recipe and it is quick, easy and delicious.
You may think that the combination of soya sauce and vinegar are odd. Trust me you will not be able to identify either ingredient in the final Quick & Easy Mushroom Pâté, but they both enhance and add a wonderful flavouring to the mushrooms. The more intense the mushroom variety used, the more flavoursome the pate will be. I wouldn’t use button mushrooms as with this particular pate, the mushrooms are the star of the show and you need something a little more flavoursome.
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 onion, finely diced
- 1 clove garlic (optional)
- 1 leeks, chopped
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 500g chestnut or any mixed mushrooms (Oysters, Portobello and Chanterelle mushrooms), sliced
- 2 tablespoons soya sauce
- 1 tablespoon sherry or champagne wine vinegar
- 250-500g cream cheese (Philadelphia)
- Salt and pepper to taste, if needed
- Add the olive oil to a large frying pan.
- In a food processor or by hand chop the onion, leek and garlic (if using).
- Remove the onion mix from the food processor and process or chop the mushrooms, setting them aside.
- Add the onion and leek mixture to the frying pan and gently sweat until the onion and leek becomes translucent, this will take about 5 minutes.
- Add the mushrooms to the pan with the thyme and stir well to combine the ingredients together.
- Cook until the water is released from the mushrooms and the mixture turns a dark brown colour. This will take about 10-15 minutes depending on your chosen mushrooms.
- Stir often to prevent the mixture from burning.
- Add the soya sauce and vinegar and stir well, for a minute or so, taste and add salt and pepper if needed.
- At this point you can remove the pate from the pan and serve warm or cold with crackers to vegans or dairy free friends.
- For a creamy version allow the mushroom mixture to cool and combine the cream cheese with the mushroom mixture.
This is not a pretty picture but it does show what the mixture will look like after cooking.
I hope you make a batch and when you do I look forward to hearing from you, either via social media or email.
