Mushroom pate: for the picnic hamper

Today was the first really hot day in London this year, bringing to mind lazy afternoons picnicking on ripe cheese, crusty bread and dense, foil-wrapped pate. Unfortunately, we attempted this al fresco dining idea last week when it was still damp and wet in the city, so we put a picnic rug over the table instead...

Making pate is also an excuse to use my newly acquired Le Creuset terrine, a beautiful volcanic orange oblong dish that has been generating crockery envy on Instagram. I've made a classic pork terrine for the next edition of Barbican Life magazine, so this is a delicious vegetarian pate, equally transportable and almost as dense.

It's another recipe from Anna Thomas's 1978 cookbook, The Vegetarian Epicure: Book Two. The owner of this book is a fellow Barbican resident, who has marked both mushroom pate recipes "E" for excellent. I have recreated the second version which contains walnuts for a crunchy texture and dried mushrooms to bump up the earthy taste. For the fresh mushroom content, I used a combination of half standard white mushrooms and half portabellini mushrooms which have a stronger, more meaty taste. 

This is definitely a recipe you can play about with, using different mushrooms, cheese, fresh herbs and liquor to create something new each time.

Ingredients

500g mixed fresh mushrooms

25g dried porcini mushrooms 

6-8 shallots

2 sticks of celery

100g walnuts

200g feta cheese

5 tbsp mixed fresh herbs, eg parsley, oregano, rosemary

2 slices of bread blitzed to breadcrumbs

1 tsp cayenne pepper

2 eggs

3 tbsp Madeira

Method

1. Soak the dried mushrooms in boiling water for 20 minutes then chop finely. Peel and mince the shallots; sautée in a little olive oil until soft. Chop the fresh mushrooms, walnuts, celery and feta into small chunks and finely chop the fresh herbs.

2. Combine the chopped ingredients in a large bowl (larger than the bowl I used below) then beat and add the eggs and all the remaining ingredients. Season generously and mix well.

3. Grease and line your terrine or loaf tin with baking paper, and add the mushroom mixture, patting down firmly. Cover loosely and bake at 180C for 90 minutes, until the pate is dark brown and starting to come away from the sides of the dish. 

4. When it's cool enough to handle, turn out of the dish and chill for several hours before serving.

The verdict from the picnic tasting panel was that is was "very mushroomy", which is insight you'll get (literally) nowhere else. A worthy addition to any picnic.