RECIPE: Root Vegetable Pates

I’ve been asked to do a few interviews over the years, generally by someone looking for an angle on the “new” eating plants trend. After a while I noticed that there is one question that comes up, in varying guises, time and again, “What are the biggest challenges when cooking plant-based food?”

Over time, and in varying moods, I’ve given different answers, some more polite than others. I assume they want to talk about the difficulties of getting protein or calcium or some such.  The problem is, I don’t think any of these things are too tricky for most people. I have slowly realised what the real answers to this question are, I just don’t think they are the sort of thing a journalist is looking for.  Since you’re still here I feel I can share an honest answer with you, just promise you won’t be disappointed.   

My top problems when cooking plants are…

“getting enough calories on the plate” and "making mushy stuff into shapes.”  

Let’s talk about calories first. Meat and dairy are very calorie dense. Put a decent piece of meat or cheese on a plate and your calorie needs are taken care of, everything else you add is garnish. Put a carrot on a plate and you’ve not even started, you need 1.6kg of carrots to make the same calories as a decent steak. Fats are very high density which is why so many vegan restaurant dishes are deep fried, it’s an easy fix. Pasta and the like is another option but you still need 500g of pasta to give the same calories and even the most committed carb addict is going to get bored. Looking for more elegant solutions the only plant foods that approach the calorie density of meat and dairy are nuts. If you want to make food from plants that isn’t just massive piles of stuff on a plate then using lots of nuts is a good starting point. 100g grams of hazelnuts will do the job. The trouble is, this is still a lot of nuts to chew through. Blend them up into a butter though and it's only a few big dollops. Which brings me onto my second problem…

Plants are beautiful objects. Cook them well, with a delicate touch and they will look incredible on a plate.  A carrot cross section, a cauliflower wedge and a pumpkin slice all look fantastic. They are, however, quite low in calories and aren’t going to fill you up. As another option you can mash them up, puree them or variously squish them.  What this gives you, across the board, is various quantities of mushy stuff. Mushy stuff is often a good vehicle for calories, you can mush it with nuts or beans, oils and starches, you can even just mush up the nuts or beans. Ok then, broadly speaking, we’ve established that vegetable preparations come in two main types, whole slices or mushy stuff (we’ll ignore the outlier, crunchy shapes, because they are essentially just crisps and don’t constitute a meal).  

Herein lies our conundrum. To get our calories onto the plate we need to make vegetables mushy in a spectrum from thick mash, through purees and soups to sauces, but no one wants to eat just mushy stuff, it’s essentially baby food. To make a meal you have to make your mushy stuff into a shape. You can do this is in a variety of ways: You can form it into a patty, like a burger; you can wrap it in something, dumplings, filled pastas or dolmades; you can set it into a pate or you can artfully drizzle it over a slice of veg and or some starch. You can even make it into a sauce and let your bowl give it shape as in a stew, soup or curry. Making this food refined and interesting presents further complex issues. Anything with a coarse, rustic texture is out the window so no patties. We want smooth rich textures not lumpy ones. What seemed like a straightforward enough idea “Let’s make gourmet food, but out of vegetables” suddenly becomes a touch tricky. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to the acorn pates.   

If you’ve eaten at acorn you’ve probably had one of our pates. The favourites are root vegetable based, often carrot or beetroot, or the ubiquitous mushroom parfait. They are always there somewhere, floating about the menu, sometimes round, sometimes square, but always rich, creamy and surprisingly filling. As a rule of thumb they solve the calorie issue by blending a sizable quantity of nuts with a well cooked vegetable and they solve the mushy problem by being set into a nice shape using something like agar? I want to encourage you, since you have time on your hands to try making your own versions of pate, it’s a great way to learn a whole range of principles. I’ve given a recipe below for a good root vegetable pate below but I want to share the following principles first to encourage you to think for yourselves and see a recipe as a set of principles that you can adapt to your own purposes and find your own unique solutions.   

Choosing nuts

Try to make sure that there is logic behind your choice of nut (or bean) and the vegetable you are going to use.  Try to think of cultural heritage and bring together ingredients that are natural friends. Carrots and hazelnuts have a long cultural association, both growing in abundance in the cooler northern climes. Carrots and brazil nuts have far less in common. As always, the amount you roast your nuts will determine how nutty your end pate is. The amount of nuts you use will also make a difference. I tend to find any more than ¼ - 1/3 of the total weight becomes too nutty, but I suppose, If you want a nut pate then add as much as you like.

Add a bit of fat

We want this to be wonderful and creamy, rich and satisfying. A good trick is to add a bit of oil to the recipe. If your mix looks a bit dry and vegetably then try adding a splash or two of oil, as it blends you’ll see the oil emulsify, just like a mayonnaise and it will transform into a wonderful creamy delight. Just make sure you choose an oil that makes culinary sense and wont add a weird flavour to your final pate. (This is also a good tip when making a puree)

Salt

You are going to serve your pate cold, or ideally at room temperature. There is a quirk in seasoning with salt that the cooler the food the more seasoning you need.  Hot food tastes correctly seasoned with less salt than cold food. I find with pates that when you are seasoning your hot mix you want it to taste ever so slightly over seasoned, not too much, just so you think “is that too much salt? I’m not sure”.

Setting it

You don’t have to set your mix.  Putting it in a tea cup or jar is perfectly acceptable, but I would argue risks being a dip. I find agar powder is a good setting agent to use. Iota also has its place but is softer than agar so it becomes harder to get into a nice shape. Your agar is setting the water within your pate. If you can work out what the water content of your mix is (bearing in mind vegetables have a decent water content). You want about 1% of that weight. There is often a little trial and error in getting the set just right. You don’t want it hard but you do want it to look strong and solid on the plate. You will also need to activate your agar before you blend it. It needs to reach 85c before it will set so I find bringing it to the boil with a little water in a pan guarantees this, just be sure to get it all out of the pan. Another danger point is putting agar into a cold mix. You need to make sure you are blending hot ingredients. If the agar cools down too much whilst blending you’ll end up with a fluid gel and it will never set.   

Choosing and Cooking the Veg

Some vegetables make better pates than others. Generally, if it makes a good soup, it will make a nice pate is a good rule of thumb to follow. (Although green vegetables like asparagus will discolour). It also has to be something you want to eat cold. I’m not sure about a potato pate but you could prove me wrong? Always cook your vegetable in the best way you know how to make them delicious in their own right before you blend them, if it’s not nice before you blend it making it mushy isn’t going to change anything.  

Microns

This is very important. You either want your mix to be very coarse, with identifiable chunks of vegetable in it, or very very smooth.  The size of a food particle in a puree is measured in microns. Generally the tongue can’t detect micron sizes smaller than 30.  Anything much bigger than this will taste grainy. When you are blending a pate (or a soup or puree for that matter). You need to blend it long enough to get the microns down below 30. At this point you will find it creamy and smooth. In my mind there is nothing worse than a slightly grainy pate. Depending on the quality of your blender you may need to blend your mix for a long time to get it smooth enough, up to 6 or 7 minutes. Trust your instincts, taste it and make sure it is creamy, don’t be tempted to cut corners, it makes all the difference.  

Moulds

You are going to need to set your pate in something ideally a metal ring mould with smooth sides. If you don’t have these at home (and frankly why would you) there are a few work arounds and cheats. You could line a small bread tin with cling film and pour your pate in. When it sets, turn it out and cut it into nice rectangular slices.  You can also do the same with a small cake tin. You can cut the bottom off small yoghurt pots or cut a plastic drinks bottle into rings. As long as the material is food safe and the sides smooth and not shaped you shouldn’t need to line these but if the mix is very fluid you may need to put a bit of cling film over the bottom to stop it pouring out.  

Serving a Pate

A good pate is delicious and filling but it isn’t a meal. Add some whole cooked vegetables to the plate, maybe some salad and always something pickled. You are also going to need to have something with a bit of bite on the plate. The pate may sit in a nice shape but, if you’ve done it well, it’s still basically the texture of baby food.  Make sure there are some nice firm slices of bread or toast or some crackers to eat it with.

You are best making this a day ahead to make sure it is set, but it will keep for 3 days so you can eat at your leisure.  

Preheat an oven to 180c

Ingredients for the Root Vegetable & Hazelnut Pate

• 1000g of Carrots, Beetroot or Parsnip, Peeled Weight (My favourite is Carrot)
• 10 Sprigs of Thyme
• 2 Bay Leaves
• 4 Star Anise
• 150g of Water
• 3.5g Agar
• 215g of Hazelnuts
• 30g Oil (Hazelnut, Rape or Olive)
• Salt

Method

1. Cut the root vegetables into large chunks and mix with the thyme, bay leaves, salt and oil.

2. Lay out a 45 cm (18 inch) length of baking paper on a chopping board and put the mix into the centre of the paper leaving plenty of room around the edges to fold it. 

3. Fold the paper in half capturing the carrots in the middle and seal the parcel by rolling up the edges, rather like a pasty or calazone, to form a half moon shape (en papillote). 

4. Place the paper parcel on a small baking tray to catch any leaks and roast for 30-40 minutes until the vegetables feel soft when pushed carefully through the outside of the bag, but aren’t coloured.

5. Whilst your vegetables are cooking get your moulds ready as per above.  This will make about 10 small or 4 larger pates.

6. Allow the bag to cool for 10 minutes and then break it open, taking a minute to appreciate the aromas that are released.  

7. Whilst your carrot bag is cooling  put the hazelnuts onto a tray and roast for 7 minutes or until golden all over.

8. Remove the thyme, bay and star anise from the bag and, weigh out 825g of cooked vegetables, add water to wake up the weight if necessary. (This is to ensure you have the right water to agar ratio).

9. Add the agar to the water and heat until it just begins to boil, stirring constantly to stop the agar sticking.  

10. Put all the hot ingredients together in the blender. 

11. Blend until completely smooth, remember 30 microns.  

12. Season with salt, cayenne and add a little more oil if you feel it needs it.

13. Quickly put your mix into your moulds and make sure the tops are smooth.  (if you want to go the extra mile, carefully place a small piece of cling film on top of each one, in contact with the pate to ensure a skin doesn’t form.  

14. Put them in the fridge for at least 6 hours to ensure they set firmly.

15. Pop them out the moulds straight onto a plate and serve as you wish.  

Make sure you check out Acorn Cookery School Online to take a look at more of their wonderfully delicious recipes!