The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved by Sandor Ellix Katz

Author:Sandor Ellix Katz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Published: 2011-02-17T16:00:00+00:00

Recipe: Vegetable-Nut Pâté

Personally, I have felt quite inspired by some of the food coming out of the raw cuisine movement. Eating daily in a communal kitchen shared with a steady stream of visitors, I am exposed to many emerging culinary influences. I especially love pâtés, which translate simply to “pastes” and can be created from a great variety of herbs, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and even fruits, in a whole spectrum of textures. Pâtés are best served with something to spread them on, or dip into them with, such as vegetable crudités, chips, bread, or flax crackers (see Recipe: Flax Crackers). They can also be used as a creamy layer in sandwiches, omelettes, nori rolls, spring rolls, and other such constructions.

I am indebted to my fellow communard Lapis Luxury, an irrepressible kitchen experimentalist, for introducing me to the simplicity, diversity, and flexibility of pâtés. Any seeds or nuts can become a pâté; they are best and most digestible if they are presoaked. The seeds or nuts are then ground with vegetables, herbs, fruits, spices, and other flavorings (not necessarily raw) such as miso (in which the beans are cooked prior to their lengthy fermentation) or well-cooked chickpeas (to give the pâté a hummus-like quality). In fact, if you change the proportions in the recipe for chickweed pesto from chapter 1 (see Recipe: Chickweed Pesto), using more seeds and less weeds, you can turn it into a pâté.

A food processor is the easiest way to grind the ingredients into a paste, though chopping with a knife, followed by grinding with a mortar and pestle, works fine too. Blend vegetables to a pulp first, adding water or other liquid (such as pickle brine, tamari, olive oil, vinegar, or wine) as needed. Then add soaked seeds or nuts (for more information on soaking, see Recipe: Soaking and Sprouting Seeds) and other ingredients, striving to achieve a texture thick enough to hold its form. Taste as you go and adjust proportions, salt, and spices as needed. Form the pâté into a mound (or other cute shape) on a beautiful plate and decorate it with herbs and flowers. During my “pâté du jour” period, when I was making experimental pâtés every day, the most popular offering turned out to be okra–dulse–lamb’s-quarters–cashew pâté (dulse is a seaweed; lamb’s-quarters is a common weed). Some of my other favorite pâté combinations are tomato–herb–miso–walnut, arugula–sunflower seed–kimchi juice, and beet–carrot–pickle brine–cashew. If some of these ingredients seem weird, don’t use them; incorporate foods you like. Simmer, another fellow communard, made a delicious sweet pâté with raisins and maple syrup for her birthday. Lapis has made great pâtés using flowers and sprouts. Don’t be afraid to go wild with unusual flavor combinations. If you add live-culture starters such as pickle brine, kimchi juice, or miso, you can ferment pâtés for a few days to develop tangy cheesiness.

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