Meat Pâté (Pasztet mięsny)

Story

When I asked my mother how to make meat pâté her answer was: that is easy – just use meat half and half: half a hare and half a horse, and don’t forget to add liver. What she meant was: use different meats, whatever you have available. Liver is very important as it is responsible for the characteristic flavour of pâté.

It is important to include fatty meat, preferably pork belly. This will make the pâté more smooth. As for the liver it should be boiled only briefly, added to the pot with all other meats at the very end of cooking.

Recipe

The amounts of various meat pieces are limited by the size of the largest pot you have. Mine is quite large, approximately 10 litres. I suggest preparing as much as you can because amount of time it takes to prepare it is almost independent on the amount. Once baked the pate can be kept frozen for several months, and defrosted in a fridge overnight before serving. Also, see the notes at the end of this post for another idea of having freshly baked pâté when you want it¹.

Feel free to adjust the amounts down, especially if preparing this for the first time, just keep the proportions.

The ingredients below list some cuts of the meat that are suitable for the pâté. When selecting these cuts avoid those that are lean; those are often not only more expensive but actually make the pâté more dry and crumbly. It is also beneficial to use meat with bones – cooking them will extract gelatin which (like fat) will make the pâté more smooth.

Ingredients

2 lbs	Beef or veal (blade chuck roast, arm chuck roast, shoulder roast or similar)
2 lbs	Pork (arm shoulder, blade shoulder, ham)
2 lbs	Pork belly (with or without skin)
1 lb	Beef, veal or pork liver
2	onions, cut in half, with outer skin, just cut off the ends
	1 Celery stick or 1/4 celery root (peeled), 1 carrot (peeled), 1 parsley root or parsnip
	optional: green parsley, dill, thyme. basil
6	optional: dried mushrooms, preferably boletes (porcini)
1-2 tbsp	salt
spices	for stewing: 20 peppercorns, 10 allspice berries, 1-2 bay leaves, 10 juniper berries.
	to be added to the ground meat: ground pepper, ground nutmeg, and salt – all to taste
4 tbsp	soft butter
3	egg yolks
3	egg whites, beaten

Directions

1. Put all meat in a large enough pot, with pork belly preferably on the bottom with skin (if any) down. Having fatty meat on the bottom helps prevent charring there.
2. Add halved onions and other vegetables, spices, dried mushrooms, and salt.
3. Add enough water to almost cover the meat and other ingredients. If the pot is packed tightly, you may need only about a cup or two of water.
4. Put the pot on medium low heat. Once the contents start simmering lower the heat to keep it from boiling vigorously and avoid charring at the bottom.
5. Simmer until meat is very soft, about 2 hours up to 3 hours. During this time if needed add 1/2 to 1 cup of water.
6. For the last 20 minutes of cooking add the liver, pressing it below the level of liquid. Alternatively, you can pour boiling water over the liver in a separate pot and boil it briefly.
7. Let the meat cool completely before grinding it. This will make it more juicy.
8. Take out the onions and bay leaves.
9. Separate the bones from the meat.
10. Grind the meat and remaining vegetables in a meat grinder passing it through three times. After the last time pass pieces of a large bun soaked in the broth that remained from cooking the meat. The bun can be older and even dried. Alternatively, you can mix some bread crumbs (about 1 cup) with the broth.
11. Mix everything with 3 egg yolks, 4 tbs of soft butter, and additional spices and salt. Taste and add more salt and spices if needed. The mixture should be on the salty side – it will feel less salty after baking.
12. Beat egg whites and mix them gently with the prepared meat.
13. Grease the forms for baking the pâté and dust them with bread crumbs. Fill the forms to about 3/4 full.
14. Bake at 340°F (170°C) until the top starts to brown approximately for 45 minutes.
    It is important not to over-bake it to avoid the pâté becoming coarse rather than smooth.
    It is probably best to bake the pate until target temperature in the center, but I did not check it last time I prepared it. If I do, I will update this post. So keep checking here in the future.
    

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Footnotes

1. A friend suggested to prepare the pâté mixture up to the step 10 above, and freeze most of it. Then use only the amount needed now for consumption in the remaining steps 11-14. Later defrost the amount you want, process it as in steps 11-14, and bake a small pâté. That way you would have a freshly baked one whenever you want it, skipping the time intensive initial steps. I think it is an interesting idea and I will probably test it next time. So again, keep checking this post for any updates. ↩︎