Morel Pecan Pâté & Weekly Tasting

Recipe adapted from Food & Wine

A tasty mushroom pâté made with dried morels, pecans and baby portobellos. The perfect accompaniment to a nice glass of red wine.

I fell in love with pâté when I dated a guy who worked at a French restaurant many years ago. It feels like a lifetime ago now, but I remember I used to go to that restaurant. He would be my waiter (and he was so dark and handsome in his waiter attire). He encouraged me to try the pâté and I was sure I wouldn’t like it, but somehow he knew that I would. I did try it (because I am really up to try anything) and I immediately fell for it. I can’t tell you how many countless hours I spent at that fancy little French place. It was a tiny little romantic restaurant with white table cloths and candle light. I would order simply the pâté and a glass of wine. He would come and talk to me when he had some down time from serving. I was well known by all the staff at the restaurant, so although I was at a table of one, I felt like I had friends all around me.

My brief romance with that guy has long since vanished and I live in a city now where there are no French restaurants at all, but I was going to my friend Kathy’s house for yoga last week and when we have yoga at someone’s house, we always have a party afterwards. I volunteered to bring wine. I had received a box of 4 wines from Weekly Tasting and I was excited to share one of them with my yoga friends and get their opinion. I chose the Carmine because my yoga friends love reds. I really wanted to bring a little something to pair with this special wine, though, because the Weekly Tasting notes recommended pairing this wine with beef dishes, lentils or portabello mushrooms.

Somehow that brought to mind a pâté … but not a traditional pâté, since Kathy is a vegetarian. No, it had to be a mushroom pâté. I started looking around for recipes and read through several before I settled on this one from Food & Wine. I loved the idea of mushrooms and pecans coming together in a delicious spread. I added garlic, because you have to have garlic in pâté! And I decided the mushrooms really needed to be sauteed before blending.

I was once again smitten by pâté. My yoga friends loved it too … and they agreed that it paired perfectly with the Carmine Jumilla wine from Weekly Tasting. I thought it did too!

I love how the Weekly Tasting collections work. Each week they put together a new tasting pack and send you an alert and you just choose whether or not you want it. There’s no subscription or commitment and each pack comes with tasting cards and videos. Too bad they don’t offer the service in South Dakota.

Morel Pecan Pate

• Prep Time: 15 minutes
• Cook Time: 15 minutes
• Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
• Yield: 4 - 6 servings 1x

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 1 cup pecans
• 1 cup dried morel mushrooms
• 1 cup boiling water

For the marinade:

• 2 – 4 cloves garlic
• 1/2 Tablespoon nutritional yeast
• 1/2 Tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/2 Tablespoon sun dried tomato pesto (recipe here) or 2 sun dried tomatoes (packed in olive oil), chopped
• 2 Tablespoons tamari or soy sauce
• 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
• 1 teaspoon tahini (sesame seed butter)

The rest:

• 1 lb. baby portabella mushrooms, sliced
• 2 Tablespoons white wine or sherry
• Salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste

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Instructions

1. Put the pecans in a small bowl and cover with water. Let them soak for an hour.
2. Meanwhile, crumble the dried morel mushrooms into another bowl and pour the boiling water over. Stir to make sure all the mushrooms have been coated with water, then cover the bowl with a plate and let sit for 15 – 20 minutes (or more) to reconstitute the morels.
3. Whisk together the marinade ingredients and toss with the sliced baby portabellas. Let the mushrooms bathe in the lovely marinade for at least 15 minutes or up to an hour.
4. Heat a frying pan over medium heat and add the portabella mushrooms, with their marinade. Saute until the mushrooms are tender and the garlic is fragrant. Add the wine and cook until most of the liquid is gone.
5. Strain the water from the pecans, and then strain the liquid from the morels (reserving it for soup or another use), put the sauteed mushrooms, pecans, and morels in a handi chopper or mini food processor. Process until smooth.
6. Serve with crusty french bread, crackers or veggies.

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Notes

For gluten free, use tamari. To make this recipe vegan, use chopped sun dried tomatoes in place of the pesto rosso.

RECIPE SOURCE: http://www.sumptuousspoonfuls.com/

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