Background
And so on to the aforementioned pâté. Although most people wouldn't associate a pâté with wheat/gluten, many in fact contain breadcrumbs in order to bulk them out and make them cheaper, by scrimping on the main ingredient - be it salmon, tuna, crab or mackerel. You really don't need to use any kind of crumb as a binder, especially if you throw some full fat cream cheese and a bit of butter (or lactofree and soya spread for those of you who are lactose intolerant) into the mix. You could substitute salmon for trout or even mackerel - any oily fish will work equally well. The crucial part is to cook the fish slowly at a low heat so it retains the moisture. If you can’t find smoked garlic then just leave garlic out altogether – smoked roasted garlic has a much gentler flavour than normal, which would overpower the fish altogether in this recipe. In an airtight jar this can keep for up to 10 days - though I doubt it will last that long!
Ingredients
- Half a skinned, boned, side of wild salmon
- 6 dried chipotle chillies
- A generous handful of mixed peppercorns
- 2 tsp rock salt
- 2 cinnamon sticks (broken up)
- 3 tsp ground ginger
- 3 tsp coriander seeds
- 3 tsp chinese 5 spice
- 3 cloves of pre-roasted smoked garlic
- 30g Cream cheese/ Lactofree (lactose free cream cheese)
- Lemon juice to taste
- Knob of salted butter/Soya spread
Instructions
- Preroast your garlic by wrapping a bulb of smoked garlic in foil and baking slowly for 30 minutes at 120ºC. The garlic will be cooked when the bulb is soft enough to squeeze. You want the cloves to be of a purée consistency when you pop them out of their skins.
- Combine all the dry ingredients and blend in a spice grinder or pestle and mortar until you have a coarse powder. Place the salmon in a baking tray on greased foil and prick all over with a fork. This will allowed the spice rub to infuse. Rub the salmon all over with the rub, ensuring that you push it into the forked indentations. Bake at 110ºC for 10- 12 minutes or until the flesh starts to turn opaque.
- Take the salmon out of the oven and separate and flake the flesh with a fork and decant into a blender.
- Add the 3 smoked garlic cloves, cream cheese/lactofree, lemon juice and butter/soya spread and blitz until you have a smooth spread.
- Decant into an airtight container and then proceed to liberally spread on your fine multiseed crackers!
