If you’re hungry and you know it, make paté

Paté? How revolting!

Or so I thought when I first came to Spain ten years ago. Id heard of paté, but I had never tried it, and that was ok by me.

“Hmm, I’m hungry. I know! I’ll grind up some chicken livers and spread them on toast!”

Who even thought of that?
In Spain, paté on half a baguette is the standard midmorning snack for school kids. At the first break, without fail, the cafeteria ladies would pass out foil-wrapped "bocadillos" to my classmates waiting eagerly in line. Still, I wasn’t sure. I mean, blended meat? On the rest of yesterday’s baguette? Come on, how could that possibly taste anything close to nice?

But being a good traveller means trying new things before passing judgement (uh, aloud  that is – obviously I had already judged the pate in my head, and it was a massive fail).

So I tried some, and while I’m not sure an entire paté sandwich is my thing, when it's spread on a little piece of posh, cranberry melba toast it’s not too bad at all.

Especially when it's made from salmon: 

Mix a sprig of dill, a small container of mascarpone, and a squeeze of lemon juice for a few seconds.

Add in a cooked beet and four or five slices of smoked salmon.

Mix some more, and use the tamper to, um, tamp down the beets and salmon. (You know, I really hate that word. It’s way too infomercial for me.)

Scrape the paté out of the Vita-mix with a spatula, put in a serving dish and sprinkle with pepper.

Flavour: good! Creamy (I blended for longer than suggested, because Tall Guy didn’t like the "rustic" - read chunky - look of beets and fish)
Ease: very easy to make, longer clean-up time. It’s worth changing the water and cleaning again to make sure all the fish oil gets off the sides of the blender. Also, scraping pate (or butter, or thick sauce) out from the bottom of the mixer is a little annoying. I always feel like I’m wasting some.
Make-again: yes, possibly without the beet, which seems to be there more for colour than flavour.