Name: ALL-NUT PATE
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients: 2 cups mixed nuts soaked overnight and drained; 6 sundried tomatoes in oil (drained); 2 peppers in oil (drained); 1 clove garlic minced; 1 tsp capers minced; 1 tbsp dry vermouth; 6 sage leaves minced (1 tbsp); Roughly ground black pepper; 3 anchovy fillets chopped; Pinch dried chilli flakes

Pate, something of a treat spread on toast or crackers. Pate just a little bit naughty packed with all that butter. Pate definitely not for the vegetarians out there. So let’s try something different in the pate department – my all nut pate packed with protein and goodness and no butter at all. You can easily make this totally vegetarian by simply omitting the anchovy.

Obviously the main ingredient in this all nut pate is the nuts themselves. Nuts are indeed the star of the show and must be treated with due respect and defference as all stars should be.

First you will be soaking the little darlings in water over-night just to soften things up a bit. By the way the choice of nuts is entirely up to you. A mixed bag is fine here. You are then going to be roasting these nuts so you are going to take a bit of care about it and not just chuck them in the oven and hit facebook, twitter or phone a friend and forget about them. Oh no, they must be cherished and cared for in the manner of timing. It should take about 20 minutes to roast the nuts (do them whole not chopped and don’t let them burn or you will just have to throw them out and start all over again.

You can also dry roast the nuts in a pan on top of the stove. This way you can watch them like a hawk and make sure that they don’t burn. This will just take a few minutes and you will know they are ready as soon as they take on a little golden colouring and you get that gorgeous nutty aroma filling the kitchen. Remove from the hot pan immediately as they will continue to cook in the heat of the pan.

Allow the nuts to cool and then you just have to whizz them up with all the other ingredients (sun dried tomatoes, peppers in oil, garlic, capers, anchovy (can omit if you want to go all out vegetarian), chilli, sage, pepper (and salt if you are not using the anchovies as they are themselves very salty) and a dash of vermouth) and that’s it.

That is how you make all nut pate. Now just scoop it into a sterilised jar and it will keep for up to a week in the fridge. Serve your all nut pate just as you would any other type of pate, with crackers, toast, crusty bread or loosen up with some olive oil and serve as a dip with veggie sticks.

K x