Pâté

Pâté

Various pâtés and terrines
Type	Spread
Place of origin	France, Belgium
Main ingredients	Ground meat, gristle

Pâté is a mixture of cooked ground meat and fat minced into a spreadable paste. Common additions include vegetables, herbs, spices, and either wine or brandy (often cognac or armagnac). Pâté can be served either hot or cold, but it is considered to develop its fullest flavor after a few days of chilling.

In French or Belgian cuisine, pâté may be baked in a crust as pie or loaf, in which case it is called pâté en croûte, or baked in a terrine (or other mold), in which case it is known as pâté en terrine. Traditionally, a forcemeat mixture cooked and served in a terrine is also called a terrine. The most famous pâté is probably pâté de foie gras, made from the livers of fattened geese. Foie gras entier is fattened goose liver cooked and sliced, not made into pâté. Pâté en croûte is baked with the insertion of "chimneys" on top: small tubes or funnels that allow steam to escape, thus keeping the pastry crust from turning damp or soggy. Baked pâté en croûte usually develops an air bubble under the crust top as the meat mixture shrinks during baking; this is traditionally dealt with by infusing semi-liquid aspic in the hollow space before chilling.

In the Netherlands, Finland, Germany, Romania, Hungary, Sweden, Denmark and Austria, some liver pâtés are shaped as a soft, often spreadable sausage, called leverworst (Dutch), pateu ( Romanian), májpástétom /májkrém (Hungarian), or Leberwurst (German). In the United States these are sometimes called "liverwurst" (mixing English and German), or braunschweiger. Some liverwursts can be sliced. In the US, sliced liverwurst is used as a sandwich filler. Others are spreadable as most French or Belgian pâté; these types are more popular in the United Kingdom. In Scandinavia and the Netherlands, leverpostej is a popular baked pâté similar to the French pâté en terrine, usually made of lard and pork liver.