Vegan Pâté

Hurrah, my parents are visiting us! It’s always a pleasure to have them with us. And it’s even more of a pleasure that they have graciously accepted my polite request not to bring meat into the house.

Since my dad is a great meat lover, I bought some vegan bologne and pastrami slices from Tofurkey, which he likes a lot. And I also made him vegan pâté, which he has declared super tasty. The preparation is very very simple, but you’ll need a lot of patience, because the more you brown and caramelize the ingredients, the tastier the final result will be. Here goes:

Vegan Pâté

1 cup walnuts
2 large or 3 small zucchini
2 onions
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp tomato sauce
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp pink salt (or other salt; this one gives the dish a richer, eggy taste.)

Heat up olive oil in pan. As it heats, thinly slice up onions, and add the slices to the pan. On medium heat, toss the onions about with a wooden spoon until they are very brown and very done (translucent or beige doesn’t cut it in this recipe.) This may require quite a bit of patience, but it’s worth it! As the onions are cooking (and in between tossing them), chop up the zucchini into small cubes or slices. When the onions are ready, add the zucchini and continue tossing both ingredients together, until zucchini becomes very soft and a bit brown. Remove the mix from the pan, place in a bowl, and let cool.

Meanwhile, place walnuts in pan (you can add a bit of olive oil if you wish, but the pan will be rather oily from the caramelizing. Toss the onions on high heat for a couple of minutes, then decrease the heat and continue tossing them until they roast well and are dark brown.

Place the walnuts in the food processor and process until you have thin nut crumbs. Then, add the onion-zucchini mixture, tomato sauce, cumin seeds, and pink salt, and continue processing (pulsing helps) until completely smooth.

This is absolutely delicious as sandwich filling, especially if you add fresh tomato and cucumber slices.