Smoked Trout Pate With Gluten Free Crackers

1. Take the cream cheese out of the fridge 30 minutes before you start. Cold cream cheese will not fold, so you end up beating it, and beating is what destroys the flakes.
2. Peel the skin off the trout and pull the fillets apart with your fingers, feeling for pin bones as you go.
3. Beat the cream cheese, creme fraiche, lemon zest, half the lemon juice and the horseradish together in a bowl until smooth.
4. Fold in the dill and plenty of black pepper.
5. Add the trout in three lots, folding with a spatula and turning the bowl, about five passes each time. Stop while there are still visible flakes running through it.
6. Taste, then add the rest of the lemon juice if it needs sharpening. Add salt only after tasting, because smoked fish brings its own and usually enough.
7. Spoon it into one dish or two smaller ones and rough the top up with the back of the spoon rather than smoothing it flat.
8. Cover and chill for at least an hour so the lemon and horseradish settle through. Take it out 20 minutes before serving, because fridge cold pate tastes of very little.
9. Thread the olive oil over the top, add dill sprigs and a last grind of pepper, and serve with the crackers, lemon cheeks and cornichons.

Keeping it, and the butter seal that buys two more days

Covered in the fridge the pate is good for three days. For five, melt 50g of butter gently, let the white solids settle, pour the clear yellow butter over the surface to a depth of about 3mm and chill until firm. It seals the pate away from the air, which is what dulls it. Break through with a knife to serve; the butter is good to eat.

On a bigger board three textures beat one: the rosemary and original Crackerthins sit either side of the black pepper, and the gluten free pure butter shortbread finishes it sweet without leaving anyone out. For where a pate belongs in a longer menu, see Christmas entrees and which cracker goes with which cheese, and the festive entertaining range for the rest.

Common questions

Is smoked trout pate gluten free?

The pate itself has no gluten ingredient in it: fish, cream cheese, creme fraiche, lemon, dill and pepper. Two things are worth checking: the horseradish, because some brands thicken with wheat starch, and whatever you serve it on. We stock three gluten free Crackerthins, in black pepper, rosemary and original, which is what this recipe is built around. If you are feeding someone coeliac rather than someone avoiding wheat by preference, read the pack of every component in front of you, because ingredient lists change and a recipe page is not the label to trust for that.

How long does smoked trout pate keep?

Three days in a covered container in the fridge, and five if you seal the surface with clarified butter as described above. The clock starts from when the fish was opened rather than from when you made the pate, so check the use by date on the trout packet and work back from it. Serve only what you need and keep the rest sealed and cold: pate that has sat on a board for two hours and gone back in the fridge is a one day proposition after that.

Can you freeze fish pate?

Not well, and we would not. Cream cheese and creme fraiche both split when they thaw, so the pate comes out grainy and weeping, and the trout goes dry and cottony at the same time. Freeze the smoked trout instead, in its unopened pack, and make the pate fresh in the ten minutes it takes. If you already have a tub frozen, thaw it in the fridge, beat it hard with an extra spoonful of cream cheese and use it as a sandwich filling rather than on a board.

VPC Crackerthins Gluten Free Black Pepper is $3.49 for a 100g box and one box covers this recipe for six. They come from the Valley Produce Company range, and the rest of our crackers shelf is worth a look while you are there. Shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100.