Looking for a liver pate substitution or just a great pate on its own? Explore the possibilities while trying out this lovely mushroom pate!

Humans learn things quite quickly. Right after we are brought to this world copying the behaviors of those who we trust is the way we learn about how to cope with our environment to survive.

We have a pretty neat reward system built into us that enforces behaviors that helped us through the millennia and defines us as a species. It works so well that we can pick up something beneficial for us so quickly that doing it once can be good enough to make it a habit.

Yeah, as incredible as it sounds going to the beach with the kids and once surprising them with an ice cream has life-long consequences.

Technically doing something once can’t be a habit by definition but in reality, we just aren’t aware of the psychological or rather biological workings of our own self.

Is mushroom pate effective?

Our brain is an energy sink. It accounts for 20% of the body’s energy use and while it’s fairly easy to feed it with modern processed food, it was pretty hard to meet the requirement when all were available just raw meat and nuts.

The brain had to come up with something to reduce its energy intake as much as it’s possible. As we have figured during the industrial revolution that doing manufacturing tasks in batches is faster and less energy intensive, our brain realized it too.

Our daily actions are broken up into loops and stored in our brain, waiting for a trigger to activate each stored bit. The brain got so effective at this that our daily routine is governed by 80% automated actions without the need of any interference from our thinking brain.

Can mushroom pate be a habit?

This is why we sometimes don’t remember if we locked the door, plugged the iron out or added salt to something we cook regularly.

While at the beginning of these routine tasks are being supervised to see that the new habit that has been recorded needs any correction later, all control has been left to the autopilot and we can daydream our way through it.

More an action is practiced, harder it is to get rid of it. If anyone has ever tried to quit smoking or any abusive substances knows that the physical addiction is not the hardest to get rid of but coming over the psychological side of it.

Is mushroom pate worth snacking on?

These habits of ours are so elementary part of our existence that we are unable to unlearn them, much like cycling. We can never forget them the same way once we become smokers, we are always going to be smokers who happen not to be smoking now.

Since we can’t eliminate habits, we have to break them if we want to stop doing the action that is no longer desirable for us. Every habit has a trigger that starts an action which results in a reward, hence it’s called the habit loop.

We generally don’t recognize it but us snacking in the kitchen again is not because we are hungry again but because we made a habit of it. This is why the realization that we are on a diet only hits us right before the last couple of bites of our treat.

Should we avoid mushroom pate?

We may be able to suppress things once or twice but as these things are on the unconscious level working constantly, we just simply can’t win against ourselves by sheer force. To break these habits, we simply need to get rid of the trigger causing them.

Eliminating triggers is easier said than it is done though, especially if those triggers are tied to our most beloved activities like breaks. Although, it’s a working solution, most of us don’t want to be work alcoholics, just to hide from the fridge.

However, avoiding triggers is the easiest solution, not to be mesmerized by the kitchen’s light, it’s not the only one. If we can figure out the real reason, we do an action we can change it to a similarly rewarding one. If going to the kitchen is solely a social event then arranging the meeting in a place free from food could solve our problem easily.

Can mushroom pate stand on its own?

The last option on our plate is substituting the reward we get as a result of our actions. It would mean simply swapping a chocolate bar with an apple or a foie gras pate with mushroom pate.

Of course, mushroom pate will never be like foie gras nor even close to any liver pate but after a while we can learn to love mushroom pate the same way we learnt to love liver, with a piece of bread.

Ingredients

¼ cup / 50ml Oil
1 cup / 100g Walnuts
½ cup / 100ml Oil
2 shallots or ½ Red onion (finely diced)
1lb / 500g Mushroom (sliced)
3 cloves Garlic (crushed)
2 tablespoon / 20g Herbs of choice
- Parsley
- Thyme
- Rosemary
- Sage
½ teaspoon Salt
½ teaspoon Black pepper

How to make Mushroom pate

Pour ¼ cup / 50ml oil into a frying pan and roast the walnuts on medium to high heat until most of them gets a golden brown color for about 5-10 minutes.
Remove the walnuts from the frying pan then add ½ cup / 100ml oil and the finely diced onions. It can be shallot, red onion or any other onion and saute it on high heat until golden brown spots start to appear on them for about 3 minutes.
Add the sliced up mushrooms to the onions and continue sauteing on high heat until the mushrooms collapse and get a slight golden brown color for about 10 minutes.
Add the crushed garlic and a selection of chopped herbs. Try not to add more than 2 at the same time as it can overpower the dish.
Add salt, pepper and saute until the garlic gets fragrant for about 3- 5 minutes then add the roasted walnuts back.
Pour the whole content of the frying pan into a food processor. Mind to let it cool down a bit if we have a plastic container as the heat may damage it.
Give it a good whirl for a couple of minutes then try it. Flavor to taste and mix it well until we get a smooth consistency pate.
Fill the ramekins or whatever we have at hand with the pate. We can melt butter on top of them if desired but the mushroom pate can be used and enjoyed as it is. Place them in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving.