Smoked Salmon Pate With Parsley Butter

I served this at a Christmas dinner that I co-catered. It went down amazingly well, even the children liked it. We served it with parsley butter (fresh parsley blended in butter) and melba toast and french bread. I can't recommend it highly enough. Cooking time is setting time. Let me know what you think...

• Ready In: 1 hr 10 mins
• Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

• 100  g smoked salmon, pieces trimmings work well
• 50  g unsalted butter
• 2  tablespoons  double cream
• 5  ml ground black pepper
• 1  pinch cayenne pepper
•  lemon juice
• 1  sprig parsley, to garnish

• For the butter

• 50  g butter or 50  g margarine
• 25  ml  chopped parsley

Directions

1. Chop the smoked salmon, removing all hard pieces, bones etc. Pound in a mortar or process in a blender till smooth, then add the butter cut in small pieces. The butter should be cool and firm, but not too hard.
2. When all is amalgamated into a smooth paste, add the cream, plenty of freshly ground black pepper, cayenne and lemon juice to taste.
3. Turn into a small dish and chill for several hours.
4. (I don't have quantities for the parsley butter as it depends on how much you want to make!) Take as much butter as you think you'll need for the crackers/bread and a representative amount of fresh parsley and mix them together. Pop it in a serving dish and return to the fridge for an hour or so to reset properly.
5. I tend to then scoop it out in to little balls, which wastes some of the butter, but looks pretty!
6. If you've made too much butter you can save it for another day and use it as a normal butter spread, but bare in mind that the parsley flavour increases in strength (which I like!) the longer you leave it. I've left the butter for 3 weeks before using again and it was still perfect.
7. Serve the pate and butter garnished with a sprig of parsley or perhaps a curl of smoked salmon, and with hot toast/malba toast/french bread.