Beetroot and Red Onion Salad with Pâté Croutons

Name: Beetroot and Red Onion Salad with Pâté Croutons
Yield: A Starter for 4
Ingredients: 2 garlic cloves, minced; 50ml/1¾fl oz./scant ¼cup walnut oil (or use extra-virgin olive oil); salt and freshly ground black pepper; 1cm/½in knob fresh ginger, peeled and minced; 3 small/medium cooked beetroot, cut into 2 cm/¾ in (ish) cubes; 1 large red apple, roughly chopped into 1.5 cm/⅝ in.cubes; 1 large red onion, roughly chopped into 1.5 cm/⅝ in.pieces; oil, for cooking; 2 slices (stale will do) bread, cut into 2 cm/¾ in.cubes; 1 tbsp flour; 1 level tsp aniseed, lightly crushed; 1 egg beaten with 1 tsp water; 1 bunch of watercress; 250 g/9 oz.coarse, firm pâté, cut into 1.5 cm/⅝in. cubes

Preparation info

A Starter for
4

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Salmagundi

By Sally Butcher

Published 2014

About

Pâté starters are all very well but they are mostly, let’s face it, pretty boring: a slab of homogenised liver with token greenery and some sort of bread. For a part-time vegetarian like me, who enjoys a morsel of pâté but really doesn’t want to wade through a whole chunk of the stuff, this mostly veggie salad is perfect.

Ingredients

For the Salad Proper

3 small/medium cooked beetroot, cut into 2 cm/¾ in (ish) cubes

Starter

Method

First, whisk the dressing ingredients together and set aside: garlic dressings are always best when given a little time to infuse.

Mix the beetroot, onion, apple and watercress in a bowl (if you do this much ahead of time, keep the apple in some cold water with a drop of lemon juice to stop it discolouring). Next, roll the pâté in the eggwash; mix the flour with the aniseed, then roll t