Plus the usual soup and sandwiches

This is the first of what I am tentatively planning to be a regular series on the post-hospital / rehab unit PS 🍍 blogsite: taste tests of commercially available products, focussing mainly on things from small(er) British producers. I know I have already kinda started doing this, with some of the snacks from Graze and the amazing millionaire’s shortbread from The Millionaire Baker (I seriously still daydream about the Oreo one, even while knowing the cleaners will still be vacuuming up bits of it well into 2025 – the base was seriously crumbly!), but this is the first actually intentional one, and I would love to know what y’all think.

So: the Perfect Pâté Gift Set from Cottage Delight, very kindly sent to me by Saffron Castleton (I apologise, BTW, that I haven’t done shout-outs by name to all you wonderful Pineapples who have sent me things: the downside of using the Amazon wishlist facility (besides it being Amazon, the dubious ethics of which I am thoroughly aware, while finding it too convenient not to use 😬) is that I can’t see who sent me what, and know only if you have mentioned it at some point¹).

This is part one of the review as, with no real refrigeration facilities (I’m making use of the windowsill for that purpose) and only one of me, I’m not going to open both pâtés and both chutneys only to see the rest go off before I can eat it. This review therefore covers the Farmhouse Pork Pâté and the Tomato, Garlic and Ginger Chutney; part two, which I will do at some future point, will cover the Wild Boar Pâté, Apple Chutney, and Scottish oatcakes.

I will start with something entirely incidental to the food: the ribbon around the box which, unlike the plain orange one in the photo above, has a piggy pattern that is just too cute, to the extent that I can’t bring myself to throw it away, despite knowing there is no good reason to keep it.

Farmhouse Pork Pâté: the first thing that hit me on opening the jar (which, with the current lack of sensation and strength in my hands took enough attempts that I started to rethink this whole thing) was a strong waft of offal, the pork liver that is the main ingredient making itself known.

The pâté, at first glance, is slightly off-puttingly grey-brown in colour, but I reminded myself that that’s the colour pâté is meant to be, and it’s the pink-hued supermarket ones that are wrong in their colour. In texture, it’s decidedly crumbly, with small pieces of liver amongst the smoother pâté² to give it texture. The predominant flavour, unsurprisingly, is liver, but it’s not at all overwhelming even to someone like me who doesn’t like liver in its pure state (while being immensely fond of pâtés like this where liver is the main ingredient and flavour – makes no sense to me, either 🤷‍♂️).

There is also more than a hint of garlic (yum!) which, interestingly, is the last thing on the ingredients list. The headline seasoning is mustard, which didn’t come through at all to my nose or my mouth.

(I started to write something about how supermarket pâtés are milder in smell and taste because they use less liver, but a quick fact check tells me this isn’t the case: pâtés from most supermarkets seem to have about the same percentage of liver in them, so I don’t know why Cottage Delight’s one is so potent.)

Tomato, Garlic and Ginger Chutney: the first thing that hit me when opening this jar was the thought “this smells like dad’s chutney”. My late father was a keen gardener and cook; despite all his efforts to turn his home-grown produce into delicious meals, by the end of the growing season there was always something left over, not ripe enough or good enough to eat as-is, but perfect for being chutney-fied. As a result of the ever-varying ingredients no two batches of chutney were ever the same, but somehow this smelled exactly how I remember those long-gone chutneys smelling.

With the objectivity of a night’s sleep – and maybe some breathing time for the chutney – having now intervened, the main scent from the jar is garlic, with a gingery undertone that makes it smell almost Indian (I guess because so many Indian dishes start with frying garlic and ginger paste, my brain now automatically associates those two scents with that cuisine).

Taste-wise it’s sweet, and garlicky, but not overly gingery except in aftertaste, where the ginger warmth definitely lingers (very pleasantly). It pairs very nicely with the pâté, with the sweetness of the chutney cutting through the offally rich pâté, and the meat paste³ stopping the sweetness of the chutney from being too much. The chutney also goes well with cheese.

Both things I’ve tried so far, then, are very good indeed, with the bonus of provoking some nice memories of my father – good job, Cottage Delight, and thank you again Saffron. 😊

Also on the menu were the usual soup and sandwiches. The soup was French onion, which I didn’t enjoy as much as I should have done because this wasn’t a soup to swig out of a mug while doing something else: this was a soup to have in a bowl, to be lingered over and savoured. Which is to say: it was seriously rich, and deep in flavour, and would have been perfect with a cheese croûte⁴, but was a bit overpowering like this. My fault entirely here.

Sandwiches, which I asked for mainly because I needed the plate for the crackers and the contents of the two jars, were ham (decent quantity, but too sweet for my taste: I think it was honey roast ham, which I never like because of the sweetness); egg mayo (delicious, as always), and a very sad tuna one that I could only identify the filling of because I was told in advance.

And that’s my review of last night’s meal, so late it’s almost time for today’s first meal and review. Which I hope, but can’t promise, will be on time.

---

1. One I do know, or think I do, is the peanut butter (and other things, but today was all about the peanut butter) from Leigh Elizabeth Bradford. I thank you so much I’ve given you a footnote all of your own. 🙂 ↩︎
2. I’m starting to get really tired of typing that word, with its accents that I have to go into the special menu on my phone to access: if the accents disappear at any point, you’ll know I’ve got completely tired and given up on them! ↩︎
3. I finally got tired of typing pate with its accents. 🤨 ↩︎
4. Oh no: another word that needs an accent mark! ↩︎