Vegan Fish Pâté: A Portuguese Couvert

Easy to make, this plant-based take on a classic Portuguese couvert dish, sardine pâté, is perfect fare for a relaxed homemade lunch or simple starter. Surprisingly rich and savoury, this vegan “fish” pâté tastes just a little bit fishy.

I was perusing an addition of Feast recently when I came across the concept of Portuguese couvert. It’s not something I’d heard of before, so I had to investigate. Sadly, I’ve never been to Portugal, let alone eaten out there. It’s a country I’d love to visit one day though.

Dive Right In

• What Is Portuguese Couvert?
• Why You’ll Want To Make This Vegan Fish Pâté
• Vegan Fish Pâté Lunch
• Ingredients, Additions And Substitutions
• How To Make Vegan Fish Pâté
• Other Vegan Recipes Ideal for a Portuguese Couvert Type Meal
• Keep In Touch
• Pin It
• The Recipe

What Is Portuguese Couvert?

Portuguese restaurants have a rather nice custom of bringing a few nibbles (picky bits) to the table whilst you peruse the menu. It’s called a couvert, pronounced koo vair.

The couvert typically consists of bread, butter and olives. More often than not though, you’ll get fish pâté (usually sardine) and pickled carrots too. Sometimes a local cheese is added to the mix and flavoured salts and/or flavoured butter is a thing too.

A word of warning however, whilst you may not have asked for it, you do have to pay for your Portuguese couvert. So if you’d rather not, make sure you let the waiters know right from the start that you don’t want anything. Basically couvert means “to cover”. In other words it’s the cover charge.

Why You’ll Want To Make This Vegan Fish Pâté

• Tastes similar to the real thing – Thanks to a careful balance of olive oil, acidity and subtle sea flavours, this pâté has an unmistakable savoury, briny note you’d expect from a classic sardine spread. Only there’s no fish in it at all.
• Perfect for sharing, lunches or a proper Portuguese-style starter – It works beautifully as part of a simple spread with bread, olives and pickles, making it ideal for relaxed lunches, aperitifs or a fuss-free starter.
• Made from everyday ingredients – The only slightly unusual ingredient you’ll need to make this vegan fish pâté is seaweed. Otherwise it’s just store-cupboard staples transformed into something special.
• Plant-based, but not compromised – The texture is rich and spreadable, the flavour is deep and satisfying and even fish-eaters are surprised by how good it is.
• Quick to make, but feels considered – A few minutes prep is all it takes to make this plant-based spread, yet the result is surprisingly sophisticated.

Vegan Fish Pâté Lunch

As soon as my interest was caught, I had to have a go at creating a vegetarian version of sardine pâté. I reckoned capers and nori seaweed flakes might work to give a semblance of fishiness and indeed they did. CT, who likes fish and even gets to eat it occasionally, was surprised at the familiar taste. Perhaps fish tastes seaweedy?

Traditional sardine pâté is: spreadable but not whipped, savoury and slightly coarse, olive oil rich rather than creamy. I like to think I’ve achieved these three objectives with my vegan version.

Although Portuguese couvert is designed as an appetiser or starter, I find it makes a great lunch. We sat down to a bowl of vegan fish pâté for our midday meal at the weekend. We ate it with some homemade bread rolls fresh from the oven, my homemade vegan butter, a bowl of black olives, my carrot pickles and some salad leaves. It was one of the best lunches we’ve enjoyed in a long time.

A note on the pickled carrots. It’s nice to mix some freshly chopped parsley through them just before serving.

If you fancy making some homemade bread to accompany the pâté, slices of this Portuguese bread would work well too.

Ingredients, Additions And Substitutions

This recipe is made with store cupboard ingredients. The only ones you might not hold are nori seaweed flakes and piri piri seasoning.

Capers

Capers make a surprisingly good fish substitute. They’re both salty and packed with umami notes. I often use them as a stand-in for recipes that normally contain anchovies. This caesar dressing is an example.

Head over to this post for more anchovy substitutes.

Chickpeas

If using tinned chickpeas, make sure they’re nice and soft before mashing. If they’re at all hard, boil them in water for five to ten minutes or until they’re easily mashable. Jarred chickpeas are usually soft enough.

Likewise, if using dried chickpeas, ensure you’ve soaked them well, then cook until soft.

I used jarred chickpeas in salted water.

Seasoning

Mustard is a key ingredient. It gives both depth and complexity, but it doesn’t really matter if you use English or Dijon mustard. As it happens, I used ready made German mustard, as that’s all I had. It’s fine to use either powdered or readymade.

Piri piri seasoning is a Portuguese spice blend made up of bird’s eye chillies, garlic, onion, paprika, oregano and thyme. A small amount works really well to add depth and flavour to this plant-based spread. It’s entirely optional, but highly recommended.

If you don’t include the piri piri, do add plenty of ground black or white peppercorns. Otherwise, the pepper isn’t really necessary.

Garlic and lemon are the other two key seasonings. Garlic adds pungency and the lemon juice and zest brighten the whole dish up, adding both fragrance and zingy notes.

You may or may not need to add salt to the mix. It will depend on how salty your capers are and whether your chickpeas are in salted stock or not. I didn’t need to add any extra and the pâté was plenty salty enough.

Seaweed

Although there are several seaweeds you could use for this vegan fish pâté, nori flakes are by far and away the easiest to employ. They’re not difficult to get hold of and are ideal for sprinkling over meals for additional flavour, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals, including iodine.

How To Make Vegan Fish Pâté

As long as your chickpeas are already cooked, this recipe takes all of five minutes to put together. You don’t need any fancy equipment either. Ideal for a quick lunch or simple starter.

Please refer to the recipe card at the bottom of this post for cooking temperatures and quantities of ingredients used.

Step 1. Chop

Using a large sharp knife and chopping board, finely chop the capers together with the garlic.

Step 2. Mash, don’t purée

In a medium sized bowl, roughly mash the beans with the back of a fork or potato masher.

Aim for a coarse, pâté-like texture. You want some creaminess and some structure. If you can still see bits of chickpea, you’re doing it right.

Step 3. Build the flavour

Add the chopped garlic and capers to the bowl, then grate in the lemon zest. Juice the lemon and add that. Spoon in the mustard, nori flakes and piri piri, if using. Give a good stir, mashing as you go, if needed.

Step 4. Add the olive oil gradually

Stir in the olive oil, a tablespoon at a time, until the mixture becomes rich and spreadable.

Step 5. Season and adjust

If omitting the piri piri, add freshly ground white or black pepper to taste and give a good stir.

Depending on what type of chickpeas you used, you may not need to add any salt especially as capers are usually very salty. Taste test and add a pinch or two if you feel it needs it.

If the mixture feels too thick, loosen with a little more lemon juice.

Step 6. Rest (important)

Cover the bowl and chill for at least thirty minutes. The flavours mellow and deepen as they rest. It’s fine to leave it overnight if you want to get ahead.

Step 7. Serve

Bring the pâté back to room temperature before serving and give it a good stir. Spoon into a suitable serving dish and sprinkle with chopped parsley, if liked.

Serve with crusty bread, butter, olives and pickled vegetables.

Other Vegan Recipes Ideal for a Portuguese Couvert Type Lunch

• mushroom pâté
• pickled cherries
• pickled chilli slices
• Portuguese bread
• rye sourdough bread
• vegan cream cheese

Keep in Touch

Thank you for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make this pâté, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do you have any recommendations or tips for creating a Portuguese style picky bits meal?

Please rate the recipe too. And do tag me @choclette8 on Instagram with your images, I love to see your take on my recipes.

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If you’d like more lunch recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious and nutritious, of course.

Choclette x

Vegan Fish Pâté. PIN IT.