Georgian Bean and Walnut Pate

Georgian Bean & Walnut Pate is full of flavor and truly healthy vegetarian dish. It is not only a great choice for festivities as vegan option for your guests, it is a smart choice for your everyday menu.

Blog's Category: Finger Food, Healthy, Holidays, Hors D'oeuvre, International, Vegan, Vegetarian

Georgia is a beautiful country in Kavkaz region, one of the former republic of USSR. Rich culinary traditions, amazing cuisine were always one of the most popular everywhere on a territory of former USSR. One of the less known Georgian dishes was Pkhali. Pkhali is, essentially, finely chopped or ground vegetable, seasoned with red wine vinegar, spices, fresh cilantro and generous amount of ground walnuts.  As a vegetable it can be spinach, beans, eggplant, green beans, mushrooms. This pate (pkhali) recipe made of red kidney beans.

Pate can be served in a variety of ways - on crackers, by itself, on a toast, or, as here, on a slice of roasted sweet potato.

Traditionally, Georgian pate, pkhali, is garnished with pomegranate seeds. If you've got sour pomegranate then it would be perfect for this!

Note 

If you don't like sweetness of sweet potato, use a regular potato. See below how to prepare roasted potato rounds.

Georgian Bean & Walnut Pate (Pkhali)

For about 15 pieces:

• 1 can Dark Red Kidney beans, drained and rinsed thoroughly
• 1 cup raw walnuts
• 4 tbs red wine vinegar
• 4 tbs olive oil (flavorless)
• 1 tsp khmeli-suneli (or ground coriander)
• 1 garlic clove
• 1/3 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 tsp cayenne (optional)
• 1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
• small bunch of cilantro, roughly chopped

For garnishing and serving:

• 2-3 sweet potatoes (yams), peeled and sliced in 1/2" rounds
• 2 tbs olive oil
• some salt
• 2 tbs pomegranate seeds

- To roast potato, preheat oven to 420F, mix potato slices with olive oil and salt. Roast until fully cooked, with golden-brown patches. Remove from oven and let it cool down completely before use it for pate. 

- In a food processor, quickly process beans with vinegar and olive oil. Do not over-process, it should be somewhat chunky. Transfer beans in a large bowl.

- Put walnuts and garlic in a process and process until medium-fine grains.

- To the bowl with beans, add processed walnuts, all spices, salt and cilantro. Mix well. Taste. Add some vinegar, salt or pepper, if needed.

-  To serve, place roasted (cooled) potato rounds on a serving plate. Scoop pate with a disher-scoop (or just a spoon) and place on a potato slice. Top with a pomegranate seeds.

- Enjoy your healthy creation!



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