Pâtés and foie gras: a buying guide

The spreadable tins are the least expensive things we sell and, for a table of several people, often the most useful. They come from two producers working in completely different registers: one in seafood, one in meat. The words on the labels (pâté, rillettes, bloc) are not interchangeable either.

Three words worth separating

• Pâté: the ingredients blended to a smooth, spreadable paste.
• Rillettes: meat shredded rather than blended, cooked in its own fat. Coarser. You can see the texture.
• Bloc: an emulsion, firm enough to cut. A bloc is served in thin slices, not spread. Treating it like a pâté wastes it.

The seafood pâtés

Agromar, in Gijón since 1926, makes these in 100 g tins. They are the same house as the tinned fish and the cheapest way to try that range.

• Sardine: 60% sardine, with olive oil, tomato and onion, made without preservatives. €3.00.
• White tuna: the mildest of them. €3.00.
• Scorpionfish: the classic Asturian one. €3.80.
• Spider crab: €4.00.
• Sea urchin: the most distinctive. €5.20.
• Lobster: €5.50.

Two that are not seafood at all sit in the same range: Cabrales cheese and blood sausage, both €3.40.

The meat pâtés and the foie

Etxenike make theirs by hand in Espinal, in Navarra in northern Spain, in 130 g tins.

• Ibérico pork pâté: 60% Ibérico pork (back fat, liver and ham) blended with cream, egg and spices. €4.50.
• Txuletón beef pâté: made from the rib steak. €5.50.
• Duck rillettes with 25% foie gras: shredded duck cooked in its own fat and finished with foie. The recipe also contains Ibérico pork. €6.50.
• Goose foie gras bloc: 88% goose foie gras from corn-fed geese. This is the bloc: serve it chilled, in thin slices. €17.50.

What to put them on

Bread or toast. The toast matters more than people expect. We stock Daveiga's Mariñeiras canapé toasts: small, crumbless, made with extra virgin olive oil and crisp enough to hold a loaded spoonful without collapsing. Daveiga have made them in Chantada, Galicia, since 2006. They are vegan. 100 g, €3.00.

Beyond bread: the seafood pâtés are good used as a filling rather than a spread, in piquillo peppers or in halved boiled eggs. Piparras alongside cut through the richer ones.

Storage

Unopened, all of these keep at room temperature, which is what makes them easy to keep in the cupboard and easy to give as a present. Once opened, move the contents into a covered container in the fridge and finish them within a couple of days.

Where to start

• A first pair: sardine and Ibérico pork, one from each house, €7.50 together. They show you both registers.
• Feeding people at short notice: three or four tins, the toasts and nothing else.
• A present: the foie gras bloc, which needs no fridge until it is opened.

The Ibérico guide covers the cured meat. The tinned seafood guide covers the rest of the tins.