Smoked Snoek Pate

This recipe is one of my favourites and fall into the easy entertaining category - only six ingredients, easy to make and very moreish.  It can be dressed up for fancy dinner and can be made well in advanced, seeing that it can be kept for 2 weeks, not that it will be necessary!

For those of you who do not know snoek, it can be substituted with smoked mackerel.

You will need:

250g smoked snoek, bones and skin removed and flaked

juice of 1 lemon

1/2 an onion, very finely chopped

freshly ground pepper

lots of freshly chopped Italian parsley

250g creamed cottage cheese

125ml fresh cream - optional

Mix all the ingredients together, excluding the cream if using, taking care not to break up all the fish flakes - I like it if it still has some texture.

That's it - as easy as that!

If you want to make the luxury version, whip the cream until stiff and fold in.  This will make it lighter and obviously richer, more mousse-like.

For a low fat version, use fat free cottage cheese.

You might want to add a bit of salt, but first taste, because sometimes the snoek is already very salty.

If using the peppered mackerel fillet, remove the skin and do not add the pepper.

By the way, I learned this trick from my mother: to chop fresh parsley, put it into a cup and snip it with a pair of scissors until finely chopped - very easy!

Serve the pate with home made melba toast - slice baguette or ciabatta as thinly as you can, arrange on a baking tray in a single layer and dry out in the oven at 180 degrees for approximately 10 minutes, turn half way.