Baked Stuffed Potatoes with Corned Beef/Pâté

 I noticed on the jacket of the cookbook that among Melissa Clark's works are both The Deen Family Cookbook and The Skinny: How to Fit into Your Little Black Dress Forever. Hmmmm. To me, this recipe belongs more in the former category than the latter, especially the pâté version I made. At least I didn't use rillettes, which is basically shredded meat (at my butcher's, it's goose) preserved in its own fat. And it's true that these potatoes are not deep-fried.
Corned beef, which would have been leaner, is a speciality product only available from Jewish butchers here in France (as far as I know). I had planned a trip to Paris to buy corned beef and stock up on cocoa for brownies, but instead I went to a meeting. Much less productive.

But what the heck. I decided that pâté (this was actually a "terrine au beaujolais") was the perfect locavore solution: my butcher's wife makes it. The recipe is basically a main-dish stuffed baked potato. You bake the potato after rubbing it in salt (a technique I hadn't tried before and was very pleased with, since I'm a potato-skin lover), and then you mash the flesh with butter, some herbs (I have a family of dill haters, so I went with my favorite herb blend) and some processed meat product (while listening to NPR tell you that processed meat will kill you. But they were talking about hot dogs, not "house-made" pâté. Right?). Then you pile that delicious mess into the potato skins, top with cheese (I used some leftover sheep cheese I had from our mountain trip), and throw them back into the oven or under the broiler until the cheese has melted/browned. I made a vegetarian version for Julia that involved sautéed mushrooms, and she loved it, even though she's not a big fan of the baked potato.

I served this with the Crispy Roasted Cabbage, which as you see was very crispy this time. Perhaps too much so. I believe the secret was that I used only one small head of cabbage for a large baking sheet, so it crisped rather than steamed. Only Julia and I ate the cabbage, which is fairly par for the course.

I was completely skeptical about the idea of putting pâté in a baked potato, but I really enjoyed it. In fact, I think I like pâté better in a baked potato than on bread. Heresy! The rest of the family enjoyed it as well: once again, no leftovers. I think if I did it again with pâté, I would add a bit of whole-grain mustard. But I'd love to try this with corned beef, because I do love corned beef. Someday.