Any South Africans here - what I can I use for pâté instead of snoek?

[BIWI]

We have some friends coming for dinner soon; we all enjoyed a holiday in SA a couple of years ago, and one of the favourites was snoek pâté.

Does anyone have a recommendation for what I can use instead of snoek? Would smoked mackerel be the same?

And if you have a recipe that would be even better!

TIA

Yes, I'd just use smoked mackerel. V similar. I make pates of this sort by flaking the smoked mackerel and adding lots of lemon juice and pepper and then low fat cream cheese (In SA I'd use smooth cottage cheese but I've never found it here and the low fat cream cheese seems to mimic the sightly more sour taste). Mix it all together vigourously.

Some south africans would add mayonnaise or do a mix of cottage cheese/creme fraiche with mayo but I wouldn't personally. And especially not in the UK as "mayonnaise" in south africa is a sort of mix between mayo and salad dressing and impossible to replicate!

Thank you!

@SpaceOp

What do you think of this recipe? It's from this website

Snoek Pâté
Recipe Category: Dips, Seafood All Rights Reserved: an original recipe from Lavender and Lime

Ingredients
250 mls snoek flaked replaced by smoked mackerel
45 mls crème fraîche
5 mls cream
2 spring onions chopped
10 g flat leaf parsley chopped
Salt to season

Method
place the ingredients into a blender and blend until as smooth as you want it

I'd say there isn't enough creme fraiche. And I'd be wanting to add some black pepper and probably some lemon! But it's probably not entirely wrong either!

Sorry - different user names on different devices. But it's me!

Ultimately, it's a creamy, fishy, salty plate of goodness. You can't really go wrong!

Black pepper goes in everything I cook!

Lemon sounds good. I also saw a recipe that had chilli in it, but I don't remember any of the pâté we had in SA having chilli in it.

It does seem as if there's no, one, standard recipe.

Quark might work instead of smooth cottage cheese.

Lived in SA for a while and this is making me peckish

But I could always blend cottage cheese, to make it smooth. I like the taste (and tang) of that, whereas I always think Quark is a bit bland.

@BIWI

Black pepper goes in everything I cook!

Lemon sounds good. I also saw a recipe that had chilli in it, but I don't remember any of the pâté we had in SA having chilli in it.

It does seem as if there's no, one, standard recipe.

Like any traditional recipe, that's true. Bobotie is one that does seem to be fairly consistent, which is useful. But let's face it, any recipe has different versions.

I wouldn't use Quark. The one thing about smooth cottage cheese and low fat cream cheese is that they are quite similar in texture. Creme fraiche would definitely be better than quark too.

Check with DH's aunt who is the expert. She agreed with my basic approach. She suggests lemon zest and using a bit of sour cream. She agrees 100% with spring onion.