Home-cook pate-type food?

Hi all!

I was wondering if I could have any suggestions/comments on "how to make pate-type food".

My cat is mostly on homemade raw right now but she still prefers canned food sometimes, especially she loves Nature's Variety Instinct canned.

We live in Japan now and we can still order Nature's Variety food online, but it costs at least 2.5 times as much as what we were paying while in the US (We cannot order internationally. Meat product is strictly regulated, and shipping charges for canned food… that cannot be cheap!).

I have tried cooked food with U-Stew, but she didn't like it at all. I am not sure if it's the flavor, or the texture. (I used chicken and pork (separate occasions) and followed the instructions. Put the ground meat and water in a pan, cooked it, removed from the heat, waited until it cools down, and added the pre-mix in. The outcome was more like crumbles.)

So… I checked the cooked food thread here. I found some postings that mention “pate-type” food (cook the meat first, and then put it in the blender). My question is, do we get something similar to Nature’s Variety-type pate?

This is something I have not tried yet, but if I mix the raw meat in the blender with some water, then put the slurry in a pyrex bowl, and steam it (I’ll use a pressure cooker), do you think I can get something like pate-style food? After that, I’ll just cool it, and mix the pre-mix in.

Has anybody tried something like this?

I’m planning to try these two methods (cook first, or blend first) sometime soon, but any comments or suggestions are always welcomed!

Thanks

If you are trying to replicate the pate texture you would have to add some kind of thickener (guar gum, xanthan gum...).  Pieces of meat just aren't going to stick together otherwise. The NV Instincts contains Montmorillonite Clay which I believe is a thickening agent.

@mschauer Thank you for your advice!
You are totally right, any canned food has something like gums or carrageenan, or starchy stuff. I remember there was a thread here about the clay in NV food. It seems it is harmless. I googled and I found I can buy one for homemade cosmetics, but I'm not sure if I'd like to add it to my kitty's food. Hmm...

Maybe gelatin? It is naturally contained in animal's tissues/bones, and it is included in catnutrition.org recipe, and Better in the Raw/U-Stew has it in its ingredient list, too. (Gelatin is mixed in when the mixture is cold, in catnutrition recipe or BITR recipe, so the purpose of it seems not to thicken the liquid, though...) If I add some gelatin when the meat/water is warm, then it may work???

I hope my cat won't try to "cover up" the food... 

I added corn starch but this was heated first to thicken the chicken pate I made.