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Canapés

I promised a while back that when the festive season was over, I'd write a post about my experiences with making canapés. Well, the festive season is over and so here's a post about my experiences with making canapés. Bang on queue. Well done me.

The first thing you should know about preparing canapés is that it is hard work. You need to set aside a whole day basically. Some are easier than others to prepare. If I were to do these again, I'd not make the Smoked Salmon Roulade (it is quite tricky) and the Quails Eggs or Cucumber Rolls (more trouble than they're worth in my opinion). The miniature pizza I'd make again, but without the semi dried tomato, I'd probably just get some sun dried tomatoes that had been soaked in olive oil and cut into small pieces. I'd also use a simpler pizza dough recipe than Heston Blumenthal's (not that his is that complicated). The cheese & paprika twigs are time consuming, but they seemed to go down very well with everyone that tried them, so may be worth the effort if time allowed.

There's a photo of the canapés I made for Tim's party here. I didn't think to take a picture of the ones I made for Christmas Day I'm afraid.

So without any more of a do, here are the recipes I used:

Smoked Salmon Roulade
Ingredients
1 bunch large watercress
225g soft cheese with garlic and herbs
2 tsp lemon juice
Freshly ground black pepper
225g smoked salmon
Instructions
Finely chop the watercress, discarding any course stalks. Whisk into the soft cheese with the lemon juice and black pepper.
Cut out a large piece of greaseproof paper .
Lay on the top the smoked salmon, overlapping each piece to form a large rectangle. Cut in half width-ways.
Spread the soft cheese mixture over both rectangles then carefully roll each into a large sausage.
Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Cut each roll into 5mm slices and serve asap.

Smoked Salmon on blinis
Ingredients
Cocktail blinis
Smoked Salmon (sustainably harvested smoked salmon of course)
Cream Cheese with garlic and herbs (I used the leftovers from the smoked salmon roulade above which has lemon juice pepper and watercress mixed in).
Instructions
Prepare soft cheese mixture. Spread on crostini (or blini) and put a piece of smoked salmon on top. Put a tiny dab of the soft cheese on top of the smoked salmon and place on that a small bit of dill.
Variations: I've specified blini here as they're don't take any time to prepare and hold up well to being left out all evening better than some other bases do, but you could used crostini or toast too, I guess.

Salmon and Cream Cheese on toasted brioche
Ingredients
All Butter Brioche loaf
100g cream cheese
juice and zest of half a lemon
2 tbsp fresh dill
180g canned salmon (drained)
Instructions
Toast slices of brioche and cut each slice into small squares. Leave to cool.
Mix the cream cheese, lemon and dill, then flake the salmon into it. Mix together.
Top each brioche slice with the salmon mixture.
Variations: Some I topped with a little bit of fresh dill, others with a small bit of lemon, some with "caviar" (and by caviar, I mean reconstituted herring which looks like caviar) and I think also some with a little bit of smoked salmon. Doesn't have to be brioche, could be crostini or something.

Curried Prawns on Nan
Ingredients
1 tbsp oil
1 clove garlic - crushed
2 tsp mild curry powder
4 spring onions - finely chopped
450g cooked & peeled prawns - roughly chopped
4 tsp mango chutney
4 tsp natural yoghurt
salt & pepper
2 large nan breads
Instructions
Heat the oil in a frying pan and cook the onions, curry powder and garlic for 1 minute.
Add the prawns and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.
Take off the heat and stir in the chutney and yoghurt.
Season and set aside.
Heat the nan as per packet instructions.
Cut into small squares and top with a little prawn mixture.

Cheese and Paprika Twigs:
Ingredients
2 sheets of ready rolled puff pastry
60g finely grated parmesan
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp paprika
1 egg - lightly beaten
60g grated red Leicester cheese
Instructions
Heat oven to 200c
Unroll pastry on a lightly floured surface
Scatter with the parmesan, cayenne, paprika and a little salt.
Fold in half so that the cheese is sandwiched together and roll until thin
Slice into long fingers, twist each finger, and place on baking sheet.
Brush with the egg, then sprinkle with the Leicester.
Bake for 12-15 minutes or until puffed and golden.

Miniature Pizza
Ingredients
Pizza dough - any recipe would do, I just happened to use the one from Heston Blumenthal's Perfection book. PizzaMaking.com is a good source of recipes.
Sun Dried Tomato Pesto: Place 1 garlic clove, 1/2 tsp sea salt, 50g sun dried tomatoes (reconstituted), 25g fresh basil leaves, 25g pine nuts, 90ml extra virgin olive oil into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Stir on 2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese.
Semi Dried Tomatoes - Get a load of good quality cherry tomatoes. Peel, cut in half and de-seed. Toss in olive oil. Place each half on baking tray lined with foil. Place a thin slice of garlic, and a small piece of fresh basil on each tomato. Sprinkle with fresh thyme. Place in oven at 110 degrees for 1-2 hours. Keep an eye on them as you don't want them to burn. Take out of oven when done and remove the garlic and basil and any thyme leaves.
Fresh Basil
Buffalo mozzarella
Instructions
Heat the oven up as high as it will go. Minimum of 250c, but higher would be better if possible.
Flatten out the dough and cut into small pieces.
Place a small amount of the pesto on each piece of dough.
Top with a small piece of mozzarella, a semi dried tomato half.
Place in oven for a few minutes, or until done.
Top each cooked miniature pizza with a small piece of fresh basil.

Cucumber Rolls
Ingredients
Cucumber
Roasted Bell Pepper
Feta Cheese
Instructions
Finely slice cucumber using a mandolin and cut into small strips.
Wrap cucumber slice around a cube of feta and a piece of pepper, and hold together with a cocktail stick.

Quails Eggs
Ingredients
Roasted Bell Pepper (I used left overs from Cucumber Rolls recipe)
Semi dried tomatoes (I used left overs from Miniature Pizza recipe)
Cucumber slices
Quails Eggs
Instructions
Cut eggs in half. Sandwich a piece of pepper, tomato and cucumber between each half, and hold together with a cocktail stick.

Labels: canapés, cooking, food

Wednesday, January 03, 2007 10:16 PM 0 comments

Food, yeah?

My oh my oh my. Christmas is a busy time of year, ain't it? Fun and indulgent, yes, but also a little tiring on the body and mind. Happily, Christmas this year has provided me with a window to try out a brief flirtation with another brief foody obsession: Canapés. I've said I'll help Emma and Liv make canapés for their soirée on Wednesday, I've told my Aunt Pam that I'll make canapés (and quiche) for Christmas in Soham, and I've told Tim I'll make him canapés for the New Year's Eve party he's been told he's having. So be aware of the fact that in a couple of weeks time, when the dust has settled, when the presents have been unwrapped, when the fireworks have lit up the sky ushering in the new year: I will make a post about how to make the perfect canapés. Or, if it all goes disastrously wrong, the mistakes to avoid when preparing canapés.

Speaking of food, I have decided to stop getting an organic veg box delivery from Beanies. There's a few reasons for this:
1) There's a lot of food I just won't countenance that they just keep on delivering. Brussel Sprouts for one. I mean, what the fuck? Seriously. I've tried a number of recipes for cooking sprouts - glazing with honey, skewering with rosemary then flash frying in balsamic vinegar - and yet, they're still Brussel fucking Sprouts and they still just make me think come on, this is the twenty first century, surely we are a bit beyond sprouts by now?!.
They also deliver a cabbage every week without fail, which although edible is really tremendously boring, especially when you have to single handedly consume a whole one every week. I suppose also the number of avacado they deliver is a little overwhelming. And apples. Christ. Apples. I like the taste, but I can't stand eating apples, and I can't stand the sound of other people eating apples. I'm not sure if the other people in my office have noticed this, but whenever somebody starts to eat an apple, I have to plug my earphones in and put my iPod on full volume. To me, listening to someone eating an apple is like listening to somene dragging their nails down a blackboard. Yes, I know it's my problem, and it makes me a bit weird, but there you go. It's a thing I have, it's something for me to deal with, and I'd like to encourage everyone to eat apples. They do after all, if consumed on a daily basis, keep the doctor away.
2) It has been a good experiment being forced to eat only certain foods for the last year, but it is stopping me from making a lot of the food I would like to try. There's a lot of foody projects I'd like to turn my hand to, but if all I've got to work with is a cabbage, some sprouts, some celery and an onion or two, there's few recipes that are going to light the fire of inspiration inside me. Sure, a tiny part of me will miss "Ready Steady Cook Wednesday" where I scratch my head and figure out not only what the hell that weird looking root vegetable is, but what in the name of Brian Cant's Barnacles I'm supposed to do with it, but ultimatley I'd like more of a say over what I shove down my gullet.
3) I have a great green grocers down the road, and I miss my Saturday morning stroll there. I miss standing there surrounded by a wide variety of colourful fruit and veg, thinking I'll have some of this. And this. And I don't know what this is, but I'm having it because I think I might like it.
So. There you go. Veg box experiment over. If you don't live alone, it is probably a bit worthwhile. But if you do live alone and eat out at least once a week, then you will never ever get to decide for yourself what to cook for yourself. And I find that a bit stifling.

Labels: christmas, cooking, food

Sunday, December 17, 2006 7:40 PM 0 comments