I made appetizers in two ways: salmon cucumber cups and melon procuitto. The merely takes no time to prepare and yet taste very good. We had great food and great wine last night.
As for me, the challenge is not the cooking or the food preparation, cleaning is.
Smoked Salmon Cucumber Cups
2 english cucumbers
5 slices of smoked salmon
1 cube of frozen dill or 1 teaspoon fresh dill
4 -5 thumb size cream cheese, room temperature or warm in microwave for 10 seconds until pliable
1 hard boiled egg
1 tablespoon of mayo
ground pepper to taste
NO salt - smoked salmon is salty already
Put everything except the egg in the food processor and blend until smooth. Chop the egg into small pieces and mix with the mixture.
Cut the cucumber into 1cm thick discs and take off a tiny bit off the core so the salmon mixture can sit properly and not slide around.
Pipe salmon mixture on the cucumber cups before serving.
Melon Procuitto
Good quality procuitto, preferably fresh cut from specialty meat stores and not pre-packaged
Honey dew or cantalope
Cut melon into bite size pieces. You can do this ahead of time.
Take out a slice of procuitto and cut it in half lengthwise. Wrap it around 1 piece of melon.
Optional: drizzle some good quality aged balsamic vinegar for a more luxurious flavour.
Cool cucumber cups!
ReplyDeleteThough its sad to see beautiful smoked salmon blended away... how about if you cut them into smaller strips and form a little bowl within the cucumber to hold a spoonful of cream cheese mixture (without the salmon blended in?)
Vic: nah, if you leave the salmon in whole the texture will be different. Blend it in is a very cost effective way to host a party - I already splurged on procuitto and wine already. And it's fast to buzz everything all together.
ReplyDelete