Canapé Crash Course: Part 3
If you haven't already seen the first two instalments of our rustic canapé series, go check out Part 1 and Part 2. If you have already tried them out, we hoped you enjoyed and had fun. Here are three more to round off the series. Canapés should be a conversation starter, which means they should not only be practical to eat, but really really good looking. But don't just garnish with anything, only add or use things which complement the flavours already at play, not distract or subtract from them. If you're not dextrous enough to hold up two platters while running through a crowd of your half tipsy friends, don't beat yourself up, most people can’t. Make sure you don't overladen your serving platters. If you have some stylish material serviettes, you might lightly crumple them onto the platter and place the canapes onto that, this should prevent them from slipping around whilst you're trying to offer them around. So let’s get into it, this weeks canapés are as follows: – caramelised onion and cheddar gratin on rosemary crackers with fresh rocket– smoked trout and herb covered cabrito with pickled cucumber on sourdough– Slow roasted tomato and grilled fennel in a coppa wrap with micro salad
Equipment
- Chopping board
- Sharp knife
- blowtorch (optional, oven grill can also be used)
- serving platters and boards
- small round cookie cutter
- some small toothpicks
- A toaster
Ingredients
- 1 Sols slow roasted tomato
- 1 Sols grilled fennel and onion
- 1 Sols organic cucumber and turmeric pickle
- 1 Sols coppa, karoo pork
- 1 Sols pan de campagna, sourdough loaf
- 1 Sols rosemary and sea salt crackers
- 1 Sols Red onion, cabbage and wine relish
- 100g g smoked trout
- 100 g Gays regal cheddar
- 125 g Cabrito balls in oil. Belnori
- fresh herbs and edible flowers
Instructions
- For the first canapé, gently cut the rosemary and sea salt crackers in half, you will require two halves per bite. Cut the regal cheese into slices no thicker than 3mm and place a slice on each half of the cracker. Now melt the top of the cheese with a blowtorch giving it a nice grilled colour (you may do this under the grill in your oven) now top each of these with a very small amount of the onion and cabbage relish. Then you're going to stack two of these biscuits on top of each other (garnish in picture: wild rocket and marigold).
- Cut 5mm slices of the sourdough bread and toast until golden. Now cut out perfect rounds with a cookie cutter (you can always use the top of a small jar or something of the like to achieve the same goal) onto this I have created a small bed of soft leaf parsley. Take a length of the smoked trout fillet and create a cup for each cabrito ball to sit in. Lay this down onto the bread and leaves. Chop up the pickled cucumber so you have little pieces to garnish on top of the canape (the garnish I have used in the picture is pansies which I’ve sliced with a sharp knife to make some interestingly shaped garnish).
- For the final canapé in the series you start with laying out the slices of coppa onto a board. Depending on what leaves you have, you now make a bed on top of that (I have used small swiss chard leaves as they help to assist with the structure of the canapé) then place a slow roasted tomato and a piece of grilled fennel on top and roll it up until you have a little wrap. Secure the wrap with the toothpick and use a sharp knife to trim the edges to neaten. Now, dress some leaves and make a micro salad along the top edge of the canapé (garnish in picture: fennel and borage flower).