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Holiday Appetizers
On Sunday November 21, 2004, I held a fundraiser for the local Winchester chapter of Faith in Action, a group of volunteers that provides services to those people in our community who are too ill to do things for themselves. I am happy to announce that we raised over $4100 through the great generosity of the attendees and many more who could not attend, but who sent money anyway. To all of you, thank you for your kindness and compassion.
The theme of our event was “Dazzling Holiday Appetizers.” I don’t know how dazzling they ended up being, but we had a good time anyhow. Here are some “recipes”—not recipes in the true sense of formula, rather more at guidelines and embellished ideas. I tried to use ingredients that you can find at your ordinary higher end grocery store. You may need to order pimentón and piquillo peppers off the Internet. I suggest La Tienda.
Prosciutto Rolls with Sun-Dried Tomato Goat Cheese Spread and Arugula Olive Cream Cheese Filled Prosciutto Cornets Smoked Turkey with Orange Marmalade Cream Cheese and Fresh Cranberry-Orange Relish Goat Cheese-Stuffed Piquillo Peppers Banderillas of Artichoke Hearts, Olives, and Pickled Onions Fresh Dates Stuffed with Stilton Cheese
Pastry Bag 101
Probably the one thing that you can do to set your hors d’oeuvres, canapés, and appetizers apart from the pack is to invest in a few pastry tubes and disposable pastry bags. These are available at higher end kitchen stores everywhere. I can also order them for you. If you don’t have access to pastry bags, stick a pastry tube in the corner of a gallon seal-top bag.
Cut the end off the disposable bag, insert the pastry tube, twist the bag above the tube and stuff the twist down into the pastry tube. This will keep the bag from leaking while you are filling it. Cuff the top of the bag and hang it over your hand that you’ve made into a big C. With the other hand, fill the bag with a spatula. When filled, close the top of the bag by pleating it. Then twist the top of the bag down onto the contents to remove any air.
To pipe with the filled bag, pull the tube to remove the twist in the lower end of the bag. With one hand cupped around the top of the bag (and holding the bag shut), use the other hand to guide the bag. Apply gentle pressure with the upper hand to pipe the ingredients.
Most of you said that it was harder than it looks. Perhaps it is, but you didn’t ride a bicycle the first time you tried it, and you were able to use a pastry bag, so maybe it isn’t that hard! Keep practicing. Remember, I use pastry bags every day of my life.
Prosciutto Rolls with Sun-Dried Tomato Goat Cheese Spread and Arugula
This appetizer is really two lessons in one. I wanted to show how to make an easy and versatile goat cheese spread and then give you some idea of what to do with it. Another idea is the stuffed piquillos below.
Sun-Dried Tomato Goat Cheese Spread
300g log of fresh chèvre, warmed to room temperature ½ c mayonnaise ½ c diced sun-dried tomatoes 1 t pimentón agridulce
Mix all the ingredients. The purpose of the mayonnaise is to limber up the chèvre to the point where it will pipe or spread readily. If you need more, add more. The pimentón is mainly for color, but also to give a faintly smoky flavor. We use La Chinata brand pimentón agridulce, available at La Tienda. You could omit the paprika altogether or substitute some other kind.
Use your imagination. I would like to add chopped pine nuts and fresh basil to this mix. Or fresh chives or fresh oregano.
For the prosciutto rolls, you will need sliced prosciutto (or substitute country ham or jamon serrano, although they’re both harder to roll) and arugula, preferably the tiny tender baby leaves. Beth Nowak sells arugula at the Freight Station Farmers Market near the intersection of Boscawen and Stewart Streets.
prosciutto slices goat cheese spread baby arugula leaves
Lay a slice of prosciutto on a cutting board. Spread with goat cheese from one end of the slice to the other end, leaving a half inch of ham uncovered. This uncovered bit will help bind the roll when you roll it. Top with arugula and roll. I like to refrigerate these to firm up the cheese before slicing. Once they are cold, I slice them in half, on the bias.
Olive Cream Cheese Filled Prosciutto Cornets
The appetizer chef’s favorite friend may well be cream cheese. It is cheap, readily available, and nearly everyone loves it. We buy it in 3 pound loaves because we use so much of it at the restaurant. (Try unwrapping a gazillion 8-oz packages to make a cheese cake. Try making 6 cheese cakes. You’ll hate retail packaging as much as we do!) Quantities do not matter in this recipe. Do everything to taste.
For the olive cream cheese, you’ll need some olive paste or spread. You can chop olives all afternoon, or like us, you can run over to your favorite grocery and get whatever they have. We used the olive spread from Costco for this. Costco is also the source for the prosciutto that we used for the class.
1/2 c olive spread 1 lb cream cheese
Mix the ingredients until well incorporated. Not enough olive for you? Add more.
The cornets are more about technique than anything, besides tasting great. You’ll need to load your cream cheese into a pastry bag. Lay a slice of prosciutto lengthwise on your cutting board. To make a cornet, you will want to pivot the prosciutto about the center line of the slice as you are rolling it. It may take one or two failed and summarily eaten attempts to get the hang of the technique.
On a 45-degree angle and starting at the top and to the left of the slice, draw a line of cream cheese to the bottom of the slice. Make the line of cream cheese fatter at the top of the slice (the eventual open end of the cornet) than at the bottom. Fold the flap of prosciutto from the left over the cream cheese to start forming the cornet. Now start rolling the top of the cornet from left to right using the bottom center of the slice as a pivot point. The bottom center of the slice is the point of the cornet. As long as you are rolling around this point, the cornet will form correctly. If the filling appears a little meager after rolling the cornet, use the pastry bag to fill it.
Smoked Turkey with Orange Marmalade Cream Cheese and Fresh Cranberry-Orange Relish
Here’s another easy variation on the same theme as the previous two appetizers. You’ll need a good food processor to make the cranberry-orange relish.
½ c orange marmalade 1 lb cream cheese lemon juice, to taste
Mix the orange marmalade and cream cheese well. If not orange enough for you, add more marmalade. If too sweet, adjust with lemon juice. This is a versatile cream cheese to load in a pastry bag for the holidays. I was going to bake some corn muffins with chopped pecans and dried cranberries, then split them and fill with this cream cheese and a slice of country ham, but we ran out of time. If you were so inclined, you could add some sweetened chopped dried cranberries to the cream cheese.
Nothing could be simpler than this cranberry-orange relish. For me, this is the best cranberry preparation anywhere. And no, I didn’t invent it. I am sure that this probably came off the back of an Ocean Spray bag 30 or more years ago.
1 orange, preferably seedless 1 lb cranberries sugar to taste (a cup or less)
Cut the orange into several pieces, put in the food processor, and process a few seconds to start grinding the orange. Add the cranberries and pulse a few more seconds until you achieve the texture that you want. Remove and add sugar to taste. This is definitely better after it has rested an hour or more in the refrigerator.
For the rolls, you’ll need sliced smoked (or not) turkey. Lay a slice of turkey on your cutting board, spread with the marmalade cream cheese, top with a little cranberry relish, and roll. Refrigerate to set the cream cheese and slice as you see fit.
I can easily picture slicing this into thin rounds, placing a round on a water biscuit, and topping with a rosette of the orange-marmalade cream cheese. This would make great canapés with freshly roasted turkey too!
Goat Cheese-Stuffed Piquillo Peppers
Here’s an easy tapa that came to mind for reasons that I will explain in a moment. First, you need piquillo peppers, available at gourmet shops and at La Tienda. And you need a batch of the goat cheese spread that we discussed earlier. Using the pastry bag, fill the peppers with the goat cheese spread.
Now the holiday part. Arrange the piquillos on a plate with the pointed ends to the center, such that they form a wreath around the plate. Garnish with a green bow and you’re all set for a festive table!
Banderillas of Artichoke Hearts, Olives, and Pickled Onions
And another simple tapa that you should have in your repertoire. This is a representative example of the class of tapas called banderillas, named after the pick on which you impale the tapa. In Spain, it is common in home entertaining to form tapas in this manner from store-bought, ready-to-eat foods. They are designed to be eaten in one bite, so the foods should be complementary in flavor.
artichoke hearts pitted olives pickled onions toothpicks or drink garnish picks
Slice the artichoke hearts vertically into quarters or sixths. Slide a piece onto a pick, followed by an olive and an onion. For the demonstration, we used large stuffed queen olives.
Another favorite is serrano ham, Manchego cheese, and Manzanilla olives.
Fresh Dates Stuffed with Stilton Cheese
And another easy one that your kids can help with. At the restaurant, we use Cabrales cheese, the famous Spanish blue. You can use any cheese you like. I happened to have a chunk of Stilton sitting on the shelf of the walk-in, so I grabbed it.
Slit the side of a fresh date with a knife, pop out the seed, and stuff with cheese. Done!
Prosciutto-Wrapped Scallops
This is not a dish that I would encourage you to make at home. As you saw, it is very, very messy and nearly impossible to do without excellent ventilation such as I have in my home kitchen. Then there is the battle (discussed elsewhere) of finding dry sea scallops. We use U-10 scallops, under 10 to a pound.
I made these scallops at the special request of one of our donors—they form the basis of our signature appetizer Prosciutto Wrapped Scallops on Baby Arugula with Homemade Red Raspberry Syrup.
Lay several slices of prosciutto on your cutting board and slice them in half lengthwise. Remove the harder, crescent-shaped piece from the side of the scallop, if present. Lay the scallop on its side on the prosciutto and roll. With practice, this becomes easier.
Heat a sauté pan (not a nonstick pan) over very high heat and add a high smoke point oil, such as grapeseed. Place the scallops in the pan and leave them there for 2-3 minutes until a beautiful crust forms. Flip carefully and crust the other side. Cook until they are mostly done, about 5-6 minutes total.
Here’s the secret to our famed crabcakes. I wish every restaurant would do something this good and simple with crabcakes—then we wouldn’t ever have to worry about terrible crabcakes again. I’ve tried every kind of binding agent including fish mousse, scallop mousse, béchamel, egg whites, etc., and keep coming back to mayonnaise, plain old store-bought, flavorless mayonnaise.
1 lb jumbo lump crabmeat 1 stalk of celery, finely chopped 1 T minced parsley ½ c mayonnaise 1 t Old Bay seafood seasoning 1 egg scant handful of fresh bread crumbs
Tricks here. Don’t beat up the crabmeat. You paid top dollar for the big lumps, so don’t destroy them by overmixing. Add only as much mayo as needed to loosely bind the mix. Add tiny amounts of bread crumbs, only if necessary to tighten up the mix after you’ve added the egg.
Now for the mushrooms. At the restaurant, we use portabellas. For a party setting, however, you’ll want to use button mushrooms. Preheat the oven to very hot, 450 or higher. Remove the stems from the mushrooms and fill the cavity with crab mix. At the restaurant, when using portabellas, we also scrape out the very black gills. Place on a sheet pan and bake until the mushrooms are cooked and the crab mix is browned.
Mini Crab Cakes
Not much to say here. Patty out the crab mix from above and sauté until brown, flip and repeat. Boy am I sick of this! I do this hundreds of times a week at the restaurant. Figure about 16 one-ounce crab cakes per pound of crabmeat. |
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