Canapés are one part of the warm welcome I like to give to family and friends when they eat with us. Candles, the scent of flowers, a roaring fire and a beautifully set table. Everyone knows from the start that we are pleased to see them.
One of the most important things about canapés is that they should be simple enough to eat with poise. No host wants greasy olives falling off onto a cream sofa. No guest wants stains from unruly ingredients down their shirts and finely chopped herbs can be tiresome when they stick to your teeth. So bowl food, mini cones filled with squishy ingredients and canapés fitted into large china spoons are banned in this house. Canapés are often too ambitious and too large. Each one should be easy to consume in one or two mouthfuls.
I also make and freeze tiny pastry cases for canapés from leftover pastry. These can be filled with recipes like my Smoked Salmon and Herb Pâté or Chicken Liver Pâté with Apple and Herb (page 190), Tapenade (page 68), Classic Pesto (page 35), or the Mint and Pea Cream Cheese and Dill, Caper and Goats’ Cheese recipes here. You can also buy small, thin pastry cups instead, or use small squares of rye bread.
When I have a large group of family or friends around to my house for a gathering, I often use a huge circular wooden board to serve the canapés. It is very old and despite having a handle many people have suggested it may have once been a cover from a well. Canapés of different shapes and colours look dramatic placed directly on the wood.
Each of these recipes makes about 20 canapés
DILL, CAPER AND GOATS’ CHEESE CANAPÉ
This is a popular and refreshing canapé because of the combination of capers, lemon and dill. The speckled mixture, decorated with chopped dill, on rye squares looks inviting.
115g/4oz soft goats’ cheese
2 tsp tiny capers, drained and rinsed
1 tsp lemon juice
a pinch of cayenne pepper
1 tbsp chopped dill, plus sprigs of dill to top
squares of rye bread or tiny pastry cases
Mix together the goats’ cheese, capers, lemon juice, cayenne pepper and chopped dill. Spoon 1 teaspoon of the mixture onto squares of rye bread or into pastry cases and top with a sprig of dill.
[ WHY NOT TRY... ]
+ Rolling up small balls of soft goats’ cheese and coating them in chopped herbs. Serve with a cocktail stick/ toothpick
+ Using the herb cheese from the Salami and Herb Cheese Rolls (see opposite) to fill small pastry tarts
These rich and herby nuts make a real change from the normal cashew nuts, mixed nuts or gruesome peanuts that many people serve. The recipe will fill a decentsized bowl for guests to dip in to.
250g/9oz unsalted nuts (cashews, hazelnuts, almonds, pine nuts, or a mixture)
40g/1½oz/3 tbsp butter
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp sea salt
a pinch of cayenne pepper
needles from 1 sprig of rosemary, finely chopped
Preheat the oven to 170°C/325°F/Gas 3. Spread the nuts on a baking tray and bake for about 12 minutes – shaking and checking until they look golden. Then melt the butter, add the other ingredients and mix with the warm nuts. You can make them in advance.
MINI PIZZA SLICES
These tiny pizzas are simple to make and popular with everyone – even fussy, small children. No village event passes without me getting a request to make a large tray of these.
1 long, thin baguette, sliced into 24 x 1cm/½in thick slices
1 recipe quantity Tapenade (see page 68)
4 tomatoes, thinly sliced into 6 slices
400g/14oz mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced
12 pitted olives, halved or sliced
Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas 6. Spread each slice of baguette with the tapenade. Top with a tomato slice, a thin slice of mozzarella and half a pitted olive. Place the pizza slices on a baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes until the cheese is starting to brown.
MINT AND PEA CREAM CHEESE
This is a useful recipe, which not only can be used for canapés but can make individual-sized filo/phyllo parcels to serve with salad as a first course, or can be mixed into a basic egg quiche filling.
175g/6oz/1¼ cups fresh or frozen peas
140g/5oz/scant ⅔ cup cream cheese
2 tbsp chopped mint leaves, plus small leaves to top
tiny pastry cases or squares of rye bread
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Cook the peas in boiling salted water for 3 minutes, or longer if frozen or the fresh peas are a little old when you buy or pick them. Drain them and leave to cool.
Put the peas in a food processor with the cream cheese, and chopped mint and season with salt and pepper. Blend everything together. Spoon about 1 teaspoon of the mixture into pastry cases or onto squares of rye bread and top with a small mint leaf.
SAL AMI AND HERB CHEESE ROLLS
These rolls are delicious – small, tasty and herby. But the herb cheese alone, decorated with a sprig of the herb, is also a fine addition to a cheeseboard
250g/9oz/heaped 1 cup soft cream cheese
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 handful of lovage, chervil, dill or ½ handful of winter savory (as it has a strong flavour)
freshly ground black pepper
20 salami slices
Mix the cream cheese, garlic, herbs and seasoning well in a blender. Take a slice of salami, put 2 teaspoons of herbed cheese along the middle and roll up. Repeat with the other slices.
