It has just come to my attention that I owed you guys a blog post from a loooooong time ago. It was mentioned on one of those ToDo type of posts, and I’d totally forgotten about this.
This is one of my to-go appetizers. Super easy to make, and really yummy. No cooking involved (unless you want to make it complicated).
The ingredients are pretty straightforward:
- Smoked salmon.
- Salmon roe – buy it at an Asian supermarket and it will be much cheaper that way.
- Sour cream – you can substitute for creme fraiche and it will probably be better.
- Chopped chives – optional, they’re mostly a garnish.
- Some sort of thin bread like base. I like to buy a baguette and slice it thinly. Blinis will work as long as they have the right consistency to hold them together. I once made mini pancakes omitting the sugar in the batter and adding dried onions and chopped chives – they pancakes were great, but their flavor didn’t really shine through the strong salmon flavor, so probably not worth the effort.
And the one and only step is to assemble them. Trying to make them pretty.
My way goes: bread -> Smoked salmon on top -> blob of sour cream -> salmon roe on top of that -> sprinkle with chopped dill.
These are not small dainty one bite creatures; but rather two bite make-sure-the-cream-doesn’t-slide-off yummy pieces of salty salmony heaven. Or if you don’t care about looking graceful you can stuff the whole thing in your mouth. I’ve been known to do it with leftovers.
Depending on how much smoked salmon you have, it might not be enough to use up the whole bottle of roe, so you can make more just with the rest of the ingredients. They’ll be delicious either way – I just like how the bright salty pop of the roe in your mouth complements the smoked salmon.
Though if you go for version 2, don’t make the same mistake I did in keeping the size of the bread the same as for version 1. These should be smaller – one bite.
These little canapes are also fun to assemble with friends, conveyor line style. One person takes care of cutting up the smoked salmon, another spoons the cream, someone else spoons the roe, and a last person to sprinkle the dill and eat those that don’t look so pretty. Just make sure that last person is you.