Amuse Bouche, Hors d'oeuvre, Appetizers, Small Bites - Creative Cooking Crew Challenge.

I make hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of appetizers a year. I am always trying to come up with new ones that are both efficient to make, eye catching and above all delicious. 

My newest one is this - a mini scallion pancake with smoked duck, caviar limes and basil seeds with a drop of hoisin. Simple, complex flavors and visually striking - this is the first time I have made these so I will tweak them a bit more before I am completely happy. Below you will see the myriad of appetizers I can make for you - if you want a recipe or a process for any individual one you see leave me a message in the comments and I will certainly oblige you.

Potato Cup with Tuna Tartare

Fig and Goat Cheese Tart

Smoked Duck Quesadillas

Sesame Crab Salad in a Tart Cup

Polenta Bites with Wild Mushroom and Sundried Tomato

Mini Beggars Purse with Pea Pesto (Gluten Free)

Assortment of Mini Savory Tartlets

Quesadilla with Green Apple

Herbed Cream Cheese and Fig Tart

Cucumber Bites with Tuna Salad

Butternut Squash Soup with Sage Cream and Huckleberry Coulis

Caprese Spoon - Grape Tomatoes, Mozzarella and Olive Oil Powder

Beets with Smoked Salmon and Scallions on Endive Leaves

Sweet Goat Cheese and Figs 

 

Herbed Goat Cheese and Figs

Potato Crisp with Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

Mini Crab Cakes with Remolaude 

Zucchini Involtini

Latkas with Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

Grilled Peach Tart with Manchego and Pine Nuts

Spring Pea Soup with Carrot Puree

Potato Samosas

Grilled Plums with Pistachio and Manchego Tart

Mini Lobster Rolls

Chicken Satay with Spicy Mango Salsa

Mini Burgers

Spring Rolls

Zucchini Involtini

Figs with Herbed Goat Cheese and Mint

Grilled Yam and Plantain with Creme Fraiche and Maguey Sweet Sap

Watermelon, Cucumber and Feta

Watermelon, Cucumber and Feta

Coconut Shrimp with a Pineapple Mayonnaise 

One Simple Shucked Oyster with Mignonette

Orange-Ginger Mignonette

A mignonette is typically a vinegar sauce served with oysters or clams, many will argue that an oyster needs nothing at all and I am often inclined to agree with that but once you taste this sauce you will want it on all of your seafood.

Orange-Ginger Mignonette

3/4 c Fresh orange juice
1 c rice wine vinegar
2 tb Minced ginger
1 tb Minced garlic
1/4 tp minced thai red chile (the hotter the better)
1 tb Agave syrup
1/2 c Minced green onion
1 tb orange zest
Salt; to taste
Freshly-ground black pepper;

Mix all ingredients together and let it sit for 30 minutes for the flavors to meld.


Spoon over freshly shucked raw oysters or even your favorite poached, fried or broiled fish. We had this sweet, tangy, spicy deliciousness on oysters and whole fried fish.

Melange

Any time I get to speak french I jump at the opportunity, not that I speak french or anything but who doesnt like to say french words, so today it is a melange of unrelated things. First of those is nopalitos. Nopales are the leaves, if you could call them that, from the prickly pear cactus. People do different things with them but I simply slice them into strips and then flour egg and bread crumbs and fry. They are tasty and okra like.



Then it is more mushrooms, since I found mushroomlandia I have hit the mother lode of wine cap mushrooms, they are so much tastier than portobellas and they are wild, plus they will keep coming back up until October. These are not wine caps these are entylomas and they are poisonious but they look nice. The wine caps are below.




Then it was two dozen oysters on the half shell with lime, horseradish and hot sauce. Sweet, succulent and briney all the qualities of a good oyster.



Oh and cherries, tons of cherries. we did our own cold stone creamery by freezing a marble slab and then mixing custardy fresh made vanilla ice cream with pitted cherries. Who needs to go anywhere?