The art of canapés

A favorite for our family and friends gatherings, the canapés are finger food to welcome guests. They are of French origins, canapé means sofa in French and refers to the analogy that the garnish sits atop the bread as people do a couch! It is a decorative colorful and tasty piece of bread with garnish that can be eaten in a bite. The preparation is only limited to our imagination, we can put all kinds of taste and colors on top of the "pain de mie" (toast bread).

Ingredients

• Bread: usually white bread but you can use multigrains or other types of sliced bread too.
• Salted butter

Topping

• Vegetables / fruits: cherry tomatoes, pepper bells of different colors, carrots of different colors, green apple, cucumbers, tip of the asparagus, star fruits. All either thinly sliced or cut into small dices.
• Fish and Meat: Ham, parma ham, liver pate, tuna pate, foie gras, smoked salmon, salmon roes
• Cheese (mozarella, burrata, gruyere, Comte, goat cheese)
• Spreads: pesto, bruschetta, eggplants spread, aioli, mayonnaise, mustard, tapenade (olives)
• Condiments: cornichons, green olives, black olives, capers, boiled egg

Preparation

- Cut the crust of the toast bread and discard (we dry them to use as breadcrumbs in other recipes)

- Cut into four pieces

- Spread thinly the salted butter onto the bread

- Marry taste and colors for the toppings.

For our New Year's party, we prepared different types of canapes (protein, spread, vegetable, condiment):

1. Prosciutto, bruschetta, peppercorn, cornichon
2. Ham, mustard, cucumber, green olive
3. Pate de campagne, cucumber, black olives
4. liver spread, cherry tomato, green olive
5. Tuna, cherry tomato, cornichon
6. Smoked salmon, Burrata, cucumber
7. Grilled garlic bread, eggs, apple, capers
8. Pesto, Burrata, capers
9. Eggplant spread, apple, black olive
10. Pesto, Burrrata, star fruit, capers
11. Pesto, asparagus, fish roe, capers

Cover the canapes with a plastic film until guests arrive as the bread and topping can dry up quickly. This is also the reason why we always spread the salted butter on every piece of bread, even if we have pesto or a second type of spread on top of the butter.