Little Bites (Pre-Cocktail)

Hello Fonders!  Sorry for the lack of posts in the last fortnight.  I had two problems - my computer caught a wicked virus, and a rebuild proved more attractive than surgery.  Of course a rebuild takes a lot of time to do the recovery, but now your dear old Ecumer is almost back up to speed.  And once I get Doom and Civ II installed again I'll be right.  The other problem is that we had not one but two Truffle Dinner Parties this year, and they were on the last two weekends.  Problems like that I can live with, but they do slow down the posts.  So between beaucoup truffles and backup drives I've been busy.  Here are some little tastes to keep you interested.

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with this post.

We went off to cocktail night at Cafe Vue in the last week of July, and one of the things that most people say is that the cocktails are brilliant and the food is brilliant, but the food is too small to make a meal.  So we thought we'd top up our tanks with a little snackie beforehand (and maybe a wee glassie or so of the bubbly).



It was a Friday night after work, and I had to come up with some tasty treats that could be prepared and presented in about an hour without access to fancy groceries (where fancy groceries is anything that the Coles Express on Elizabeth Street wouldn't have).  Oh, and two of the Six Cocktailers are vegetarian, and one of the others doesn't eat fish.  But cheese is good, as you will see below, and so I'm glad (for catering purposes only) that none of my homies are vegan any more.


Pea and Ricotta Tostadas

I'm using tostada in the Spanish sense of course, of being a tapas served on toasted bread rather than the Mexican sense of a dish served on a toasted tortilla.

- cook some frozen peas (not minted) according to the packet directions.  Cool in a bowl of cold water, drain, then mash with a potato masher until coarsely mashed - the peas should be able to hold together from their mashedness.

- finely slice one or two salted lemon eighths (discarding the flesh and just using the peel) and mix in with the peas

- take some toasted slices of baguette or batard and spread with a little ricotta.

- top with the pea and preserved lemon mixture.

- season generously with salt and pepper and serve.

You will get sweet pea flavours, smooth creamy textured cheese, and a tad of exotic acid from the lemons.  No preserved lemons?  Use some lemon zest.

Mushroom and Blue Cheese Tostadas

- preheat your oven to 150 C or your grill to medium hot
- melt some butter in a hot frypan and saute a whole bunch of sliced Swiss Brown mushrooms with a little dried thyme or  rosemary until cooked.  But be careful not to overcook them so the moisture comes out and they get runny.  Don't overcrowd the pan.
- top some toasted slices of baguette or batard with some blue cheese.  Cook in the oven or under the grill until soft, maybe a little bubbly, so long as you don't burn the bread.
- top the bread and cheese with the mushrooms.

And you will get nice chewy, meaty, earthy mushrooms with richness, saltiness and a bit of bite from the cheese.  I used a mild blue brie because, well, it was pre-cocktails and I didn't want super-strong flavours to be messing with everyone's palates. 

If you want to do the healthy version of the mushrooms, spray them with just enough olive oil to coat instead of cooking in butter.  You may need to use a non-stick pan if you do that.

Normally I would say to slat mushrooms while cooking but blue cheese is normally quite salty.  If you're using one that isn't salty you probably want to add salt.

Roast Pumpkin, Persian Fetta and Pistachio Tostadas

- warm your oven up to about 150 C.  Take a butternut pumpkin, peel and cut into small pieces about an inch in size; don't worry about what shape they are.

- toss in a little olive oil and cook until cooked through and showing a little brown.  That should take about 45 minutes but check after about 30.

- drain and crumble some Persian fetta

- shell, remove the skin from and then roughly chop some nice fresh pistachios.  I'm not sure they came from Coles now that I think of it.

- mash the pumpkin very lightly, again just so that it will hold together.

- top some toasted baguette or batard with the pumpkin then sprinkle with a little cheese and some chopped pistachios.

Sweet mild pumpkin with a little caramelised browning action going on, smooth cheese with a lot of flavour, and nice crisp nuts.  Normally I would cook the pumpkin with a little rosemary, but I think there was enough strong flavour from the cheese and nuts.  As I said before, I didn't want to overload the flavour profile of these little snacks.

All of these are nice at room temperature if you want to pre-prepare them, but I do suggest serving the mushroom and the pumpkin ones warm.  They will happily stand a little reheating in a warm oven.

And then we went off to Cafe Vue for cocktails ... but that's another post.  Soon, really!

Happy tostadas,

Ecumer