10 Amazing Appetizers and Canapés - Christmas Special

Christmas lunches and dinners are very special in general, but for me there is something that stands out in particular and that is the appetizers and canapes. I literally dream about them for the rest of the year. So in this video I am going to show you 10 very original canapes, but easy to make to improve your dinner, but without it being too much work. The first appetizer or canape is going to be a scallop tartare that we will serve on a slice of lime and it couldn't be simpler. Use fresh scallops, as they have superior flavor and separate the muscle, which is the white and round part of the gonad, which is the orange part. And as a curious fact, the scallop is a sermaphrodite and the orange part of the gonad is its female reproductive system and the whiter part is the male. Cut the muscle into strips and then into squares and prepare a dressing made with a tablespoon of miso, a tablespoon of honey and a tablespoon of lemon juice. Mix the dressing with the scallop meat and plate it on some thick slices of lime. The acid in the lime will gently cook the scallop meat. Finish the bite with lime zest and it will flake off. And be careful when you eat it, don't squeeze the juice in your eye like I did. Every good Christmas dinner has to include a dish with smoked salmon, but you have to give it a twist. Bimbo bread with Philadelphia and salmon is a thing of the past, so let's make some potato toasts and they're going to be incredible. The first thing we'll do is grate the potatoes over a bath of cold water so they don't oxidize. Then we drain them, add a few tablespoons of cornstarch and salt and mix it all together. To cook it, put a frying pan over medium heat with oil and two knobs of butter. When it melts and bubbles, add a layer of potatoes. Add a little of the liquid left in the bowl as the starches will help them hold their shape. Shape it into a round shape and add a little oil to the surface so that it doesn't oxidize. Cook it over medium heat for about 15 minutes, turning it like an omelet so that it's golden and crispy on both sides. Now you can cut it into squares and assemble it with a spoonful of smoked creme fraiche, shallots and eno. This is a classic and it's a classic for a reason. It's incredible. Dinner also includes a legendary blini, but this time with a different topping than usual. We'll make it by first shredding some stewed quail, which can be pickled, but I recommend eating it plain as the vinegar makes it too sour for my taste in this dish. Once shredded, we heat it with a little of its cooking liquid and add a couple of spoonfuls of duck foie gras, which will be incorporated with the heat. As for the blinis, they are made by mixing water, eggs, honey, baking soda, salt and flour and blending everything together with a blender and transferring it to a blender bottle to make it easier to distribute. Cook them in a pan brushed with butter over low heat until bubbles appear on the surface. Flip them over and finish cooking them. To finish them off, we are going to sear some quail eggs. They always open at the widest part. Cook them in a pan with oil over medium heat and plate the blini with the quail with foa and the egg. An impressive and super easy bite. The next canapé is a mix of cultures. Well, I don't know if it's really Chinese, but it's from some Asian country that makes these fried shrimp sandwiches that look incredible. And I'm going to make it with something very typical of Christmas in Spain, which is prawns, and we're going to make an impressive lil' sandwich seared in butter. Let's start with the filling. Simply blend the prawns with a tablespoon of fish sauce, another tablespoon of soy sauce, another tablespoon of chopped spring onion and two tablespoons of cornstarch. Blend until a paste forms and transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper to prevent sticking. Place in the freezer to set its shape and be portioned. In the meantime, flatten the bread until it is very thin and trim the edges to make it that way. After about an hour in the freezer, the dough will still be soft but will hold its shape, making it perfect for slicing. Cut it to the same size as the bread. First, make the top and then the bottom. Finally, cut into squares. To cook it, cook it on a kebab stove over medium heat so that it toasts and has time to defrost and cook on the inside. It should be very golden brown and crispy. Serve with Japanese mayonnaise and trout roe. This bit is a gem. Last month I created a website to help you find the perfect knife and I'm happy to share that I'm teaming up with Odo again, but this time to help you find the perfect holiday gift. In case you missed the previous video, OD is an all-in-one management platform with multiple applications and one of my favorites is the website builder and I used this tool to create my site that I called Materials a Vocal Mache. The best thing is how easy it is to use ODU, you don't need any technical knowledge. But at the same time, it's super easy and I'm always surprised by the amount of customization options available. For example, for this new video I'm going to expand on it with a Christmas section. The system gives you a wide list of pre-made blocks to structure your page and then you can customize it however you like, with text, images, color, whatever you need. And if you're lacking inspiration or time, don't worry, because with its artificial intelligence function you can generate or modify text very easily. And if you want your website to be in different languages, artificial intelligence can also transform it for you in a matter of seconds. I mentioned it before, but I'll say it again. ODU's website builder is the most complete one I've found so far, and the first application you use is free for life with unlimited hosting and support. And they offer a domain name for a year. Thanks to ODU for giving us such incredible tools. Try it by clicking on the link in the description. And now let's continue with these appetizers. And the next one is another gem, some toasts of brioche seared in butter with a tartar of cecina and figs. A Christmas madness. We start by cutting the cecina first into strips and then into squares of approximately half a centimeter. And with the figs, what we do is crush them to flatten them and cut them into squares as well. We mix these with the cecina and we will have a great contrast between sweet and salty. We'll keep the dressing very classic with an egg yolk, a teaspoon of chopped shallot, another of chopped caper, another of old-fashioned mustard, juice of half a lemon, pepper, soy sauce, which I forgot, and gradually emulsify with oil until it has the texture of a sauce. We'll cut the brioche into toasts, trimming the edges and browning them in butter so that they're crispy and caramelized. Serve with a little ricotta or matto on the base and the dressed tartar at the last moment, putting a generous amount on each one. Finally, I added some slices of gherkin and some basil leaves. The next appetizer is some super Christmas empanadillas and let's start with the filling. Put the apple, caramelized onion, ham and basil in a food processor and blend the mixture until it's smooth and has the texture of minced meat. Next, roll out the empanada dough, fill them with a teaspoon of the mixture, a small piece of mozzarella and fluff them with a fork. To bake them, place them on a baking sheet with paper and oil on the base. This is important so that they toast on the bottom as well. Brush them with egg and bake them at 200 for about 10 minutes or until they are toasted and crispy. Finally, place them on a rack so that they do not get wet on the bottom. Well, they turned out very well. The truth is that if we did not put oil on the base, as I said, they would be much softer and this way they are very consistent. So I am very happy. Let's see how it turns out on the inside. It is very tasty, very delicate, very fine, as it is a mixture with very small pieces. But the flavor is very good, very good. It all comes together very well, I really recommend it. Very good. The next appetizer is going to be a well-known Christmas legend. We are going to make a crab, but in a very special way. We are going to make some crab spring rolls. To do this, first, sauté a shallot, a carrot and a leek in a frying pan with oil, chopped very finely so that they do not stand out in the final result. When they are tender, add a teaspoon of sweet paprika and another of shishimi togarashi, a mixture of Japanese spices and chilies. Sauté and add the tomato paste and white vermouth, which will give it a sweet touch. Flambe if you want and reduce to dry before adding the crushed tomatoes and cooking the mixture until it becomes a paste. We mix this stir-fry with the crab or crab meat, choose whichever you prefer, which I had previously removed, adding it little by little until reaching the perfect stir-fry point. Finally, I added soy sauce, lime zest and juice, and basil to give it a different appearance than usual. As for the dough, I used brick pastry, but I was wrong, there is a special one for spring rolls that I will leave in the description and is much crispier. The technique is the same, cut the dough into rectangles, put the filling in the center and roll it up, first tucking the ends in so that it is like a little package. To cook them, brush them with oil and put them in the airfryer or in the oven at 190, until they are crispy. You can also fry them and they are spectacular. The next one is one of the simplest there is. A caramelized onion, sobrasada, pear, blue cheese and honey button pastry. But I am not exaggerating when I tell you that it is the best thing I have eaten lately. Spread out a sheet of button pastry and spread the caramelized onion on the base, covering almost the entire surface. And now, trying to cover the gaps, spread the blue cheese, the sobrasada and the pear, all cut into more or less the same size. Finally, add the honey and bake at 180 degrees for 15 minutes or until it is toasted. With the cheese and sobrasada melted and the pear super soft. Cut it into small squares and you can serve it. Boom! And speaking of easy and delicious dishes, this one is no exception. All you have to do is cut some hard-boiled eggs in half for 8 minutes, remove the yolk and mash it in a bowl together with a whole hard-boiled egg and add the tuna and a generous amount of Japanese mayonnaise that I told you is called chupi and is the best there is. It is one of the few that I buy ready-made. Transfer the mixture to a piping bag with a star nozzle to decorate and fill the eggs. Finish them off with chopped piquillo peppers. This is something very classic, but this mayonnaise really takes it to the next level. And finally, I've saved the easiest one for last. An anchovy toast with butter, which you might say is a bit weak, right? But no, not at all. This appetizer can be seen more and more on the menus of good restaurants and the combination of it is truly surprising. Simply cut the toast, put a small piece of block or whipped butter on top and an anchovy on top. It really is heavenly. I hope that out of the 10 there are at least 3 that you want to make and try this Christmas. So enjoy them and enjoy the It's so good to eat. I have two things in the fridge. I'm very full now, I don't want to eat anymore.