Cocktails & Canapes for Women's World Cup 2015: Norway

Tonight Norway ladies face Germany which could be quite a difficult game for Norway so I'm taking a Nordic theme and shaking up a fairly strong Fjord cocktail. The canape consists of smoked salmon on a rye cracker with a horseradish cream topping. These flavours really go well together so long as the horseradish cream is not made up too heavy on the horseradish.

Fjord Cocktail

30 ml cognac

10 ml aquavit
10 ml orange juice
10 ml lime juice

5 ml grenadine syrup
Ice Cubes

Shake all of the ingredients with ice and pour into a cocktail glass.

Garnish with a slice of orange.

Smoked salmon and horseradish cream on rye crackers

Small rye crackers or small slices of rye sourdough bread

Smoked Salmon

Creme fraiche (full fat)

Horseradish cream

Herb garnish such as dill

Make a horseradish cream by stirring grated/creamed horseradish into full fat creme fraiche to get a clear but not overly hot flavour of horseradish.

Lay slivers of smoked salmon onto each cracker, spoon a small amount of horseradish cream onto each and garnish with dill/watercress/parsley as desired.

I made rye crackers using a recipe from Dan Lepard but it can seem like a lot of work if you just want a few. The Peter's Yard rye crispbreads (left in picture above) are quite tasty but also quite large. To make it easier to cut up crackers I place a few in a warm oven for a few moments and when they are just warming and becoming pliable whip them out and cut them quickly with a sharp chef knife. This has to be done quickly while they are still warm, much like shaping brandy snaps.

Rye Crackers

250g rye flour & extra flour for rolling out

1 tsp sugar

0.5 tsp baking powder

1 tsp fine sea salt

25g unsalted butter

150 milk (I used a yoghurt/milk mix)

Oven 180C

Lined baking trays

Rub the butter into the dry ingredients and then form into a stiff dough with the milk.

You can roll these out as neat or rough as you like. On this occasion I was trying to be neat. I was also trying to get dimples with my much loved crispbread rolling pin. You need to get them thinner than I managed or they will be a bit hard and tough I am afraid.

There are some useful comments about getting them crisp over here on blog miskcooks

Place the crackers onto lined baking sheets and bake at 180 for approx 10 mins. You are baking until the crackers just start to colour around the edges. Watch them carefully as they go from under baked to burnt rather too quickly, speaking from experience, don't look in the bin!