Appetizer recipes?
Me and my girlfriend are hosting a small gathering for New Years and I’m looking for a good party appetizer recipe that’s either vegetarian or fish-related.
For me and the likely few carnivores in attendance I’m going to do up a beef tenderloin on focaccia toast with spicy mayo, but need an alternative.
You guys got any favorites?
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I always love doing seared tuna. Just get a nice tuna steak, salt and pepper on each side and let it sit for a bit. Then coat with sesame seeds and throw on a smoking-hot pan for about 15-30 seconds on each side (basically, just long enough to toast the sesame seeds real nice).
Take it off the head and let it rest.
In another pot, heat up some soy sauce, ginger, honey, and butter. Use fresh soy sauce and ginger, if you can. Soy sauce goes bad and will get kind of acrid and require more honey and butter to taste good. Fresh ginger is always better. Just let it reduce and keep adding soy, ginger, honey, or butter to taste. Let the sauce reduce till it thicky coats the back of a spoon.
Slice up your tuna into thin strips and fan out onto a place, drizzle the sauce over the tuna, eat.
Or amazing cocktail shrimp:
Get some jumbo shrimps, raw and shell-on. It’s very important that the shell is on because it adds a shit-ton of flavor. Get some little grooming scissors and cut down the back of each shrimp, running it under water or holding it in a bowl of water to remove the vein down the back. While you’re doing this, run your fingers between the meat and the shell a bit, not to so much remove the shell, but just to make sure it isn’t sticking to the meat at all.
Turn your oven’s broiler on.
Spread the shrimp out on a single later on a baking pan and season (you could do salt and pepper or, my favorite, a bit of old-bay). Put the shrimp under the broiler for NO MORE THAN TWO MINUTES. The shells should brown up nicely. Flip and do another two minutes.
Peel and eat hot or stick ’em in the fridge and serve cold with cocktail sauce.
Pepperidge Farms Goldfish — they’re vegetarian AND fish related.
Crudo! If you can get your hands on the David Pasternack book, great. I’ve made most of the recipes in there, but this was my favorite so far:
Get some light white fish (usually yellowtail or striped bass) filets sliced sushi-thin and spread out nicely on a plate. Give a squirt of lemon, a drizzle of really high quality extra-virgin-olive oil, sprinkle some good sea salt (big chunks, mind you, not little iodized salt crystals) and fresh ground pepper. In a small bowl, get some radish and sea beans, if you can find ’em, (sugar snap peas work just as well) cut into matchsticks. Drizzle with lemon and lime and let sit for a minute or so and stir. Spoon the “salad” over the fish and serve.
My beloved veggie pan-fried wontons:
- Wonton wraps (nasoya makes some that you can find at any grocery store, but they aren’t awesome. the best ones come from the asian market.)
- Cashews
- Peanuts
- Sesame Oil
- Chili Oil
- Minced Ginger
- Minced Garlic
- Morningstar Grillers Crumbles (or comparable filling – i have used many fillings)
You’re also going to need some kind of chopper (GET TO THE CHOPPA). I have an electric chopper that works quite well.
1. Chop up a mixture of peanuts, cashews, and soy meat stuff. I usually go a little more than 1/3rd tofu and then the rest is an equal amount of peanuts and cashews. I dump in about 1 tablespoon of ginger and 1/2 tablespoon of garlic when I chop it. If it looks like it needs to be a little more moist, I’ll add a bit of honey.
2. Put 1 tablespoon of chopped up goodness in each wrap. Fold ‘em up and seal them with water.
3. Pan fry them in a mixture of sesame and chili oil (if you want them REALLY spicy, for 1/2 and 1/2… otherwise, use like 20% chili oil and 80% sesame). Keep flipping them so they’re a consistent golden brown. Should take a couple minutes of frying, depending on how hot your pan is.
FOOD
I will second Bill’s wontons. I am a massive carnivore, but good fucking god are those wontons good.
Heidi said:Pepperidge Farms Goldfish—they’re vegetarian AND fish related.
Yesssss. Actually i think I might do the tuna and the wontons, both of which sound awesome and would cover all my bases. Muchos Gracias.
true story, wontons are delicious. and if you have extra wrappers, just fry them in the oil alone and suddenly you have the delicious greasy fried noodle things that you get in bowls at crappy chinese restaurants. so good.
Super easy, and no matter how fancy I go with other hors d’ouvres, this always goes first
Fresh Mozz (get the good stuff, go to a cheese shop)
Roma Tomatos
Fresh Basil
Olive oil
any other spices you want…
I take a small casserole-style dish and alternate slices of tomato and the cheese then I mince up the basil, sprinkle it over(this is where you add in any other herbs or spices you may want), then drizzle it with the olive oil.
Serve with crostini, or any other small bread-y thing. It’s awesome. AND sincce it’s cold, you don’t have to worry about keeping it warm
That’s called caprese, Julia. It’s one of the principle food trios in a lot of italian food.
How did these turn out, Steve?
The tuna was excellent and simple, so thank you for that. I ended up nixing the wontons because unbeknownst to me, my girlfriend decided to make some homemade falafel, eliminating the need for a veggie recipe (we only had like 6 people over).
They do sound delicious though, so I think I might try those out this weekend.