Antipasto literally means before the meal, referring to a dish or dishes that are designed to open up one’s appetite and are served before the main dish. In French it’s is called the entrée (entry dish) and in English it is usually referred to as an appetiser, starter or first course.
Antipasti (plural) can be literally anything that your host decides is appropriate to serve before the main course in the hope that it will set you in a good mood and appetite for the dishes that will follow.
The accompanying picture shows an antipasto platter I created this week: it includes rolled gravlax filled with cream cheese with lemon zest, aioli, stuffed zucchini, baked eggplant, thyme-roasted sweet potato, roasted and peeled red peppers, broccolini and pan-tossed mushroom, garlic, cherry tomato and olives seasoned with balsamic vinegar. That numbers seven or eight different recipes that will help to flesh out this post for a while longer.
The curing of fresh salmon with coarse salt, sugar and herbs and spices is a Swedish novelty and its recipe is contained in an earlier post.
Ingredients:
- 200 g gravlax
- 150 g cream cheese (25-35% fat content)
- Salt and pepper
- Zest of one lemon
- Dill for decorating
- Cling wrap
- Piping bag
- Very sharp knife
Method:
Mix cream cheese in small bowl with the lemon zest, add a small pinch of salt and pepper and spoon into piping bag. Return to fridge.
Slice the gravlax as thin as you are able. Place the slices on a square of pre-cut cling wrap on your work surface with a slight overlap of the cut salmon slices, creating a rectangle of salmon with the slices perpendicular to yourself. When cutting the salmon cut at an angle to make the surface of each slice wider.
Using scissors, cut a two-centimetre hole at the end of the piping bag and pipe out a even line of cream cheese along the edge of the salmon closest to you.
Gently roll up the salmon into a roll using the cling wrap. Once rolled up, take each end of the cling wrap and gently roll on the bench top: this will tighten the salmon tube. Place in the fridge for an hour to settle, then slice, plate and decorate with a sprig of dill.
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