The Good Rabbi's Blog

Before I get into what I designed, and how I put it together, let me give you some information on how this whole project is judged. Canapés are judged based on five criteria: size (has to be bite size, no more than a two-bite serving), colour (or more accurately a balance of colours), texture (or more accurately a balance of textures), shape (i.e. how clean is it - does it look like it will fall apart when picked up? Does it actually fall apart?), and most importantly, taste (because this is a bite-sized serving, the flavour has to be markedly present, and represent a good balance).

In my last post, I mentioned that I was going to do a duck confit canapé with my orange-balsamic-maple reduction that I use for my cedar smoked salmon. This dish has been a HUGE hit, and has even won over my friend Peter, who is naturally very suspicious of anything that isn't sausage. Well, in the final ingredient sweep, when we gathered what we needed for production, I noticed that a lot was missing. The duck confit was missing, the oranges, and the maple syrup were also missing. This was a MAJOR problem.

So, I modified things a bit. I managed to find some blood oranges, some smoked duck breast, and some brown sugar. I mixed this up into a mighty fine tasting sauce, thickened it with some slurry (cornstarch and water), and was on my way. Then I ran into a problem. The canapé design called for this sauce to be placed onto crostini, with the smoked duck breast arranged on top, along with a pistachio and a mandarin orange segment (both of which were for colour and texture contrast, as well as for garnish). The sauce was soaking into the toasted bread, which would have made me lose serious points for the "shape" category (as it wasn't clean).

Looking around the kitchen, I found some spare gelatin, added it, and made the sauce into a "jelly" consistency. I arranged the jelly into quenelles (little football-shaped cylinders), arranged my duck breast, pistachios, and orange segments, and took it over to the judging table on a decorated tray. Result? BAM!! An A. As the lady says in that Honey Bunches of Oats commercial, it's like a mouth full of joy... I nailed the flavour component right on. The only comment was that I could have toasted my crostini a little longer.

Well, I've also put together a compendium of photos that show my work in this class. If I can say so, my team kicked some ass in this class. We have some great looking trays. Pictures of my team's work can be found here.