Fiesta Canapes

Mothers Day Special- Post 1


Mother's Day is coming up and what better way to show your mom how much you love her than cooking her simple yet delicious meal!

This entire week would feature recipes for mother's day. So lets start with a quick and absolutely impossible to mess-up with appetizer- Fiesta Canapes!

Canapes are defined as small bite size appetizers. They are usually made with a small piece of bread or cracker topped with savory or sweet spread. In India, canapes are referred to small bite size cups made out of corn. I remember as a kid this use to be my mom's go to appetizer to serve. She would fill it with some chopped onions, cucumbers, tomatoes and top it with a coriander chutney and date chutney along with sev and freshly chopped coriander as a garnish. YUMMMMM!!!!

As much as I love my mom's recipe, I decided to give her filling recipe a mexican twist! Traditionally, these corn cups are fried to make them crispy before filling them with toppings. However, I decided to bake them to keep it light and healthy. If you don't have these particular canape cups available, you can very well use tortilla cups. The filling consists of a black bean spread topped with fresh chopped salad and drizzled with creamy cilantro dressing. I had black beans on hands, hence I used that. However, the spread would taste equally delicious if made with rajma also known as kidney beans.

The  crunchiness from the baked cups along with the crisp salad and the black bean spread was divine! And to add to the freshness was the creamy dressing. It was a perfect and delicious combination!

So impress you mamma and make her proud by preparing this easy and delicious Fiesta canapes this mothers day! I promise it will be hard for her to resist and eat only one.

Fiesta Canapes

Ingredients:

• 12 canape cups or corn tortilla cups
• Chopped salad: Lettuce, tomato, green onion, corn and chopped cilantro ( you can use vegetable of your preference)
• Cilantro dressing (Recipe below)
• Black bean Spread (Recipe below)

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven at 100C
2. Line the canape cups in a baking tray and bake for 10-15 mins. Keep an eye on it so they don't turn dark.
3. Once ready to serve, add a tsp full of the black bean spread, top it with the chopped salad and drizzle with the dressing. Make sure to eat it as soon as possible to prevent the cups from turn soft.

Cilantro dressing:

• 1 cup of fresh coriander/cilantro
• 1/4 cup hung curd or greek yogurt 
• juice of 1/2 lemon (depending on the size of the lemon)
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• salt to taste

Puree all ingredients in a blender until smooth. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.

Black bean spread:

• 1 cup of cooked black beans/ or rajma (kidney beans)
• 1/2 tbsp cumin powder
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• salt to taste
• water to adjust the consistency
• 2 tsp of taco seasoning if available

Puree all ingredients in a blender until smooth. Add more or less water to get the desired consistency. Alternatively, you can also add garlic, lemon juice, jalepeno peppers if you want. This is a very versatile recipe.