Patrick Bartlett: Cones a Trois

If you want to plan a party a TROIS... I'm your man!

As mentioned in my Sunday post, my former employer and Culinary Queen of Vancouver, B.C. - Nicky Major is in town; she came to the LOFT on Sunday to play with me. We made one of her signature passed Hors d'oeuvres. Actually we did three...

From left - Crab Avocado, Smoked Salmon Shallot, Shrimp with Creme Fraiche

SO LET'S JUMP FOR CONES, METHODS AND AWESOME PICS ...
For starters, let's talk about the cones...

Using the KitchenAid pasta attachment to roll out the bread

I generally use white bread because it's soft and easy to roll out...

The method is simple.

First I trim the crust of the bread, dust each piece with some minced dill, and do an initial roll out with a rolling pin.
Then I run the rolled bread through my pasta roller starting with #1 and ending with #4.
Next I use a biscuit cutter to cut them into circles.
Then I spray them with Pam and encircle them on a metal cone, and place another cone over this to hold the cone shape.
I bake them at 360F for about 8 minutes, or until the bread cones are crisp.

Here are a few pics of the cone process...

Trim the crust off the bread

Final roll out, dusted with dill, after they've been rolled in the KitchenAid.

Encircling the bread on a cone - Then another cone is inserted on top of the bread to hold its shape

Encircling the cone

Nicky inspecting my work while carrying her favorite BIG STICK...

That looks about right...

And the little beauties waiting to for their payloads

Cones ready for action

AND NOW FOR THE FILLINGS.

SHRIMP with dill, lemon zest, a touch of lemon juice, cracked pepper, a pinch of salt, and Creme Fraiche...

Shrimp Chopping Commences

Of course the handy micro-plane YOU ALL OWN NOW is the perfect tool for zesting...

Lemon Zest and Dill Ready

Combine it all in a bowl...

All it needs now is the Creme Fraiche, a touch of lemon juice and a dash of salt

Add a tablespoon or two of Creme Fraiche...

Shrimp with Dill, Mixed

SALMON mixed with shallots, dill, cracked pepper and capers, starting with trimming anything ugly off the salmon...

Nicky trimming the salmon

Then the salmon was cut into small pieces and we added capers, shallots, dill and cracked black pepper...

Salmon getting mixed up

Of COURSE, we had to have fortification while doing these delicate maneuvers...

New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc

CRAB - The final of the three, with avocado and grapefruit -we used oranges in ours because I thought I was buying grapefruit, but they were some huge type of oranges instead... TRADER JOE'S and mislabeling... JEEEZ!