During festivities and parties, I’ve used this pseudo-guacamole as a base for a few appetizers with ingredients that go well with the horseradish flavour. The base serves as a dip and as an anchor for the decorative edibles.
How to make horseradish “guacamole”
Simple. Just mash a few avocados and add lemon juice immediately so it stays green. (If left without lemon the avocado will get brown). Grate some horseradish root and stir into the avocado. How much will depend on your tolerance for spice. I taste it and try to fit it to the average tolerance of my guests (not too spicy). That’s all! You can add salt of course, but it is not necessary if you are using it with marinated fish or similar salty ingredients.
Below are two examples of appetizers with this dip.
Marinated herring appetizer
I buy a jar of marinated herring. Set the guacamole in the middle of the platter following its shape.
For my Christmas dinner this year I used roasted sliced potatoes (one can use boiled too) and cucumber slices to set the herring pieces on. Due to lack of time and space in my head it was very simple arrangement around the guacamole with strips of coloured peppers as garnish.
In the past I used a bit more sophisticated arrangement. In the picture above, I have the herring over marinated beets, baby greens, radishes, dill and capers on the top of the guacamole and little quail eggs scattered around.
I used this type of presentation during an Easter celebration, but it can be used for any occasion.
If you don’t like horseradish you can make or buy real guacamole. You also can use hummus instead.
Baby potatoes stuffed with fish roe
Shown on the above photo is another use of horseradish guacamole.
I boiled baby potatoes (red and white) and after they cooled, cut off the tops and stuffed them with fish roe. Used black roe here, but depending on your other ingredients and colour contrast you can use red too. I arranged slices of cucumbers, radishes, apples and even banana circles, little tomatoes and olives on the top of the guacamole and added some greens and garnished with sprigs of mint and thyme.
Arranged the potatoes around and added some Bulgarian dry sausages. Both ends have a few cherry tomato skewers (use a tomato, olive and or small bocconcini cheese ball on a toothpick).
Using a dip as an anchor for appetizers can go a long way. If you know what main ingredients complement each other you can mix and match a huge variety of pretty plates. For example, you can use roasted pepper and eggplant dip together with dry meats.
If you don’t have time to arrange a fancy plate, just do it in a simple way as in the photo above. This is a dish with Bulgarian dry meats (pastarma and filet Elena), salami and a Bulgarian dip called pinjur (Turkish word used in a few Balkan countries), lutenica (Bulgarian) or peppetiser (Anglicised version), depending where it is sold. A word of caution: the salsa (aka seafood sauce) sold in Canada and used for shrimp dip, although the same colour, does not go well with dry meats.
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