Smoked salmon mousse canapes

For the Easter celebrations, I did a smoked salmon mousse served on crostini as canapes. To me this is a very Scandinavian dish, with a traditional combination of smoked salmon, dill and lemon. To make it more festive, you can top the canapes with caviar, I used red caviar, which comes from lumpfish (stenbit), and sea roe, which comes from the capelin fish (lodda). In Sweden, you can buy jars of different types of caviar in every supermarket and it is used in a lot of different seafood dishes. The most common type of caviar sold in Sweden though is smoked cod roe, this is sold in tubes (Kalles kaviar) and a popular spread on crisp bread or on boiled eggs. I love Kalles kaviar, I can eat it as it is directly from the tube... It is one of the things I really can get serious cravings for.

In the UK, caviar is not as common, I usually only find the red or black from lumpfish at Waitrose, or I buy it from one of the Swedish shops, Scandinavian kitchen or Totally Swedish. Not everyone I served caviar to has really liked it though, I remember once when I still worked at KCL, when to celebrate finally publishing a paper, I brought cava and canapes with red caviar to work. The only people that really liked it where from Luxembourg, Russia, Scandinavia and France....

Anyhow, caviar is delicious, and if you get a chance you should try it. However it's actually not an ingredient in this salmon mousse, so don't worry if you're not a caviar fiend. This is an incredibly quick and easy festive dish, done in minutes.

Smoked salmon mousse canapes (around 30)
200 g smoked salmon, finely chopped/minced
150 g philadelphia cheese
0.5 dl creme fraiche
1 dl dill, finely chopped
0.5 dl chives, finely chopped
0.5-1 lemon, juice and zest
1 small pinch of chili flakes or cayenne pepper, or a few drops of Tabasco sauce
1 pinch of black pepper
salt

Stir together the smoked salmon, soft cheese, creme fraiche and herbs. If you want a smoother texture and pinker colour, you can mix it using stick blender but I like it a bit coarser

Add chili flakes/cayenne/Tabasco and black pepper, and the zest from half a lemon and a squeeze of lemon juice. Taste, and add more lemon, salt, and pepper if necessary

Serve on for example crostini or crackers, or you could serve this on crisp lettuce leaves as well. Garnish with caviar, dill, chives, slices of smoked salmon or lemon