Cheese-and-Garlic Tartlets with Crab Sticks
Striking, beautiful, zesty — perfect for a holiday table! These cheese-and-garlic tartlets with crab sticks are an original appetizer that's quick and easy to make for a celebration. Your guests are sure to notice not only the wonderful taste but also its interesting look.
Cooking method
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Step 1:
How do you make cheese-and-garlic tartlets with crab sticks? First, make the filling. Gather the ingredients for it. You can use either crab sticks or crab meat, as I did. If they were frozen, thaw them and remove the film. A cream cheese such as Hochland, Almette, or Cremette works well.
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Step 2:
Put the crab meat in a blender and blend it to a smooth purée.
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Step 3:
Wash the dill, dry it, and chop it finely. Peel the garlic and press it through a garlic press.
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Step 4:
In a small bowl, combine the cream cheese, blended crab meat, minced garlic, and dill. Salt the mixture (carefully — both the cheese and meat are already fairly salty), pepper it, and mix. You can mix it to a uniform pinkish consistency. I mixed mine just a little, trying to distribute the garlic, dill, and seasonings evenly while keeping some white bits of cheese — I wanted the rosettes to look marbled.
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Step 5:
Transfer the resulting filling to a piping bag fitted with a closed-star tip. The larger the tip, the better.
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Step 6:
Prepare the rest of the ingredients. Wash the rosemary, dry it, and break it into small clusters of needles.
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Step 7:
Wash the cherry tomatoes, dry them, and cut them into quarters.
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Step 8:
Fill the tartlets with the crab filling, piping rosettes from the bag. If you like, you can put 1 tsp of red caviar in the bottom of each tartlet first.
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Step 9:
Garnish the tartlets with red caviar, cherry tomato quarters, and rosemary needles. Serve the appetizer. Enjoy!
- This appetizer goes well with a white semi-sweet or dry wine. You can replace the rosemary with dill, parsley, or another favorite herb. This filling pairs very nicely with rye tartlets. Anyone who doesn't like crab sticks can use peeled cooked shrimp instead — just blend them and mix with the cream cheese, and do everything else as written in the recipe.
- How do you buy crab sticks the right way? Always check the product's use-by date. Surimi (minced white fish) should be first on the ingredient list. Important: don't buy the product if there's frost on it — that's a sign it's been refrozen. Fresh sticks should be free of gray and yellow spots, springy, and slightly moist. If the product is sticky, it has gone bad.
- The film each crab stick is wrapped in sometimes comes off poorly. To make it easier, hold the sticks over steam for 1–3 seconds.
- Choose juicy but firm tomatoes. Soft ones don't hold their shape well; as you cut and prepare them they'll fall apart into a shapeless mush and spoil the look of the dish.
Caloric content of the products possible in the composition of the dish
- Garlic - 143 kcal/100g
- Ground black pepper - 255 kcal/100g
- Fresh dill - 38 kcal/100g
- Crab sticks - 73 kcal/100g
- Vici juicy crab sticks - 73 kcal/100g
- Meridian snow crab sticks - 140 kcal/100g
- Miramar crab sticks - 140 kcal/100g
- Santa Bremor snow crab sticks - 70 kcal/100g
- Pink salmon roe - 230 kcal/100g
- Salmon roe - 245 kcal/100g
- Salt - 0 kcal/100g
- Fresh rosemary - 131 kcal/100g
- Cherry tomatoes - 15 kcal/100g
- Cream cheese - 223 kcal/100g
- Tartlet shells - 514 kcal/100g
