Blue Cheese Bites

~ by Steven Reichard

An appetizer is like the door to a house. It is the first opportunity you have to judge the building-and the building is the food. The appetizer-like the door-should fit the house, it should serve as an entrance that entices you to leap to the center of the meal , but it is not to be more important than the meal; yet if the door is haggard and decrepit nobody will want to enter the house, and so the appetizer is quite key. I believe a good appetizer-like a good meal-is an exotic blend of flavours with a cardinal simplicity as a key part. The appetizer should be worthy of a comment yet forgotten once the meal begins.

For my cousins birthday I made an appetizer consisting of: pear, prosciutto, and blue cheese which rested on a cracker. It received praise from all guests who were in attendance. I really liked the taste as it started with pear, followed by prosciutto and ended with a kick of blue cheese.

I made this recipe myself so I don’t have any sources, though the idea came from a dish I had at “The King Street Trio” restaurant.

The recipe is as follows:

-5-7 prosciutto slices

-2 pears (I used organic Bartlett pears but any will do)
-a few ounces of Stilton Blue Cheese*  
-Carr’s Table Water crackers
  *The brand of the cheese doesn’t matter as long as it is a dry and mild blue cheese.

First lay out your Carr’s crackers on a tray-these are the best choice because they don’t really have any flavour and so they act solely as a way to hold the food.

Then cut your pears into thin slices and place them onto the cracker, don’t use the core.

Next cut the prosciutto into long slices, fold them and stack them onto the pear.

Lastly place no more than a half tea spoon of blue cheese on top.

I do hope that if you try it that you will like it. My advice is to experiment and play around with different amounts of cheese or different brands of pears/prosciutto.