The chive and lemon spread for canapés is a tasty and fragrant condiment to fill or garnish sandwiches, canapés, crostini or blinis; or to dress pasta and accompany fish, meat and vegetable dishes. It’s a very quick and easy recipe and is ready to use straight away, although I recommend preparing it a few hours in advance to allow the spread to become even more flavorful and aromatic. It’s ideal to accompany smoked fish such as tuna, swordfish or salmon, since the chives and lemon zest make this preparation very fresh and aromatic on the palate.
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very inexpensive
- Preparation time: 5 Minutes
- Portions: 6
- Cooking methods: No cooking
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Spring, Summer
Ingredients
- 7 oz fresh spreadable cheese (can be lactose-free)
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- to taste fresh chives
- 1/2 lemon
- to taste fine salt
- to taste ground pepper (optional)
Preparation
To make the chive and lemon spread for canapés you can use ricotta, robiola, Philadelphia-style cream cheese and so on.
Wash about ten chive stalks, dry them and chop them finely; you can also use dried chives and you’ll only need 1/2 level teaspoon.
Wash the lemon peel and grate the zest of half of it.
In a small bowl combine all the ingredients, the extra virgin olive oil (one level tbsp) and mix well. Our delicious chive and lemon spread for canapés is ready to be used to add aroma and flavor to your recipes. It keeps well in a closed container in the fridge.
Extra tip. The spread in the photo was made with the ricotta leftover from preparing the classic Neapolitan pastiera.
