A quick, easy and classy canapé platter that’s sure to impress your guests. Full of flavour and packs a visual punch too!
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Table of contents
Rosemary Spears
These are Rosemary Spears and they make a wonderful party attraction and always evoke endless admiration in the seeing and the eating! Essentially, we use rosemary sprigs as toothpicks and spear some cheese, olives, marinated tomatoes, basil leaves, the permutation is endless. Take a look at what I’ve used below and use your imagination too!
If you find the rosemary sprigs too fiddly, you can always swap them with toothpicks. I generally go with 2 – 3 items per sprig but again, do what you please, depending on the size of your ingredients.
Flavours for Rosemary Spears
However, do think about the flavours as well as looks when you are deciding on what to go for: complementary, most certainly but contrast is just as important. My favourite combination and these complement and contrast, are creamy cheese and spicy and tangy jalapeños in vinegar – unbeatable!
The cheese. Any firm or semi firm cheese that you like will do, whether it’s cheddar, mozzarella, feta, paneer, as long as they are cubed or in small enough pieces as in the pictures. Marinated cheese makes a great choice, recipe here. I also love boursin for this, mini boursin of course.
The olives. Marinated is best, recipe here but good shop bought is fine.
Tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes and marinated sundried tomatoes work wonders follow the recipe for the cheese and olives here or good shop bought.
Something tangy. Always adds so much to the flavour profile, the pickled jalapeños as mentioned and boquerones or marinated anchovies are superb too. Homemade or shop bought.
Vegetarians – easily done, just lose the protein and even the cheese if you’re vegan.
I am not giving you specific amounts here, but as a rough guide, 5 – 6 “sticks” per diner is a good start.
Shall we get started?
If you like the recipe and article, don’t forget to leave me a comment and that all important, 5-star rating! Thank you!
And if you make the recipe, share it on any platform and tag me @azlinbloor, and hashtag it #linsfood
Lin xx
Rosemary Spears
Ingredients
- 12 rosemary sprigs
- marinated cheese cubes or mozzarella balls as needed
- marinated sun dried tomatoes cut to match the cheese in size, if large
- cherry tomatoes halved
- olives pitted
- jalapeños in vinegar
- marinated anchovies
Instructions
- Each single rosemary twig ought to give you 2 mini spears, about 3 inches tall, give or take.12 rosemary sprigs
- Strip the leaves off the “spear” end, giving you about an inch of clear sprig where the cheese and stuff are going on. Snipping the end ever so slightly at an angle to sharpen it will make it easier to push through later.
- Get all your ingredients assembled, including some kitchen paper to wipe your hands with in between.
- All you do is spear each ingredient through the woody end of the rosemary, 2-3 of them, as mentioned.marinated cheese cubes or mozzarella balls, marinated sun dried tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, olives, jalapeños in vinegar, marinated anchovies
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Normally I do not read post on blogs, however I would like to say that this write-up very forced me to check out and do it!
Lin! These are so beautiful, so very elegant.
They are really appetising, I need a whole plate of them to scoff infront of the tv, and then to serve at one of my dinner parties!
All the best, take care 🙂 xx
Very classy and elegant! Love this idea. Perfect for a cocktail night.
This really looks so sophisticated! I love the sun-dried tomatoes and the olives!!
I’m not sure I’ve ever contemplated the differences between the different types of small bites, but love the simplicity of this recipe. Appetizers are always my favorite part of a meal.
They are so pretty and impressive! I am sure they would be a big hit among friends and family!
These look really tasty. Definately more interesting than the 1970s little cubes of pineapple, cheese and cocktail onion combinations threaded on toothpicks then stuck into a grapefruit with glace
cherries stuck ontop….Do you remember those?
I love amuse bouche too. For a couple of our work’s Christmas dinners the entire meal was amuse bouche. That was a bit tough going on the feet for 5 hours though. The food was lovely, but I wouldn’t go through that again unless I can sit down.
Great idea…the rosemary not only are pretty, they also add a nice flavor.
Have a wonderful week!
What a pretty bunch of canapes! Absolutely love them… pity that my husband hates rosemary, otherwise I would prepare them straight away 🙂