…well, stuffed caper berries, to be more precise. I’m not referring to the diminutive capers we use for tapenade, picatta, and puttanesca sauce. I’m talking about those large stem-on caper berries, which resemble smallish green olives. I’ve occasionally seen them used as garnish or dropped into a martini, but I’d never seen them stuffed, which was, of course, the only thing I wanted to do with them when I brought some home the other day.

To my mind, the caper berry seemed ideal for stuffing and the built-in stem makes it a perfect “pick up” food. A tray of stuffed caper berries would make an elegant an unusual appetizer or serve two to each person on a small plate as an amuse bouche, so, I thought why not give it a try?

How do you stuff a caper? First take a small sharp knife and slice a small “cap” off one side. Using the tip of the knife, remove the tiny seeds from inside each caper berry. For a stuffing, combine a raisin, a piece of walnut, and a small piece of roasted garlic inside the caper (or for a more homogenous stuffing, finely mince the stuffing ingredient and mix together before stuffing into the caper). Replace the “cap” and wrap the caper in a very small piece of puff pastry and place it on a baking sheet. Once they’re all stuffed, bake them at 400 degrees F until golden brown, about 8 to 10 minutes. (Let them cool for a few seconds before biting into one because the inside is hot.) The result is not just plain old stuffed capers, but “pastry-wrapped” stuffed capers. (Remember, you saw it here first!)

They were so much fun to eat — just use the stem as a handle to pick them up. So cute, and literally bursting with great flavors and textures. I served them to company this weekend and everyone loved them.

In other news:
Cookbook Giveaway: There’s still time to enter the cookbook giveaway (see the previous post). The winner will receive a copy of American Vegan Kitchen by Tamasin Noyes. The winner will be chosen on July 12.

Labels: stuffed capers