Cucumber Canapés with Smoked Salmon Mousse

1. Salmon can be substituted with smoked trout or other smoked fish (even if not thin slices like smoked salmon)

2. Cream cheese - in the UK and some parts of Europe, you can only get spreadable cream cheese in tubs which is softer than block cream cheese. In this case, skip the sour cream.

3. Salt - the smoked salmon is very salty and it releases it into the mixture, so go easy on the salt.

4. Cucumbers - the long ones are better because they are less watery, so they don't dilute the mousse as much when eating. But the short ones work just as well!Scooping - better ratio of cucumber to mousse, and also removes watery centre.If you can't be bothered to scoop out the centre, make the cucumber slices slightly thinner so you end up with a similar ratio of cucumber to mousse.

5. Making ahead - place mousse in piping bag, ready to pipe. Keep up to 3 days in fridge. Cut and prepare cucumber. Assemble just before serving.Once assembled, the cucumber starts sweating at around 30 - 45 minutes (still super tasty though!).

6. Variations - these are variations I served at a gathering last month using the same base "mousse" recipe:

Sun-dried tomato - switch salmon and chives with 225g/7oz sun dried tomato strips in oil (including oil) and chives. Blitz until smooth, use per recipe (makes slightly more in quantity) Olive - switch salmon with 200g/6.5oz green or black olives, and parsley or chives for dill. Blitz until ALMOST fully smooth - little bits of olive is nice.

7. Nutrition per piece.