Monday, February 4, 2013

Smelly-breathed partygoers?

Since I don't have any parties planned between now and my fast-approaching March deadline, I decided I'd make the last two 'party finger food' recipes as nibbles while I watched a DVD on the weekend. Both are fairly traditional canapés, but personally, I don't think I'd serve sardine savoury (p194) and stuffed eggs (p196) at  a party: fishy or eggy breath is not ideal in a social situation!


I started by hard-boiling a couple of eggs (the recipe is for 8, but I wasn't going to eat all of that) and making something resembling canapé bases by grilling slices of ciabatta roll. I probably should have had another go at the proper canapé bases recipe, since I made such a hash of it the first time. Never mind, I had the ciabatta rolls there and decided to use them.


When the eggs were boiled and cooled, I cut them in half, scooped out the yolks and mashed them with mayonnaise, curry powder and a bit of salt and pepper. Once I'd got it to a usable consistency, I spooned the yolk mixture into a piping bag and piped it back into the egg whites. It's actually a bit tricky, since the eggs skid away as you try to pipe into them, but I managed to get it done.


I was supposed to garnish the eggs with slices of stuffed olive, but I didn't have any on hand. Since it was only me eating them, I wasn't particularly bothered that they weren't garnished properly. All they got was a bit of parsley.


To make the sardine savoury, I mashed drained sardines with curry powder, lemon juice and chutney. The chutney I happened to have open was cashmere chutney, and I didn't really think about it until I'd already put it in, but the sweet fruitiness of that particular chutney wasn't the best match for the sardines.


I spread the sardine mixture over some canapé bases, sprinkled a bit of parsley over the top of those as well, and sat down to nibble as I watched my movie. The eggs were actually really tasty. I guess it's no accident that stuffed eggs are a classic. Even the fruity sardiney things were not terrible. I think they'd be quite tasty if you went with a more tangy chutney. On the whole, a reasonable plate of nibbles - and with noone else around, I didn't have to worry about smelly breath!

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