Cooking... with Martha Legg

Hors D’oeuvres

Martin says that I have an inner ‘Hyacinth Bouquet’ that comes out when we have friends or family over! I like to try and do things properly and serve ‘appitiesers’ or ‘ Hors D’oeuvres’

As a result of French influence, ‘hors d’oeuvre’ has become a commonly used term in English to refer to small dishes served before meals. In the Victorian and Edwardian periods, savouries included such toppings as fried oysters wrapped in bacon, and Scotch woodcock, which was a savoury made of scrambled eggs, ground black pepper and Gentleman’s Relish on buttered toast, served hot.

In France, cheese was often part of the savoury course or added with simple fruit as a dessert.

Recently, we had long-standing friends over for dinner, before they embarked on a holiday to Oz.

While Martin put the finishing touches to the dinner, (risotto, which I love), I entertained Julia and David. After making sure we all had wine, I brought out my Hors D’oeuvres. I used smoked salmon, ham and cherry tomatoes as the toppings. David complimented me on the pastry so I had to confess that on this occasion, I cheated and used ready-made pastry! They all went down very well with the wine and cocktails that Martin served.

Julia has a phobia about spiders, so Martin took great delight in reminding her of all the horrible species that live in Australia! David sent us some pictures when they arrived, it looked beautiful. He also reported that Julia wouldn’t walk through the grass in flip flops, in case she got attacked!

Ingredients:

4oz Plain Flour

2 oz Margarine

Water to mix

Cream Cheese

Bits of smoked salmon, ham, tomato, olives etc

Bun tins

Method:

Make the short crust pastry

Using a small cookie cutter, cut out rounds, prick the bottom and bake until brown. I have a tray of small bun tins which are perfect for this.

Once the pastry has cooled, fill each one with cream cheese and then place the topping on.

Don’t do this until just before they are needed as they can go soft.