High Tea

Afternoon tea is English, High Tea is Scots - and ours are much more of a meal than the English afternoon tea. We normally have a hot savoury, like smoked haddock, or welsh or buck rarebit, or Scotch woodcock. Then sandwiches - thinly sliced brown bread and butter, with fillings like cucumber, smoked salmon, egg and cress. Then we have the cakes.... Scones (at least I think that's what you mean by 'Devonshires' - in Devon they call them splits), with jam and clotted cream, Dundee cake, meringues, cream cakes, cream horns, eclairs. Lots of different teas.

I believe anyone who cooks for others with passion. In the sense that they are giving of themselves would understand Petals. Cooking for people we care about is a unique way of showing them something of ourself, that does comes through and they feel it.

Talk about multi tasking...Nurse and Chef...Go you!

At short notice, I can only think of one of my favourite sandwich fillings. Use with bread or a wrap:- Grated cheddar mixed with chopped pecans, or toasted pine nuts. Spring onion and grated carrot mix with mayo(keep it firm, sloppy isnt nice) and serve with rocket.

I'm taking my website address off my postings soon, (as we have ceased trading. We're starting a cookery school in spring next year) But there are a few sandwich ideas there.

At the risk of repeating myself...Go you!

Got some sandwhich ideas, they may suit or not....

Savoury fillings:
- diced smoked chicken, finely diced red onion, finely diced celery. Bind with mayo, serve on soy and linseed bread
- liverwurst spread, finely diced cornishons, grated egg yolk, mix together, serve on pumpernickel squares/rounds. If you are serving them open faced, decorate with a bit of fresh dill
- Vegemite! j/k :) it really is a taste you have to grow up with

Sweet fillings:
- blackberry jam, finely diced pickled jalepenos, on sourdough with butter. (Yeah it sounds weird, discovered it by accident one day) :)
- minced dates, honey, sweet butter, on rounds cut from baguettes
- marscapone, minced rum soaked raisins (drain well first), on brioche

I surely do understand your approach to cooking for people. I do a christmas party every year for about fifty friends (we have a small apartment, there is hardly room to walk) and make some 20 dishes, and some 15 or so cookies and deserts, each beautiful and good. Ah, and also home made bread. Everything from scratch. I start cooking in september and freezing.

For sandwiches, i don;t know how traditional you want them. My origin is italian, so i don;t have a big tradition to draw on (though i do love many of the things mentioned, and scones with clotted cream, oh my god!).
But i really like sandwiches made with homemade soft whole wheat flour (knead some butter in at the end so they get high and light) and filled with chicken salad and with tuna salad
Chicken salad - cut up roast chicken and add good mayonnaise with a lot of lemon in it, chopped celery, carrot, and i like a dash of curry and some raisins. (I've had something in the UK called coronation chicken and it was similar, but i came up with this on my own before tasting the other). If you make tiny rolls (if you want to go all out, braid three strands of dough, wet with the hands, roll one in sesame seeds, one in poppy seeds and one plain and make small braids, turned in on themselves- about as big as a small plum or less) and then brush the plain part with egg before baking).

Tuna salad - dark meat tuna, drained, chopped celery, carrot, tomato, capers if you like them, onion, and good mayonnaise. Stuff the little sandwiches with this too.

I find the very slight sweetness of the bread (i use a little honey and buttermilk instead of water) is great with the creamy fillings.

>noone really knows or will care <

Not so, Petals. I reckon everyone on this site understands where you're coming from, and agrees with your sentiments.

Cooking for others is one of the sincerest forms of love, and, IMO, nobody could possibly object to you sharing that love with the rest of us.

Here endeth the sermon. ;)

I'm not sure what traditional Canadian High Tea would consist of. But if you're hosting a group of women with diverse cultural backgrounds, why should it matter? Personally, I would think outside the box a little, and maybe introduce things that fit the spirit of the affair but which might normally not appear.

For instance, pimento cheese spread, which is a mainstay of the American south, is hardly known outside that region. But it fits ideally on a spread of finger sandwiches.

Mushroom pate' is another off-beat dish that lends itself to such treatment.

Another possibility is smoked salmon & cream cheese with capers.

I can provide you with recipes if you want.

'been in Georgia for years and never ever encountered pimento cheese spread.

Samosas :D That's the first thing I thought of, having grown up in India.

Also rasgullah and sandesh.

In Jorhat, right around tea time (4:00) the baker delivered a loaf of bread, still warm from the oven. With just butter on it, it was a treat.

That sounds like a fabulous idea... Butter at every table and a basket of warm bread mmmm.

Totally with you on the samosas too.

Yeah, butter with freshly baked bread along with a side of smoked salmon.

Didn't Julia Child say " I always like a little white wine with this dish"... as she poured herself a glass while cooking it

most popular tea sandwich

We have done over 100 catered teas.

The most popular is a chicken tarragon sandwich.
You can find a variety of recipes if you search.

Key is to use fresh tarragon and freeze the bread before making the sandwich.
be sure to make them thick enough for dipping into chopped nuts (called for in some recipes). Use white meat only.

Lisa

Most Welcome Petals :)

I really hope your event goes well - its is so rewarding to share food and good times with people and having them receive a time to remember with a smile on their face, and a momento of the event makes a special surprise and a sentimental reminder.

Daina

Petals, if you can't find the butter cutters, try this. Soften the butter (turning it into compound butters as appropriate), then use a pastry bag and assorted tips to make fancy pats. Pipe them out on either wax paper or parchment, in a sheet pan. Then freeze the whole sheet.

Once frozen you can shift the butter into a zipper bag and pull out as many as you need, leaving the rest frozen.

Just another way of doing party things ahead of time.

For things like rosettes and other vertical designs I think I'd do this. Let the butter come to room temp. Add any flavorings or coloring. Fill the pastry tube, and put it back in the fridge for awhile.

You don't want it to reharden, just stiffen up enough so it will hold its shape as you form them.