To Have With New Tea Drinks

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30636, 30 December 1964, Page 2

To Have With New Tea Drinks

New Year party time is in the air. Another reader has asked for ideas for the cocktail tray and for toothpick combinations. For the tray, the easiest way is to begin with half a pound of puff pastry for the bases and let the imagination run riot with tasty decorations. For the toothpick savouries take colour into consideration and piece together any compatible morsels that come to mind.

FESTIVE TRAY Ingredients: i lb puff pastry (i.e, jib flour) 4 oz butter 4 oz lard 1 teaspoon salt Cold water to mix Topping: * lb grated cheese Tomato sauce Whipped cream Parsley Red and green cocktail onions Walnuts 2 hard boiled eggs 1 chicken bouillon cube i cup boiling water 1 teaspoon gelatine Yellow colouring Method: Roll pastry thin and stamp out with a small cocktail biscuit cutter or an egg cup. Bake until golden and slide off on to a wire tray to cool. Mix grated cheese to a stiff paste with a very little tomato sauce and whipped cream and mould a little of the paste on top of about two-thirds of the biscuits. Decorate the top of each one, some with halved red cocktail onions, some with green.

Top some with a tiny dab of whipped cream and a dot of parsley, others with the cream and a piece of walnut, arranging the biscuits on the serving tray as you do it. Place in a cool spot of the refrigerator when they are finished, leaving spaces on the trav for the egg ones. Soften one teaspoon of gelatine in cold water, add one chicken cube and half a cup of boiling water, adding a drop or two of yellow colouring. Hard boil eggs, slice and cut into halves. Place on a plate and cover with the aspic jelly. Chill until set firmly. Shortly before required, smear a very little mayonnaise or whipped cream on the top of the remaining biscuits. cut the pieces of egg neatly from the surrounding jelly to catch the light. Arrange in the spaces left on the tray.

The whole effect is gay and festive the savouries are delectable to eat and they are easily made by the hostess with onlv one pair of hands! TOOTHPICK COMBINATIONS Pineapple and ham cube. Pineapple and cheese. Pineapple, liver sausage and gherkin. Shrimp, cocktail onion and cheese. Pickled onion halved with -cheese between.

Thin slices of cooked sausage, using three rings with two pieces of gherkin between, for each stick. Prunes stuffed with cheese. Stuffed olives and walnut halves. Smoked oysters and gherkin halves. Tiny fish balls with cucumber wedge spread with mayonnaise. NUTTY DEVILS Prunes Chutney Toasted almonds Small pieces of bacon Remove stones from soft prunes (if not available, soak, then steam dry ones). Fill with a little chutney and a toasted almond. Wrap a small piece of bacon round, secure with a tooth-pick and place on an ovenware plate. When required, heat until the bacon is crisp.

IRISH MARBLES 4 cup grated cheese j cup minced ham i teaspoon mixed mustard Mayonnaise to moisten Pinch salt and pepper Finely chopped chives Mix cheese, ham. mustard, seasonings with just sufflcient mayonnaise to work together into a paste. Form into small balls, roll well in chopped chives and place on sticks. Chill until firm. LIVER PASTE BALLS Liver sausage Finely chopped gherkin 1 rasher of crisped bacon Finely chopped walnuts Crumble crisp bacon into tiny pieces finely chop gherkins. Mash liver sausage to a paste, combine with bacon and gherkins. Form into balls and roll well in chopped walnuts. Place on sticks.