You never know when the next cocktail party will appear on the calendar or when your better half without warning invites home a baker’s dozen of business colleagues or clients for drinks with a need for something a little more classy than salty chips and peanuts from the supermarket.
Gustatio, canapé, finger food, pass around. The Romans were first to seize upon this idea of fancy pass around fare, offering bite-size portions of lark’s tongues marinated in red wine, mussels and oysters in their shells and much much more to get the juices going as they warmed up for their debauched orgies.
The French finally got a bit of class in the 1800s, putting toppings on toast and calling them canapés (French for sofas), as they resembled someone sitting on a sofa. Finger food and pass around are the current terms foodies use due to the dumbing down of the culinary world, which seems unable or uninterested in pronouncing the correct French or Italian culinary terminologies.
Being prepared isn’t just for boy scouts. Having freezer-proof boxes filled with a variety of easy to prepare finger foods is a must for all ‘hostesses with the mostesses’. These little tidbits defrost before you know it: a little warm up and you’re a class act.
This week and next, I will give you a couple of easy recipes to enable you to spruce up your summer soirees
And make them a little more colourful.
Spinach and red pepper frittata with mayo srirachi sauce.
Ingredients Frittata:
- Milk x 1½ cups
- Flour x 1 cup
- Salt 1¼ teaspoons + pepper to taste
- Eggs x 12
- Spinach blanched and squeezed out x 1 cup
- Red peppers roasted, peeled and cut into strips x 1 cup
- Grated parmigiano x 1 cup
Method:
Wash and blanch 400 grams fresh spinach, cool in ice water and wring out the water, chop and set aside. Roast 2 red bell peppers in a 200°C oven until wrinkly and starting to blacken, remove to a plastic bag, knot the bag so it’s airtight. Let the bag sit for 20 minutes, remove the peppers, peel off skin, remove seeds and stems, slice into strips and set aside.
Using a whisk and bowl, add flour, salt and pepper and mix in milk, adding a shluk at a time. Add in 12 eggs, whisking well; taste for salt and pepper, add more if needed. Whisk in parmesan, spinach and peppers.
Oil baking paper and place in 23 cm x 33 cm baking dish, put into 210°C preheated oven, bake for 18 to 20 minutes, let cool for half an hour, cut into 4 cm squares.
Sriracha Mayo sauce
Ingredients:
- Decent mayo x 4 tablespoons
- Ketchup x 1 tablespoon
- Srirachi x 1 tablespoon
- Tabasco x 1¼ teaspoon
- Salt, a pinch
Whisk together, place in squeezer bottle for use.
Heat before serving, squirt on the sriracha sauce and garnish with sprouts or parsley.
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