Today we prepared tea sandwiches and canapés. I was in charge of the Watercress and Olive on White Bread, Mozzarella and Tomato Feuille, and Tapenade and Goats Cheese Canapés. The day got off to a slow start because Melissa, the storeroom manager, had been sick so quite a bit got messed up on the orders for the week. One of the other Chefs actually had to make a run to the store to get several ingredients, including bread. You can’t really make sandwiches without bread and we didn’t have time to make our own. Once everything was prepared, Chef again helped us set up a buffet presentation.
The Mozzarella and Tomato Feuille was an interesting sandwich to make. Chef said that in “real life” you would never prepare that as a tea sandwich because the bread gets to soggy. This was an accurate statement. The mozzarella and tomatoes were to be sliced paper thin. I got them pretty darn close. I’ve been noticing that this class has definitely improved my knife skills and I am feeling more confident about them as time progresses. Then they were to be marinated in sherry vinegar, olive oil, and herbs. I chose to use basil because Mozzarella Caprese is one of my favorite combinations of flavors so I wanted to use the same flavors for this. Then they needed to be dried off and the bread was to be spread with a chive butter, which I also prepared. Then you were to layer the mozzarella and tomatoes until you had three layers of each, six layers total. Once that was done, you had to cut the sandwich into tiny, tea sandwich portions. This is difficult without having all those paper thin layers slide out. It tasted amazing, though, even though the bottom bread DID get soggy.
The Watercress and Olive on white bread was pretty tasty, as well. For this sandwich you simply mix butter and cream cheese with chopped watercress and pimento stuffed olives and spread it on the white bread. Cut the sandwiches into two bite portions and call it a day. For something so simple, it was surprisingly tasty. I wouldn’t have more than one because of all the butter and cream cheese, but it was a nice experience anyways.
My least favorite item that I made was the Tapenade and Goats Cheese Canapés. Chef actually picked one up off the table and asked whose it was and then told me it looked really nice, but it was still my least favorite. For this canapé, you blend goat and cream cheese together, spread it on toasted bread, and then top half with chopped black olives and half with chopped green olives. It just looked kind of messy to me, although I used my pastry scraped to make sure I had a nice solid line down the middle that divided the two olive colors.
I didn’t get to taste much else because I had to leave so quickly to get home in time for Marc to go to work. I wasn’t too disappointed, though. Surprisingly, tea sandwiches are NOT my cup of tea...even though you get to use cookies cutters on them.
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