It's All in the Garnish
by Laurie Nienhaus
Simple has an honored seat at the tea table, but on occasion we look for lavish and so must turn to the topic of garnishes.
Below are ten of my favorite ways to fashionably dress a tea sandwich, each promising to elicit delight.
Except where noted, these garnishes can be used on both open faced and filled sandwiches.
- Flowers: Consider pansies, violets, Johnny-jump-ups, nasturtiums, and marigolds. All are edible with interesting flavors. Use pesticide free flowers.
- Shaved Cheese: Hard cheeses, such a parmesan or pecorino Romano, take on an attractive lacy look when shaved paper thin and placed upon an open-faced sandwich.
- Rolled Cheese: Cut cheese into ¼" squares. Put one teaspoon of olive oil on your hands and roll squares into balls. Then roll in cumin, curry or finely chopped herbs.
- Piped Herbed Mayonnaise or Crème Fraiche: Use an icing flower tip. Then place a fresh or thawed frozen pea on piping.
- Layer It: Place a small spinach leaf, with stem, atop an open-faced sandwich. Place a thin slice of hard boiled egg on top of that and sprinkle with either nutmeg and sea salt, pickled ginger and a dot of wasabi, or a combination of crushed herbs.
- Chopped Egg & Asparagus: Finely chop hardboiled eggs, using only half as many whites as yolks, and press onto an open-faced sandwich with a mayonnaise based filling. Upon this lay a short piece of asparagus.
- Citrus, Herbs, & Spices: Cut small triangles of fresh lemon or orange, removing peel. Sprinkle lemon triangles with fresh basil or parsley and orange triangles with cinnamon or curry.
- Grilled Vegetables: Grill red and green peppers, zucchini, or pearl onions. Cut peppers into strips, zucchini into squares, and leave pearl onions whole.
- Hearts: Use a very small cookie cutter to cut hearts from thin slices of pickled beets. Or, cut small hearts from bread, dip in butter, and sprinkle heavily with curry before toasting in a 350 degree oven.
- Herb or Nut Dip: Cut filled tea sandwiches into triangles and butter the long cut side. Press this buttered side into crushed herbs or chopped nuts.
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Laurie Nienhaus is an author, playwright and public speaker living on Fort Myers Beach, Florida. She is also the director of Gilded Lily Publishing and Beach Haus Productions. To learn more, visit www.GLily.com.
