Tea sandwiches

These tiny sandwiches are great when you need to dream up finger food, but are particularly good as part of a late, lazy afternoon tea.

The thing with making your own sandwiches is that you can use as much, or as little, of your favourite filling as you want to. You can keep it quite simple (as we tend to do), or you can hang out. The only rule is that it should be easy to eat.

Ingredients

Egg Mayonaise (yellow)

  • About 1 hard boiled egg per whole sandwich, finely chopped
  • Chopped chives
  • Chopped parsley
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons of your best mayonaise (enough to make the mixture easy to spread)
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • Grated cheddar cheese (optional)

Biltong (brown)

  • Ground dry biltong, or finely sliced biltong
  • Butter

Chicken and mayonaise

  • Leftover chicken
  • 1to 2 tablespoons of mayonaise (per sandwich)
  • Chopped parsley
  • Chopped celery or a bit of diced apple
  • A few walnuts or almonds
  • Red capsicum (finely diced for colour)

Avocado (Green)

  • Avocado
  • Flavoured with lemon juice
  • Salt and black pepper

Ham and mustard (pink)

  • Thickly shaved ham
  • Dijon Mustard
  • Butter (room temperature)
  • Sliced or grated cheese (optional)

Asparagus Rolls (white and green)

  • Tinned asparagus, drained
  • Cream Cheese

(Place an asparagus spear diagonally across the slice of bread and roll up. Cut in two.)

Salmon, cucumber and cream cheese (white, pink, green)

  • Cream Cheese (spread over both slices)
  • Smoked shaved salmon
  • Finely sliced cucumber (or alfalfa bean sprouts)
  • Salt and black pepper

Method

Cover your sandwiches with a light tea towel or kitchen paper while you work, to keep them from drying out.

Spread butter or cream cheese over the sliced bread before adding your filling.

Fill your sandwiches in proportion to their petiteness: tiny sandwiches calls for a thinner filling than medium-sized ones.

Remember to remove the crusts from delicate sandwiches, using a serrated knife.

Cut each sandwich into six to eight pieces for tiny sandwiches. A combination of square and triangle shapes look even tastier.

Notes

To add colour and texture to your sandwiches, try with capsicum, cucumber, lettuce, red onion, alfalfa sprouts, edible flowers, or relish. Combining white and brown bread works well, too.