Nibbles Anyone?
The really great thing about canapés is that they assuage the guilt by being so small, so tiny wee, so sweet and unassuming. They couldn't possibly make you fat as a house.
Nibbles are the glossy stars of the run-up to Christmas, little good-will pellets of energy thrown at us from the sidelines in the seasonal race we start at a frisky sprint and end in a frazzled drag of dry-shampoo and spanked out waistbands.
Personally I’m up for anything whizzing around on a tray at a party and find my head scanning left to right, Wimbledon-style, in search of the risotto balls. Really good canapés are hard to beat, embracing myriad flavours in their Kylie contours. I went to a 60th birthday the other day where each and every canapé was such a sublime flavour bomb that people stopped dead in their conversational tracks to pay guests such as the Baby Ballotine of Pheasant, Chestnut and Morel Mushroom their respect. Seared tuna slabettes with ginger soya and fresh grapes, gruyere tarts, sugar-lump squares of white truffle risotto with parmesan dustings, lobster tail morsels dripping in chilli oil and lemon and a scallopy caviar tower also featured. This delightful battalion was put together by canapé connoisseur Chris Messum I discovered, who even has a canapé of the month, much more titillating than word of the day. The only problem was I just wanted to stay in this Lilliputian land and never move on to bigger food with large, cold cutlery instead of little pincing fingers. Anything afterwards would seem a disappointment.
Food, like ballet feet, looks better in a smaller size and in a flock. When affronted with a host of smoked salmon blinis dotted identikit on a nice wood board, or shiny silver platter it’s impossible to resist. When you’re at a canapéd function it’s important to know the trays don’t miraculously appear, but have a source – find it. Find the door to the kitchen from which the star studded trays are swooshing, and hover nonchalantly near it. (Alternatively snog one of the waiters in the loo and thereafter ensure some extra special attention when the wild mushroom tarts are running thin on the gallery ground). If it’s a mixed tray, don’t make the fool’s error of going for the biggest canapé on there, like the massive, tricky and timely prawn tempura log, but go for a little one, pop it in and then just before the waitress glides off, use the other hand to pinch a big one. ‘Sorry – I’m just starving’ normally helps, implying you really need to eat all the delectable little dolly mixes, and are not just a greedy truffle pig, which most of us are let’s face it.
When you’re making your own eats there are a few important things to remember too. First it’s not less work than a traditional dinner party by any stretch of the puff pastry; you don’t have one bubbling cauldron of focus, but lots of different ones requiring attention. So put some time aside and prepare some cherry tomato halves stuffed with pesto and a little lid of mozzarella the previous night. And maybe ditch the caramelised nuts and cold looking crudités of celery and carrot that get left every year around a congealing pot of hummus. It’s Winter-time, everyone’s hands were so numbingly cold a moment ago they had trouble getting enough pressure on your door-bell, so warm them up. Dish out some hot spring rolls, sumptuous chillied prawns, melted goat cheese, sun dried tomato and honey crostini, something meaty, filling, warming. There’s a host of books out there to inspire, like Party Bites by Lydia France or Canapes
Nibbles don’t have to be too complicated though. I went to a friend’s wedding in November where the bride and groom had made all the food, including the canapés themselves. They only did mini sausages in honey & rosemary and Devils on Horseback (piping hot prunes snug in crispy streaked bacon), and they went down a storm. Simple yet effective, no-one can say no to a mini banger - as long as it’s cooked enough; I abhor a flaccid skin.
The really great thing about canapés is that they assuage the guilt by being so small, so tiny wee, so sweet and unassuming. They couldn’t possibly make you fat as a house. No, that’s the beauty of nibbles; you can scoff a good double dozen and still head out for dinner afterwards feeling mini-me and laughing at the moon.
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