English Tea Party ? Cucumber sandwiches

Although being colonised by the British, was one of the tainted pages of Indian history, there is no denying the fact that the English influence did India some good. From rail roads to education, their influence is probably one of the reasons India has been able to grow as much as it has today. English culture, at least to me, has never been a very foreign one. Almost all the books we read in school were written by someone from Britain, all the poems that we had to memorize and recite were by Wordsworth and Shelley, heck I even remember a passage from Shakespeare’s Macbeth by heart, which I had to learn when I was in 10th grade. Even apart from that, reading for pleasure included Sherlock Holmes, Enid Blyton books: The Famous Five, The Secret Seven etc.

One image that I couldn’t get out of my head, about all of the English reading, was an English high tea. English folks mostly take tea between 3-5 PM, and it served as a leisurely affair, of catching up and socializing and most often gossiping. Most tea menus included some type of mini sandwiches, scones with Devonshire clotted cream and shortbread cookies of some sort. I have attempted to create the famous cucumber sandwiches here…

Ingredients:

6 slices white bread

2 tbsp salted butter(I used I can’t believe its not butter spread)

2 tbsp cream cheese(I used neufchatel cheese)

1/4 cup loosely packed mint leaves

1/2 an English cucumber slices

pepper, a pinch

Method:

Wash and dry the mint leaves. Chop the mint leaves finely, but without bruising it. Stir the softened butter and cream cheese into a bowl until well mixed. Add the chopped mint leaves and stir to combine. Cut the crusts off of the bread and slater one side of each slice with this herbed butter. Line one buttered slice with the sliced cucumber. Top with a smidgen of pepper and close with another butter slice. Cut either into finger sized rectangles or across to form triangle shaped sandwiches. Serve!

Verdict: Have you experienced how tasty the very simple preparations are? This is one of them. We couldn’t stop eating them, and the mint gave it a very vibrant kick to it.

Sending this to ‘Celebrating Sandwiches’ event and to ‘A.W.E.D – British’ event series by DK.

Also to ‘Only Cooking with bread’ and to ‘Herbs and Flowers – Mint’ event.