Smoked salmon & whisky sandwiches from the London Ritz.

“This,” as Helen Simpson maintains with a slew of modifiers, “makes an exceptionally moist delicious sandwich.” It also is economical for a smoked salmon preparation because cheap trimmings are fine and they are extended with the addition of heavy cream.

• ¼ lb smoked salmon trimmings
• about 1 ¼ cups heavy whipping cream
• 2 oz Scotch whisky
• ½ teaspoon white pepper
• ¼ teaspoon grated mace
• whole wheat (brown) bread
• soft butter for the bread
• 2 oz thinly sliced smoked salmon
• more white pepper
• lemon wedges

1. Puree the salmon trimmings with half the cream, the whisky, pepper and mace in a food processor or blender.
2. Whip the remaining cream until stiff and fold it into the salmon mixture.
3. Butter the bread and spread the salmon mixture on it, then top it with a slice of salmon and season with a little more white pepper.
4. Press another slice of buttered bread onto the salmon, remove the crust and slice each sandwich in half on the diagonal.
5. Serve with lemon wedges.

Note:

-The number of sandwiches the recipe supplies will depend on how thickly you choose to spread the salmon mixture; figure on four as a baseline.

-The recipe is lifted from Simpson’s London Ritz Book of Afternoon Tea (New York 1986). She recommends covering “the sandwiches with a clean cloth which has been wrung out in cold water until you are ready to serve them.” (Simpson 25)

-To make the sandwiches lighter and add a slight touch of the tart, substitute crème fraiche for the cream used to bind the salmon mixture.