Horror D'Oeuvres

Fanny Cradock doesn't mention Halloween much. She gives plans, ideas and instructions for almost every other festivity. Nothing for 31st October. It's a surprise as you'd imagine that all the spookery and ghoulishness would be right up her street. Dressing up. Making your food look eerily scary. Over the top, spine-chilling colourings. Putting the fear of god into children. Perhaps it's simply that, in England at least, it's only a relatively 'new' thing. Not on her radar. Growing up in Scotland, it was a major part of my childhood. Perhaps it's just that all this scary stuff was just everyday living for Fanny.

We can only imagine, but my guess is that Fanny's house was one of those doors that the 'guisers' as we call them up here, or Trick or Treaters elsewhere, just walked on by. Not worth the actual total fright that chapping on her door would provoke. Don't make me knock on the scary lady's door. No amount of treats would be a suitable reward for accidentally hammering on her door. Poor Fanny was likely inside waiting expectantly for the bash that never came. Surrounded by her own blood-curdling bespoke blow-out buffet, ready to share them with the local children. Perhaps this was the real issue. What Fanny thought of as treats would have been at best terrifying to many young eyes.

As all the kids skip merrily by, or perhaps run at hair-raising speed, Fanny was inside preparing party snacks just in case. We know her beloved banquet bites were Hors D'Oeuvres that could be easily passed around by the horrifyingly hearty hostess. We know that her favourite party food can be made in advance. It gives you more time to get yourself ready for guests to appear like it's all been an effortless excursion, despite the fact you've been preparing for weeks. We know that Fanny simply loved eggs. So put all three together, add a sprinkle of spookiness and get the Halloween Party started.

Fanny has seven ideas of egg based Hors D'Oeuvres. Seven. All a variation on a theme. All start with boiled eggs - some hard, some soft - and end up usually with something or other being van dyked. Not as in Dick, but as in cut into zig zags. I'm only making three of the seven. You'll see why. For the first ones, Fanny stamps out rounds of puff pastry, bakes them and then hollows out a circle in the centre. The eggs sit in this as a base. The eggs themselves can be excavated, removing the cooked yolks, replacing them with lemon mayonnaise if you like. Then small rosettes of Orange Mayonnaise are piped round the base of the egg. Or it can be a row of peas. The final flourish is a leaf of parsley on top. Maybe a splash of Tabasco. It's like an exploded vol-au-vent, if they ever made vol-au-vents for the film Alien.

You never really see eggs paired with oranges do you? You do in Fanny's world. As if orange mayonnaise wasn't already a step too far, she van dykes a small orange, places an egg inside then pipes more mayonnaise into the gaps. Remember those egg yolks you hollowed out earlier to replace with lemon mayonnaise? Fanny uses them to stuff into hollowed out tomatoes. To disguise the tomato as, erm, an egg, she van dykes some egg white to cap it off. You get the idea. Marry eggs, van dyke skills and orange mayonnaise in any combination for a treat that will never be tricked. Children will give your horrifying home a wide berth at Halloween, which may also be a neat trick, depending on how you view them. You'll be left with the full horror of eating the hors d'oeuvres yourself though, so beware.

Split Decision Salad

Fanny Cradock has views on salads, and she's not afraid to share them. First of all, in the words of the late Samuel Goldwyn (for reasons unknown) she wishes to make to clear that she is 'including out' things which are simply 'beneath her contempt'. A good salad is not a bowl of chopped lettuce, not cucumber with the skin cut off (so that everyone gets the burps), not un-skinned tomatoes and a most definitely not bottle of bought 'salad cream'. I'm with Fanny on that last one - she feels it is a misnomer as it contains no cream, and it does contain malt vinegar. Said vinegar is excellent for cleaning refrigerators and for taking stains of polished surfaces, but, Fanny maintains, is lethal to the taste buds and should be banned from home cooking. I just can't bear salad cream.

Fanny feels that by the very nature of it's ingredients, the humble salad is potentially a perfect example of a gourmet's requirements no matter how modest the expenditure is. Tomatoes must be skinned. Cucumbers must be un-skinned and sliced very thinly. Lettuce must be washed, torn, shaken and served cold. Real mayonnaise must be used. This makes the absolute minimal salad assembly and avoids the abomination of limpness. Pimentoes must be hard, crisp and tight skinned. Eggs must never be boiled for longer than eight minutes, and must be slung immediately afterwards into cold water to avoid nasty black lines around the yolk, which is off-putting at the best of times.

Most people in England, Fanny says not meaning to wade in on national divides, labour under the monumental misconception that a 'green salad' should be a kind of vegetarian dog's dinner compromising rabbit food and oddments, all higgled together on a kidney-shaped dish under the wrong name of 'Tossed Green Salad'. The main offence however remains that it is clearly not green, but multi-coloured. So what is the real deal? Fanny is keen to evoke feelings of nostalgia to explain...

Not sure who's nostalgia it is, perhaps her own? The answer lies in France, of course, where all things civilised reside. Between the hours of noon and two, every French working man, whether he quits his office desk, road excavation, factory yard, field, counter or luxurious limousine, returns home to discover the homemaker shaking out crisp, well picked green stuff, Salade Verte, from their saladiers, to be served after the main course. Fanny suggests a slight change of colour with her idea for British homes, the Iris Salad. Just please do not serve it with any wine. Fanny begs you. Not at lunchtime at any rate, surely.

Perhaps it is not the colour which gives the Iris Salad it's name. It's far from a violet hue. Perhaps it is because you will not believe your eyes. Especially after all Fanny's demands. She makes a simple dressing with wine vinegar, oil, crushed garlic, chopped pimentos, paprika and pickles. No salad cream. All good so far. She washes and spin dries crisp, cos salad leaves. She slices tomatoes neatly, more pimentos, perfectly boiled eggs and just before she drizzles the dressing over, she adds slices of banana. Yes, banana. In a salad. At least it wasn't salad cream, that would just be disgusting...

Les Oeufs Bleu

Fanny Cradock was famous for her use of perfectly harmless vegetable food colouring. Some say overuse, not me you understand. Some said it even at the time. Fanny was oblivious, not even a blush. Everything seemed to be brightly coloured to well and truly illuminate the food, perhaps as an intense antidote to the rather drab and monotone life Fanny assumed everyone else led? Fanny's most used stains were green and blue. She generally held to her own unwritten rule that green was for savoury items (potatoes more often that not) and blue for sweet (think cakes iced in blue). So, eggs should be dyed green shouldn't they?

Unless of course you are thinking 'why the heck would you dye your eggs?' which is fair enough. Fanny isn't chatting about heavily decorated eggs ready for Easter here, but it is hard boiled eggs flushed with a vibrant tint that have captured her attention. Ideal for any respectable Hors D'oeuvres selection you see. Gilded is best. She boils them in the normal way, and cools them under perfectly ordinary running cold tap water to maintain the glowing yellow yolks. No hint of greyness here. Absolutely not. Never.

Fanny peels the eggs (or gets some poor assistant to do it for her, you can never be too careful with your fingernails, can you?) then plunges them into bowls of strongly saturated perfectly ordinary cold water to take on the appropriate hue. Green remember? Well it should be. Fanny herself says so, but then adds that she has simply no idea why they emerge an hour later a terrific tinge of turquoise-blue. Fanny says not to ask her why they do, just to accept that they do. I'm clearly in 'curious not accepting' mood. If I was an assistant I'd be bashed. Perhaps it's a very particular chemical reaction between egg white and harmless vegetable food colouring? I wonder if food colourings have changed a bit since the 1970's so try one solitary boiled egg in green water first.

It does have a slight turquoise look to it, but I'd say it's still more green. I can barely believe that I have happily 'set to' comparing food colouring reactions on boiled eggs, but I have. This is what my life has become, I'm not sure how this has happened, don't ask, just accept that it has... The rest of the boiled batch are plunged into blue coloured water aiming for the more authentic Fanny-look, as in her own pictures. To not be authentic would be horrific, and who wants horrific oeufs hors d'oeuvres?

Fanny treats the embellished eggs in two separate ways. Some eggs are kept whole, with only a sliver sliced off their tops, ready to receive a little piped (green coloured, naturally, or at least harmlessly) mayonnaise and a sprinkling of Paprika. Presumably for even more colour. Other eggs are sliced from top to bottom, arranged on a plate, surrounded by finely chopped eggs and decorated with strips of the same coloured mayonnaise. It's a very colourful affair indeed. Fanny calls them Egg Barrels, or Oeufs à la Riga if you ever spot them on a very fancy hors d'oeuvres menu and aren't sure. Would you select one? Remember, the colouring is perfectly harmless, it never seemed to affect Fanny in any way at all, she seemed perfectly normal.

Seventies Salad

I'm going to ask you to close your eyes in a moment. Just warning you. However you'll need to read on just for a little bit to find out why on earth I would ask you to do so. Don't worry, I'm not going to flash up a photo of yet another crazy creation from Fanny Cradock, well not just yet. No, I want you to shut your peepers and think of your childhood salad. Oh dear, I should've said that once you've thought of it you need to open them again and continue reading. I do hope you've worked that bit out all for yourselves...

What did you see? I'd hazard a guess if you saw a boiled egg on your plate that you, like me, are a child of the seventies, or before. No salad was complete in our house without one. A little bit of lettuce, maybe some cucumber for special occasions, some pickled beetroot from a jar (which I never touched), perhaps a spring onion but always a hard boiled egg. Fanny too thinks that eggs are ideal for a summertime salad. She lived in a time before 'salad' meant pre-packed pillows of Frisee, Radicchio and Wild Rocket.

Fanny, years before dearly beloved Delia, first of all ensures that we know how to boil an egg. She brings a small pan of very ordinary domestic tap water to a fairly fast boil. Eggs should then be lowered in on a tablespoon to avoid cracking and cooked for eggsactly (sorry) seven minutes. Drain down the sink (just incase you had other ideas). Fanny then turns on the cold tap and runs it over the boiled eggs still in the pan until they themselves are cold. Tap the eggs very gently all around against the side of the sink to peel away the shells in seconds without 'unsightly fingernail marks.' Quite.

This technique from Fanny also means that the yolk will not be black against the white inside, which, Fanny says, frequently results from not chilling the egg instantly. Check it for yourself, slice the eggs in half lengthways and arrange them in the centre of the plate to begin the salad. No black. Fanny first surrounds the eggs with a 'ring of carrots' which can be either cut by hand laboriously or with ease and speed with a mandoline. Fanny always gives unbiased choices. Fingers must be kept out the way when using the mandoline. I have a guard on mine. Fanny had assistants.

Fanny shreds some white cabbage for an additional ring and skins tomatoes to make petal shapes for added decoration. For maximum appeal, Fanny flavours some mayonnaise with the juice of an orange and pipes it into rosettes in-between. Fanny does say that this is only when she is feeling grand and leisurely, otherwise she'd just plonk the mayonnaise down in a bowl separately. It's essentially a deconstructed coleslaw with a boiled egg, but Fanny makes it seem much grander, in a leisurely way. Using the mandolin keeps the carrots crisp and crunchy, and the whole salad is quite lovely. Did you have hard boiled eggs in your salad? Oh I do hope you've opened your eyes again ready to enjoy the full effect.