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Rye Clovers
Slice rye bread into thin slices, spread with a mixture of whipped cream, roquefort cheese and finely chopped celery. Cut into clover shapes.
A canapé spread with no quantities attached, of the sort menu-driven books of the period expected a cook to eyeball. Two things decide whether it works: the stiffness of the cream and the firmness of the bread.
- ProportionsThe original gives none. A workable ratio is 4 oz Roquefort mashed smooth, folded into 1/2 cup cream whipped to soft peaks, with 1/3 cup very finely chopped celery. Whipped cream here is unsweetened and acts as a lightener, not a dessert element.
- Whip the cream separatelyBeat the cream first, then fold the mashed cheese in. Mashing cheese into liquid cream and beating the two together will not aerate, and the mixture ends up loose and greasy.
- BreadUse a firm, close-grained deli rye or the small square "cocktail rye," sliced thin and preferably a day old. Fresh soft sandwich rye tears under a cutter and goes damp within minutes. Seeded rye fights the cheese less than you would think, but unseeded cuts cleaner.
- Clover shapesA clover here is presumably a small three- or four-lobed canapé cutter of the sort found in sets of small tin cutters. A 1 1/2-inch round cutter, or three overlapping small rounds, gives a similar effect. Note that the original spreads the bread first and cuts afterwards; cutting before spreading is cleaner, but it is a departure from the text.
- CeleryChop it finer than seems necessary, close to a mince, and blot it dry. Wet celery weeps into the cream and slides off the bread.
- CheeseRoquefort is sharp and salty; do not salt the spread. A milder blue will read as bland once the cream is folded in, so if you substitute, use more of it.
- Timing and yieldAbout 1 1/4 cups of spread, enough for 30 to 36 small canapés. Assemble within an hour of serving and keep them chilled and covered; the spread itself holds two days in the refrigerator, but it must be brought back to spreading temperature and stirred.
Menu books of the interwar and mid-century decades built whole chapters around cold food, and the canapé was among their staples: bread, a flavored butter or cheese spread, and a cutter to give it a shape a hostess could name. Roquefort with celery echoes the salad course, where blue cheese, celery and cream were a familiar combination, and the whipped cream is doing what it does in many recipes of the era — turning a strong, dense ingredient into something pale and light. The clover shape appears to be purely decorative; sets of small tin cutters in clubs, diamonds, hearts and clovers were available, and recipes of the period sometimes called for them by shape.