Category: Martini

Christmas Cocktail Party – 2002

.Hello Friends and welcome to Twenty Years Ago Today!  Today I am planning a Christmas Cocktail Party based on recipes from the December 2002 Edition of Australian Table. The Christmas Martini featured in the magazine felt like a perfect way to kick off the festivities!

Christmas Martini 2 (1)

 

Dec 2002 Menu

 

The Christmas Martini

I had to check my dates to see if the Christmas Martini was created at the height of Sex And The City and thus was leaning into the Cosmo craze that show generated.  It was a little late for that so now think that the use of cranberry juice in a martini was more due to its festive colour than a call back to the show.

I admit to being a bit worried about this  – I thought it might be too sweet. I used a no-added-sugar cranberry juice to try to counter this and to my mind, this recipe really worked.  The Christmas Martini is definitely sweeter than a regular martini but the tannins in the cranberry helped to keep it from being sickly.  I also liked the combination of the slightly sweet drink and the salty olives.  So this was a winner for me!

Christmas Martini 1

Christmas Martini Recipe

Christmas Martini Recipe

The Other Recipes (and My Variations)

Parmesan Chilli Biscuits with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

If I were making these, I might be tempted to swap out the baby spinach leaves for basil leaves and pipe a little splodge of goat’s cheese onto each biscuit not only to add some more flavour but also to anchor the tomato to the biscuit a bit better!  No one wants a stray balsamic-covered cherry tomato rolling off their biscuit and staining their cocktail dress!

Here’s The Recipe:

Christmas Cocktail Party1

Cured Salmon with Fresh Herbs

I made this and the salmon was amazing!  So good and so easy!  To fit in with my cocktail party theme, instead of serving it in long strips with potato salad, per the recipe, I cut the salmon into chunks and served it on crackers with some cream cheese, thinly sliced shallots and the capers and herbs suggested by the recipe.  These would work perfectly with the Chrirtmas Martini too!

Cured Salmon2

 

Cured Salmon 3

 

Here’s The Recipe:

Cured Salmon Recipe

Fillet of Beef with Salsa Verde

For cocktail party serving, I would make cut the beef into nice bite-size chunks, place it on a grilled bit of crusty bread and drizzle with the salsa verde.

Salsa Verde Beef

Mixed Berry Tarts

A great alternative, if, like me, you are not a  fan of the traditional mince pie!  These would be a lovely ending to your Christmas cocktail party!

Mixed Berry Tarts

My Nigella Moment

For first-time readers, this refers to the moment at the end of Nigella Lawson’s cooking shows when she sneaks back to the fridge to have another bite of something delicious.  In the context of these Twenty Years Ago posts, it is something contained in the magazine that does not fit with the overall menu theme but I’m sneaking in because it was really good!  This month’s item of irresistibility was a Peach, Watercress and Blue Cheese Salad. This was sensational!  (If it looks a little bit familiar, we ate this as a side dish to last week’s Stilton and Leek Souffle.

Peach, Watercress and Blue Cheese Salad2

 

Peach, Watercress and Blue Cheese Salad

Here’s the recipe:

Peach, Watercress and Blue Cheese Salad recipe

I hope this has given you some inspo for your own Christmas Cocktail Party.  Have a wonderful, safe and festive holiday period!

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The Dirty Cowboy Martini

Howdy Cowdies!

First up sorry for my tardiness for Cowboy Day but I have been laid low for about a week with a totally vicious cold/flu.  But, just like that ChumbaWumba song from the 90’s, I get knocked down… but I get up again.  (But only for a few hours at a time because this thing is wiping me out!)

Unlike that song which talks of whiskey drinks and lager drinks and vodka drinks, I made us a gin drink.

People of the world, meet the Dirty Cowboy Martini!

Dirty Cowboy Martini

 

It’s good.  It’s so good.  As to be expected.  Cos who doesn’t love a dirty cowboy?

😉

Now there is a bit of too-ing and ‘s fro-ing to make the Dirty Cowboy but believe me, it’s worth it!

First up you gotta make some Cowboy Candy.  Which is no hardship because these Candied Jalapeno’s may just become my favourite thing to eat in the world.  Ever.

Cowboy Candy1

Sweet, spicy, tangy, hot, sour…these are little flavour bombs!

I had fully intended just to post these but then I got to thinking (always dangerous) about how to show them off to full effect and I came up with the idea of the Dirty Cowboy Martini.

I used this recipe for my Cowboy Candy.

Cowboy Candy4jpg

The Dirty Cowboy Martini is a riff on a regular dirty martini.  This is where a bit of the olive brine is added to the drink.  In the Dirty Cowboy, a spoonful of the sweet, spicy chilli liquid is added!  It’s so good!  And really hard to have just one of!

I used the Four Pillars Cousin Vera Gin for this as it is a lot more savoury than my usual Hendricks.  It worked really well!

Dirty Cowboy Martini

The perfect accompaniment to the Dirty Cowboy Martini was a little dip I made from some of the chopped up Cowboy Candies, some cream cheese and a spoonful of the French Onion Soup Mix I had left over from when I made the Selfish Girl’s Seafood Plate.

Dirty Cowboy Martini

Here’s the Martini recipe.  Now, I like a lot of vermouth in my martini so I would add more than the standard amount I have listed below.

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Dirty Cowboy Martini

A delicious take on a Dirty Martini, using Cowboy Candy instead of olives.

Ingredients

Scale
  • 70 ml gin (I used Four Pillars Cousin Vera)
  • 1 tbsp dry vermouth (I used Noilly Prat)
  • 2 tbsp Cowboy Candy Brine
  • Lemon Wedge
  • Slice of lemon to garnish
  • 12 Cowboy Candies to garnish

Instructions

  1. Pour the gin, dry vermouth and Cowboy Candy brine into a cocktail shaker with ice and shake well.
  2. Rub the rim of a martini glass with the wedge of lemon.
  3. Pour the liquid into the glass and garnish with a round of lemon and a Cowboy Candy. Add another Cowboy Candy to the glass if you wish.
  4. Enjoy!

Happy Belated Cowboy Day to all who celebrated!

Thank you to the utterly awesome Greg Swenson from Recipes4Rebels for inviting me to take part in the festivities!!!!  I am raising a virtual glass of Dirty Cowboy Martini to you!

 

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