CLARIDGE’S TEA SANDWICHES

CLARIDGE’S FIVE SANDWICH RULES

1. The one-third rule! The perfect afternoon tea sandwich should be two-thirds bread and one-third filling.

2. A sharp serrated knife is crucial for cutting sandwiches. You’ll need a knife with teeth that aren’t too large (these will tear the bread). Something like a Victorinox 26cm pastry knife is ideal.

3. Use a palette knife or spreader knife for spreading softened butters and jams.

4. Keep it even, keep it neat! We slice our loaves of bread lengthways (horizontally) into long rectangular slices, rather than vertically. This makes it easier to cut into rectangular fingers and reduces wastage. The bread should be evenly sliced, evenly topped, then evenly cut and trimmed.

5. Never let the bread dry out. Keep the slices covered at all times. We stack the sandwiches as we make them, placing the crust slices of the bread on the bottom and top of the pile to keep the bread just right. You could use clingfilm, or a damp clean tea towel.

FIVE CLARIDGE’S SANDWICH FILLINGS

Poached Var salmon, garden herb mayonnaise on rye bread

Due to the volume of salmon we require at Claridge’s, our fresh salmon is farmed. However, it is farmed by three brothers on the Faroe Islands between Scotland and Iceland, famed for being the finest salmon breeders in the world. The natural habitat, with exceptionally strong currents to swim against, provide the most real conditions with the highest welfare standards. We flavour our signature mayo with chopped chervil, tarragon and chives.

English cucumber, cream cheese & rocket on white bread

Our cucumbers are grown organically in the heart of England, under glass or in the great outdoors, depending on the weather. As is traditional, the cucumber sandwich comes on a soft white bread, recalling the time when white bread was a culinary sensation thanks to 19th-century milling techniques. We add a little chopped dill and finely grated horeseradish to the cream cheese.

Corn-Fed Chicken, lemon & thyme mayonnaise, walnut on malted bread

The chickens are naturally reared Cotswold White birds, which are given space and time to develop to produce a meat with great flavour and texture, perfect for our sandwiches. Once roast and carved, the chicken is lightly seasoned and served on malted bread with lemon and thyme mayonnaise and chopped toasted walnuts.

Breckland Brown & Clarence Court egg mayonnaise on white bread

Both eggs are soft-boiled, then chopped by hand, turned with our homemade mayonnaise and finished with a good twist of pepper and pinch of mustard cress. The sandwich is served on fresh creamy white bread that is soft, yielding and very moreish.

Dorrington ham, smoked tomato chutney, watercress on onion bread

We purchase our fine hams directly from a small butcher in Dorrington, near Shrewsbury in Shropshire. It’s a family-run concern and Darren Sadd sources the pork from local farms. Any good-quality tomato chutney will be good in a ham sandwich. We also often serve our ham with sliced tomato and a tarragon and mustard mayonnaise.