Isabella Beeton was spot on, as she was so often, with her words of praise for high tea: “In some houses, it is a permanent institution, quite taking the place of late dinner, and to many it is a most enjoyable meal, young people preferring it to dinner, it being a moveable feast that can be partaken of at hours which will not interfere with tennis, boating or other amusements and but little formality is needed.”

She goes on to suggest one or two small hot dishes, cold chicken or game, tongue or ham, salad, cakes of various kinds, “sometimes cold fruit tart with cream or custard and fresh fruit”. Preparing a high tea today, this is just the sort of menu one might want to serve.

Mrs B is often derided as a fussy Victorian cook, but her books are full of good sense. She could, of course, do fussy with the best of them, with towering centrepieces, intricate entremets and elaborate jellies and parfaits, but she was also a fount of simple, excellent recipes which do not sound out of place today.

High tea has rather been overlooked as a meal in the home, which is a pity because the food served is simple and appetising, just right for those occasions when you are in the mood for comfort food. Not the elaborate or expensive food served at dinner but more casual food, exceedingly savoury an tasty, relying on eggs, cheese, ham, smoked fish and other well-defined flavours.

Some years ago I worked with British Airways to introduce high tea on some of their long-haul routes and we included Glamorgan sausages, traditional Cornish pasties, macaroni cheese and a smoked haddock rarebit. On the summer menu there was an English goat’s cheese and asparagus tart, and a pair of devils on horseback, prunes wrapped in bacon and grilled. Like any other meal, the food served at high tea can be seasonal.

Smoked fish, chicken or prawn salads and grilled vegetable and ricotta tarts are just right for now, with a fruit salad or tart, cake or ice cream to finish the meal on a sweet note.

For a summer high tea to serve at home, I might choose cheese scones filled with Coronation chicken, followed by cold poached fish with accompaniments including the indispensable potato salad.

Ice cream with home-made biscuits – white chocolate and hazelnut or buttery shortbread – can finish the meal, but in between, for high tea, there is always a cake, and for that I would serve my moist, sticky ginger cake, a lemon and pistachio cake or a simple walnut and banana loaf.

Coronation chicken, ‘invented’ by Constance Spry, was a dish much served at parties and buffets in the 1950s and 1960s. Here it is turned into an elegant and tasty filling for savoury scones. The scones, more often a feature of afternoon tea, here do the duty of vol-au-vents, but more ‘Britishly’. As an alternative presentation, which is lovely for hot weather, and easy to prepare, you can use the melon which forms part of the salad ingredients, hollow it out and fill the shell with the chicken salad.

The secret to producing a curry dressing for the salad is to use a good mayonnaise or yoghurt and a curry paste, not raw curry powder, which would make the finished dish taste unpleasantly of raw spices. In curry paste, of course, the spices have been cooked first.

Drinks for high tea can be anything you wish, from tea, hot or iced, coffee or juice, to beer, wine or bubbly.

Coronation chicken scones

(Makes 12)

350g self-raising flour
100g butter, chilled and diced
50g hard cheese, grated
About 150ml fresh milk soured with lemon juice or plain yoghurt thinned with water

Rub the flour and butter together in a bowl. Stir in the cheese and add enough liquid to make a soft, pliable dough. Transfer to a floured board, and knead it lightly. Roll and cut out scones. Bake at 200°C in a preheated oven for about 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. Cut a thin slice from the top of each scone, and then hollow out the centre, leaving a case for you to fill with the chicken salad.

These are best assembled shortly before required or they will become soggy and heavy.

Coronation chicken salad

2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
½ ripe honeydew or other sweet melon, diced small
1 celery stalk, trimmed and diced
4-6 tbsps mayonnaise
2-3 tsps mild Indian curry paste (see recipe)
Fresh basil or mint

Poach or steam the chicken for eight minutes. When cool enough to handle, dice and mix with the melon and celery, then fold in the mayonnaise and curry paste, starting with the smaller amount and tasting as you go.

Spoon into the scones, decorate with basil or mint and serve.

White chocolate and hazelnut biscuits

(Makes 2 -3 dozen)

150g unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
1 egg, beaten with
2 tbsps Amaretto, Kahlua or other favourite liqueur – optional
250g self-raising flour
100g white chocolate with 75g hazelnuts

Cream the butter and sugar and beat in the egg, liquid and flour. Chop the chocolate and stir it and the nuts into the mixture. Chill the mixture until firms up.Scoop up walnut-size balls with floured hands and place on two prepared baking sheets, well-spaced. Press down with fingers, or spatula, to a diameter of about 7.5 centimetres and bake for 12 to 15 minutes in a preheated oven at 160°C.

Remove from the oven, leave for a minute or two and then cool the biscuits on a wire rack to crisp them up. When completely cold, you can dust them with icing sugar mixed with a little cinnamon or nutmeg before serving.

Cook’s note: Instead of two separate ingredients, you can chop up a white chocolate and hazelnut bar. Note that white chocolate burns easily, so check from time to time and turn the heat down if it looks as if the biscuits are browning before being fully baked.

Cool cucumber

I like to make cucumber water, a most refreshing drink, in hot weather. It could not be simpler and is far less expensive than the flavoured waters on the market. Rinse a large cucumber, and with a potato peeler remove the skin in long thin strips. Put these in a large jug. Halve the cucumber lengthways and scoop out the seeds, adding these to the jug as well as the two ends, chopped.

If you like, you can add thinly pared lemon zest for the fragrance and perhaps a sprig or two of mint, fennel or basil, but not too many flavours, as cucumber should be the predominant taste.

Fill the jug with water and chill until very cold, which will give time for the flavourings to infuse the water.

The rest of the cucumber, of course, is for making cucumber sandwiches or salad. Slice very thinly, sprinkle on a little salt, let the cucumber drain in a colander for an hour or two, rinse and dry well on paper towels before using.

Walnut and banana loaf

(Makes 2 loaves)

150g butter, plus extra for greasing
150g light muscovado or other soft brown sugar
450g self-raising flour
½ tsp salt
2 tsps ground allspice
2 tsps ground nutmeg
1 tsp powdered cinnamon
1.5 tsp baking powder
2 ripe bananas
200g shelled chopped walnuts
10 walnut halves for decoration
4 eggs
Milk (see recipe)

This moist loaf keeps well, so I always make two, in 500g loaf tins. Grease and flour the tins and line the bottom with baking parchment. Cream the butter until soft and then beat in the sugar. Work together for a few minutes until the mixture is light and creamy.

Sift the flour, spices, baking powder and salt together. Beat the eggs and stir them into the mixture, a little at a time, alternating with folding in the flour. Mash the bananas and stir into the cake mixture with the chopped walnuts.

Add a little milk if the mixture seems too tight (it should be of dropping consistency) and mix thoroughly. Fill the loaf tins with the cake batter and smooth the surface. Place the whole walnuts down the centre of the loaves.

Bake for 60 to 75 minutes at 160°C. When cooked, a knifepoint or skewer inserted into the centre of the loaves will come out clean.

Remove the tins from the oven. Leave them to rest for five minutes, and then turn the loaves out on to a cake rack to cool.

Peel off the greaseproof paper while still warm.

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