Peake Practice - food news compiled by restaurateur Ray Peake, of Callums Bistro

A FEW months ago you may remember me enthusing about an appetiser I enjoyed when invited to a dinner party at a friend's home.

It was a salmon mousse of such intense flavour, yet light and delicate at the same time, that I lavished my entire vocabulary of superlatives and compliments upon my blushing friend.

It transpired that her genuine modesty was proportionate to the freshness of the salmon used to make this mousse.

The salmon had, in fact, come straight out of a tin.

On discovering the origin of the main ingredient my opinion of the mousse was in no way diminished and the honesty of my friend should be commended.

I bet that we have all at one time in our lives made a meal for someone and led them to believe that the sauce or whatever was made totally by our own fair hand when, in truth, we had a little help from a packet, jar or can.

I remember taking this to the extreme when I was a catering student.

I invited a group of friends round to my flat for a dinner party.

It was a frugal dinner party. Remember, all students are poor.

I wanted to give them something they would enjoy, that wouldn't take long to make and was relatively inexpensive. What did I do?

An hour before they were due to arrive I went to the local Chinese takeaway, ordered a multitude of dishes, took them home and emptied the Oriental goodies from the foil containers into pans.

A "casually" placed Chinese cookbook was left on the table and I congratulated myself on my ingenuity.

The meal was, of course, a huge success and my friends could not believe the quality of the dishes, exclaiming that I must have spent all day preparing this grand feast. I could not, of course, keep up the pretence for the entire evening, especially with technical questions as to how I made such and such.

In the end, I remember rolling around on the floor laughing (wine consumption assisted) and owning up to how I ensured that the food would be so good. Is there anything you can learn from this little story? Of course there is.

When entertaining at home, the emphasis is on offering your guests a meal that they will enjoy and it is a case of "the end justifies the means."

Be honest with you guests. If they ask, tell them and if they don't ask I'm afraid that probably means they aren't particularly enjoying it. So I urge you to make this salmon mousse, which is ideal as an appetiser for 12 people.

With the festive season imminent it will certainly come in handy for those large family gatherings.

When they gush uncontrollably, asking how you made, it tell them to read Peake Practice in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph. Credit where credit's due.

I would like to express my most sincere thanks to Mrs Glynnis Birchall for kindly giving me this recipe and allowing me to share it with the readers of this newspaper.

Salmon Mousse

2 large tins of red salmon(418g)

1 large carton double cream(284ml)

3 teaspoons lemon juice

2-3 sachets of gelatine

1 cup of water.

White pepper

tablespoon mayonnaise

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT NEEDED

FOR this mousse you ideally need a 2 pint mould. It should preferably be a pressure release mould enabling easier removal of the mousse. These are available in all good kitchenware shops.

Remove any bones and skin from the salmon and place in a food processor.

Add the lemon juice and any juice from the cans of salmon, season with white pepper, then "whizz" in the processor until a paste is achieved.

Whisk the cream then fold into the salmon mixture.

Fold the mayonnaise into the salmon mixture. Make up the gelatine as per instructions on the packet.

Fold the gelatine into the salmon mixture.

Pour the mixture into your "wetted" mould and allow to set overnight in the fridge.

SERVING SUGGESTION

GLYNNIS serves the salmon mousse with asparagus (out of a tin, of course) and melba toast.

And why not, as Barry Norman would say.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.