Wensleydale Bites are a delicious little appetizer featuring toasted Baguette sections with delicious Wensleydale Cheese and Liver Pâté.
Sometimes I like just playing around in the kitchen, and this little appetizer I put together one day turned out very nicely. I chose the name ‘Wensleydale Bites, because the star of the show is the delicious, rather cheddar-like Wensleydale Cheese from Yorkshire, in England. I am not providing you with a recipe, as such, for none id really needed, but if you read on, you can see how I put these together.
Basically, to make these Wensleydale Bites, I toasted some slices cut from a small baguette, brushed each with some of my homemade Garlic Oil, and then spread them with Liver Pâté. On top of this, I put strips of the cheese straddled by slivers of pickled Gherkin and then I grilled everything just until the cheese started to bubble. Finally, I drizzled over a little Cranberry-Chipotle Jelly and garnished with chopped parsley.
If you don’t have Garlic Oil on hand, you can easily adopt the Italian way of making Bruschetta in which the bread slices are toasted (preferably on a wood-fired grill) and then rubbed with the cut surface of a garlic clove before being drizzled with a little Olive Oil.
By the way, the Cranberry-Chipotle Jelly was just what I happened to have on hand on this occasion and it can easily be substituted for something similar, such as Redcurrant Jelly, or a Port Wine based Jelly, with, or without other additions such as citrus peel, or hot peppers.
Finally, I only used a cheap, canned Pâté for Wensleydale Bites my on this occasion but you could easily go for something a little more decadent and expensive if you like, or, alternatively, if you are not keen on liver, there are all sorts of other meat spreads and Pâtés that would work just as well. I even have a Mushroom Pâté waiting to be used in my store cupboard and I believe that that would be tasty too.
That’s the nice thing about this little appetizer is that there is all sorts of scope for improvisation!