Whether you’re a Joan or a Betty, a Roger or a Don, you’ll love this retro ‘60s martini and nibble. If you’re having company, you can make the cocktails to order or, if you’d rather not spend the evening mixing drinks, you can make up a batch and put them in a pitcher for guests to help themselves.

Sake Ginger Martini

Sake, less forceful than vermouth, makes a marvelous martini.  A hint of ginger adds just the right touch.

• 4 ounces vodka
• 2 tablespoons candied ginger, minced, plus more for garnish
• 1 ounce sake
• Crushed ice
• Cucumber slices

Gently shake the vodka, ginger, sake and ice together in a cocktail shaker.  Pour into two chilled martini glasses and serve garnished with cucumber and candied ginger slices.

What to serve with this great coctail?  If you can boil water, you can make this gorgeous egg appetizer! Just marinate hard-boiled eggs in tea and spices and you’ll have an elegant, but sinfully simple nibble to impress guests.

Different types of tea yield different colors. Green tea makes lovely yellow shades, Red Zinger purple hues, Lemon Zinger green striations, and black tea an assortment of golden brown tones. You can try this technique with normal eggs or even with delicate quail eggs.

Accompany the tea eggs with tiny bowls of salt, like orange tinged Hawaiian salt or flavorful gray salt.  They are wonderful with a martini!!

Tea Eggs 

Serves 6

From:

Opera Lover’s Cookbook (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2007)

by Francine Segan

• 5 bags or 5 heaping teaspoonfuls tea
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 3 whole star anise or 1 teaspoon anise seed
• 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
• 1 teaspoon whole cloves
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
• 1 2-inch cinnamon stick
• 6 eggs, hard-boiled
• Salt, various varieties

Steep the tea in 2 cups of boiling hot water in a bowl large enough to hold all the eggs. Remove the tea bags or strain, if using loose tea.

Stir in the soy sauce, sugar, star anise, peppercorns, cloves, fennel, and cinnamon. Reserve.

Gently tap the hard-boiled eggs on a hard surface until they are completely covered with fine crack lines. Place the eggs still in their shells in the tea mixture and marinate overnight.

To serve, carefully peel the shell, leaving the inner membrane intact.  Serve accompanied by a variety of salts.