The way to people’s heart is through their stomach, so how about a heart-shaped appetiser to impress your family and friends? And the it tastes delicious and is super easy to make too!

And the best part is that it can be made with anything that you have at home, as long as there is bread.

These bite-size hearts, made from bread slices, carry toppings of anything you have available or want to use, so an ideal recipe to turn to when guests arrive at a short notice. You basically take a bread slice, cut it into two triangles, shape it into a heart, secured in place with a toothpick (which you take out before serving), top with your favourite toppings and grill for five minutes. See, it is super easy!

I applied mayonnaise and ketchup first, you can also use butter or garlic butter; then topped with chicken tikka chunks, cheese, boiled eggs and cucumber, and finally some black pepper sprinkled on top.

Experiment with other ingredients that you prefer and these bread hearts are sure to be crowd pleasers!

Ingredients

• 5 bread slices, or according to requirement

• 1 egg boiled

• 1/2 cucumber, peeled, sliced

• 100g cheese, sliced

• 1/4 cup chicken tikka chunks

• 4 tablespoons ketchup

• 4 tablespoons mayonnaise

• 1 teaspoon black pepper

Method

Cut bread slices into triangles. Take some water in a bowl and brush the slice with some water to soften it a little, so that it can form into hearts easily. Cut a small V-shape piece of bread from the centre of the long side (the hypotenuse). Keep the piece away as we won’t be using it.

Now take the two corner points of the bread triangle, bring it together to the centre gently, to form a heart. Use a toothpick to hold it in place. Don’t worry if the bread edges break, just use your fingers to give it a neat shape. The texture of the bread affects the shape so sometimes, like it happened in some of my bread pieces, it is difficult to get a nice heart-shape. But it doesn’t really matter, life is not a competition!

Line a baking tray with parchment paper, place the bread hearts on it, ready to be topped! Now, spread ketchup on some bread pieces and mayonnaise on the others. Place the different toppings in any manner you like, grill for five minutes or until the top has a light brown colour, or until the cheese melts. Serve hot.

This can be made in advance and reheated in the oven before serving.

The writer Instagrams @the_experimentalcook

Published in Dawn, Young World, May 6th, 2023