Making a festive New Year’s menu is not an easy task, sometimes even for an experienced cook. So many delicious salads, unusual snacks, impressive desserts and spectacular hot dishes! It seems that it is simply impossible to cook them all. But it’s worth trying, the main thing is to approach the issue thoroughly!
In almost all families, a lot of attention is paid to the preparation of festive dishes for the New Year and Christmas feast. Chefs want to show all their skills and serve the best treats to the festive table.
Recipes for the New Year and Christmas table differ from each other. By the New Year’s Eve, you need to flaunt all your culinary talents and surprise guests with fancy and incredibly delicious treats. Aspic with beautifully carved vegetables, French-style meat, homemade pates, delicious snacks of vegetables, meat and fish, salads with products that seem completely incongruous at first glance – preparing a New Year’s table is a great opportunity to show imagination in the culinary field.
It is customary to prepare lean dishes and lemonades for the supper on Christmas Eve. Vegetable broth, buckwheat porridge with mushrooms, cabbage pies, fish dishes, stuffed cabbage rolls with rice filling and many other goodies can be created in any cook’s own kitchen. Be sure to give your household a traditional lemonade (compote made from a mixture of dried fruits and berries) according to old recipes.
How to Make a Homemade New Year’s Menu?
According to experienced chefs, there will be enough for 6-7 guests: 1-2 hot dishes, side dishes, 3-4 types of salads, several types of snacks, hot and cold, dessert and fruit. This average menu can be varied depending on the circumstances, for example, if there are children among the guests.
One of the secrets of a successful New Year’s menu is to cook several new dishes every year. At the same time, you should decide what you would like to make the main bet on: someone prefers to invest time and effort in preparing a complex hot dish, and someone – in a variety of snacks. If, instead of traditional olives and caviar sandwiches, you offer your guests glazed duck with grapes on skewers, your guests will remember for a long time how refined and unusual your festive treat was.
But in fact, there is nothing wrong with having only traditional dishes on the New Year’s menu, without frills.
I suggest you try a delicious salad in the Mediterranean style – fried golden potatoes, slices of fleshy ripe tomatoes, pickled crispy onions, salted smoked ham and mustard dressing. That’s how it is in the Mediterranean style causes me some doubts personally, but it is positioned in a Moscow restaurant. I didn’t argue because it was incredibly delicious. Just tweaked, polished to your liking and it turned out perfectly! I recommend it as a full-fledged delicious dinner. And for the arrival of unexpected guests, the salad is good.
Estepona is a place in Spain where my daughter and her grandson spent 1.5 months this summer. And here’s the salad we tried there. Absolutely calmly you can cook it at home, ham can safely replace smoked ham or meat, and voila! Spain is on our table. The salad is very tasty.
Profiteroles are traditional French pastries with a wide variety of fillings. I offer you my own version of profiteroles with the addition of spelt flour, Provencal herbs and the original filling of soft cheese.
I want to offer you a simple, but nevertheless delicious snack for the festive table. Mini profiterole in such eateries is ideal for a buffet table or as an aperitif. From this amount of ingredients, about 50 mini-puffs with stuffing are obtained.
Another quick, but quite bright and spectacular dish for the festive table. An interesting alternative to traditional canapes with caviar or stuffed eggs.
Crispy gratin. I bring to your attention a wonderful crispy potato gratin. What could be easier is to cut potatoes, onions, and the result will be incredibly delicious, Provencal herbs will do their job. My husband said it tasted better than fried. That’s the only way I’m going to cook now. And it turns out not bad – it would also look good on a festive table.
I want to share with you my brownie recipe, it differs in cooking technology from the classic and without the addition of chocolate. Take a look, maybe this recipe will suit you.