Fêtes . Dinners of Holiday. Many IDs, change of style.

A few ideas for holiday menus. Japan has a month to celebrate the end of the year with Bonenkai (funerals of the old year) parties. In other places, Yule, Noël, Xmas and New Year in many places. Add, yours…
I like trying different dishes and meal styles.

Take a hot cup of thé de Noël and enjoy :

Rétro Christmas, candlelight and rustic.

Simple appetizers.
Jambon en croute aux marrons (chestnut ham pie)
Provence’s style : 13 desserts of Christmas night
Nougat glacé (iced nougat)

Kani Nabe (crab hot pot)
Winter Japanese home parties are often nabe (hot-pots)
Japanese hot pot with Winter crab
Other nabe (hot pots) :
Nikomi Udon
Duck and veggie nabe
sukiyaki

Noël blanc
Everything white, and French flavors…
Full Menu White French Christmas
Boudin blanc (white pudding sausage was little people’s Xmas treat, DIY)
Blanc-Manger (Middle-Age style, not a dessert)
Canard aux airelles (duck with cranberry sauce)
Gateau Mont-Blanc (coconut Antilles’ whiteness)

A Japanese Christmas menu
chicken and sesame cooking class
marmalade and sesame wings
chicken slices with wine sesame sauce
tofu with wine sesame sauce
decorative potato sarada. (pote sarada)
sesame fruit cake

Mexican Navidad, Tamales
pickles and chicken tamales
yellow grits tamales
tamale pie

Islands
Christmas ham, from the Antilles (French Caribbean islands).
Petit jambon antillais (pineapple baked ham)
féroce d’avocat (cod fish spicy guacamole)

Classic French
potage Choisy
Le poulet de Gaston – Dijon chicken (mustard sauce)
bûche aux marrons glacés
Douceurs de beurre et marrons…

Osechi Ryori, a feast of good luck dishes for Japanese New Year, with the recipes. Click here.

Alsace influence. French and light.
Full Menu
Blinis with smoked salmon
Choucroute de la mer (seafood Sauerkraut)
Bûche forêt noire Blackforest log Yule cake
Bredele (season cookies)

Petit Jésus en brioche…
About this one, posts showing up soon :
Colorful first dish
Saucisson en brioche au safran (salami saffron pie)
Red wine red cabbage in rice cooker. The same in cocotte.
Chestnutty no-bake croquettes
Flocon de neige (streusel flocken-sahne). Berry Flockensahne.
Black sugar Nonnettes Kaki nonnettes. Mandarin nonnettes.

Wine cranberry sauce on fougasse

Chance created me this wonderful recipe. This pink creaminess was out of this world…
Whole wheat fougasse/pizza dough (left-over), covered by cream cheese + yogurt (left-over), and what topping… oh, I had that leftover of red sauce (for duck) in the freezer, since 1932 at least : Wine, shallot, butter and cranberry sauce.

And I completed with more toppings : raisins, goji berries, walnuts. A little parmesan cheese. A drizzle of olive oil.

Baked !

It’s thin, crispy and mellow. And the taste is really deep, rich, refined.

The rest of dough, with more thyme, rosemary and bits of garlic inside, painted with olive oil. That gave a delicately fragrant roll.

Osechi Compilation : Opening the boxes

Osechi Ryori is Japanese good luck food for the NewYear

NB : click on the text not the photos

For more Japanese New Year traditions click here.

Photo menu :

the lacquer box
the Osechi menu 2011
kuri kinton
kuro mame

Osechi 1 : kazu no ko
Osechi 2 : kintoki ninjin and daikon for namasu
Osechi 3 : building a rice paddy
Osechi 4 : kohaku kamaboko fish cakes
Osechi 5 : chicken matsukaze
Osechi 6 : the vegetable box
Osechi 7 : tamago mosaic

omedetai (lucky grilled fish)

Playful leftover

Can you tell what it is ? I like playing with leftover food and completely changing the presentation…

Yep, the airelle (cranberry) sauce.
sauce aux airelles

And I cooked the rest of boudin blanc in sillicone molds.
boudin blanc

Menu Osechi (part 4) : Magrets de canard, sauce aux airelles

Duck breast, airelles (cranberry) sauce and (Japanese) turnip puree.

Sauce aux airelles. The red airelles are berries quite similar to cranberries that can found in the woods of Northern Europe. Anyway, all I get here is :

Dried cranberries.

I soaked them 24 hours in red wine. Made a roux, an onion compote, added wine and pasted cranberries. Then after hours, mixed the sauce, added a few spices and reheated with soaked cranberries and their wine.

These small turnips need only a few minutes in boiling water. Mashed them, added cream.

I cook the duck very little on a very hot pan. It’s red inside. A magret is a part of breast that comes with a layer of fat skin. Ideally, cook it whole, starting on the fat side, then slice. Well, they sell it sliced, so as you see…