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.

Little buckwheat blinis


Warm, golden, firm, fluffy…and small. That’s the perfect blinis.

It’s ideal for small smoked salmon bites.

A yeasted dough with 30% of buckwheat flour, after an hour in a warm place, I added an egg (white beaten), cream.

Other version :

simple buttery blinis

As I don’t have mini-pans, I simply re-cut them.

With salmon, aneth, onions.

No wasting !

At coffee time, with the cut parts can be reheated, served with rose petal cream cheese, mikan mandarin marmelade and better to melt on top :

Rehearsal of a light réveillon

No Thanksgiving here, but from now, and for one month, every night is a party in Japan. Bonenkai : funerals of the old year. Then every night will be a party. Shinnenkai : birth party of the new year.
This is an advanced French Christmas dinner, quite light. Lots of seafood.

Blinis (like here), to go with smoked salmon.

Hors d’oeuvre and greens.

Choucroute au Champagne et fruits de mer.

Yes, you’ve already seen a fishy Sauerkraut on this blog (click here to get there) :

Lighter beurre blanc.

You’ll read about the cookies and the buche (log cake) in other posts.

Buttery old fashioned blinis

They have the shade of this long pre-Autumn… and the promise of Christmas.

Foamy, light and buttery… the perfect friend of caviar or smoked salmon. Well no caviar in sight today.

It’s getting cool… so the dough (1/3 buckwheat, 2/3 wheat) is let to rise on a pan of hot water.

You can rabbit them out…

Or enjoy them as a snack, with blueberries. The salty and sweet contrast is great.