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.

Retro Christmas (2) Jambon en croûte aux marrons

CHAUD DEVANT ! Beware, I’m carrying hot stuff !
That’s the masterpiece of the meal. A rustic bake ham in a crust of soft and crispy bread.
Christmas ham is very old tradition. Middle-Age, or even before. In some places the baked ham or the baked ham pie has survived.

It is a very simple version with chestnut stuffing and buckwheat (plus wheat) bread. The luxury ingredient is the shallots. I find them very irregularly in Japan, and I stock them for French dishes.

The ham, shallots and chestnuts marinated with white wine and black pepper. The stuffing was stir-fried and flambe-ed with shochu liquor.

Packed !

Hot from the oven.

That really has a Christmas taste. Hot ham, melting sweet stuffing, soft bread… what more do you want ? The buckwheat brings a nutty flavor very pleasant.

Cabbage, apples, marron, pork…

Let’s eat it, the Alsatian cabbage.

In company of pork filet slowly cooked in butter with a little cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, with caramelised apples (after adding apple vinegar, cream and a little sugar in the pan).

Cabbage, and…

…apples, and …

…filet mignon de porc à la moutarde au miel et pain d’épices.
Don’t worry, that just means the mustard on the pork is flavored with honey and ginger bread. Most people in the world seem to know the city of Dijon for its mustard, but its other specialty is ginger bread.
It’s a good flavored mustard, ideal for this season. I think you can recreate it by adding honey and powdered ginger bread to traditional mustard.