navidad | GOURMANDE in OSAKA

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.

It’s a grey and dark outside, the shortest day of the year… So let’s cook colorful. Tamales improvisation. I have no idea how they should be. I had fun making them and I found them delicious. The beef flavor in the masa was really great.

Some ingredients are from the freezer like the avocado and beans :

Avocado, red onion (salted, let 30 minutes, rinsed), sudachi lemon (with 1/3 of its peel) meli-melo.

Chocolaty black (soy) beans. These 2 side dishes are refreshing and sweet. The red salsa (tomato, red chili) is fierce.

MAKING TAMALES :

Corn cob husks and colorful hot chiles.

The meaty flavor : carnitas and “lard”.
Well, it’s slow-cooked sliced pork with onion and sudachi lemon, and beef fat. They give the cubes of fat in supermarkets here, as it’s a necessary ingredient for the sukiyaki. At that price of zero yen, I sometimes take a few. That’s not so “sinfully fat” as you may think. I used 1/2 cube (4 grams) for the whole, the flavor is powerful.