Holiday recipes

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

On New Year's Eve, something aromatic, tasty and delicious at the same time should be on the table.

A very French combination, we thought, and asked Veronika Belotserkovskaya, the most popular culinary blogger on the Runet, for a few recipes from her new book “About food. About wine. Provence.

Provencal stew

This recipe is simple and equally good for both lamb and beef, it is only important to choose parts suitable for stewing - neck, shoulder blade, shanks and tails. Instead of broth, you can use water or add wine.

For 4-6 servings:

1. Chop the meat or chop the pitted portions. Finely chop the onion, celery and fennel, dice the carrots, finely chop the garlic. Blanch fresh tomatoes in boiling water, remove the skin, cut across, remove the seeds, cut the pulp into cubes. Cut the potatoes in half; if they are young, leave them in the skins for more flavor.
2. Fry the meat in olive oil in a thick-walled bowl over high heat until golden brown, remove.
3. In the same bowl, fry the onion with garlic and thyme until soft. Add fennel, carrots, celery. Cook for 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, then add the meat.
4. Add tomato pulp and canned tomatoes, stir when the juice is released, pour in enough broth to almost cover the meat. Lightly season with salt, stir and simmer over low heat for about 2 hours, until the meat is completely tender. If the sauce boils down too quickly, cover it with a lid.
5. Add potatoes and whole cherry tomatoes. Stir and cook for another 15-30 minutes until the potatoes are tender. Check for salt, pepper, sprinkle with parsley and chervil and serve.
6. You can put the cooked stew in the oven at 100 ° C for 1 hour, then the meat and vegetables will become very soft.

Nicoise salad from Guy Jedd

For this salad, it is better to choose greens with a slight bitterness, for example, escariol - a type of chicory - of the "Batavia" variety with wide, curly lettuce-like leaves. Pay attention to the dressing - it works great for simple vegetable salads too.

Completely versatile. The tuna in this photo has "gone" to the bottom - it is not very photogenic when canned.

Serves 4:

1. For the vinaigrette dressing, crush and finely chop the garlic, chop the basil and mix well in a bowl. Let it brew while the salad is preparing.
2. Boil the beans in a large amount of boiling salted water for 5-7 minutes, put in a colander and immediately cool in cold water or on ice.
3. Heat 2 tablespoons in a frying pan. olive oil, add the crushed clove of garlic, lightly fry, then the beans and cook for 2-3 minutes until tender, or 1 minute if you like the beans to crunch. Sprinkle with parsley, remove from heat, let cool completely, season with olive oil, 1 tsp. wine vinegar or lemon juice.
4. Disassemble the salad into leaves, wash, dry well with a towel, tear large leaves, leave small ones whole. Cut the tomatoes in half lengthwise, then each part for another 2-3. Peel and cut the eggs into quarters. Chop the onion thinly, including the white part of the feather. Dry the olives with a paper towel to remove the oil and cut them lengthwise (if you have pitted olives, crush them on a cutting board with a rolling pin or the flat of a wide knife, remove the pits). Peel the bell peppers and cut into very thin strips. Drain the liquid from the tuna, disassemble the fish into fibers.
5. Put in a salad bowl, expanding upwards, a layer of lettuce, a layer of onions, a layer of tomatoes, beans and peppers, repeat the layers several times.
6. Before serving, stir well again with a fork "vinaigrette", taste, salt and pepper, season the salad, top with tuna, eggs in quarters, olives and anchovies. Season with pepper and lemon juice.

For its picturesqueness, it is my absolute favorite on the dining table!

Red berry cake from the restaurant "Le Club 55"

Fromage Blanc - French fresh curd cheese. Here he plays the role of a cream with which the berries are "glued" to the cake. Instead, smooth cottage cheese or ricotta rubbed through a fine sieve, thick non-sour sour cream or even jam will do.

for 1 cake with a diameter of 27-30 cm:

1. All ingredients for the dough should be at room temperature. Separate the white from the yolk from one egg, the white is not needed. Chop the butter into small cubes.
2. Put the egg, yolk and butter in the mixer bowl, add flour, sour cream, sugar and almond powder (if not, make it in a coffee grinder or blender, adding a little sugar to the peeled almonds, about 2 to 1, so as not to get a paste).
3. At medium speed, quickly knead the dough until smooth, do not knead for a long time, otherwise the dough will be tough. If you do not have a powerful mixer or blender, quickly chop the dough with a knife to coarse crumbs. Roll into a ball, wrap in plastic and leave in the refrigerator to rest for 30 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 180 ° C.
5. Bake the cake “blindly”: cover the baking dish with baking paper or grease the sides and bottom with butter and lightly sprinkle with flour and lay out the dough in a thin layer. The dough can be rolled out on a floured surface or kneaded with your fingers - it is very plastic. Chop the bottom often with a fork to avoid swelling when baking. Cover with foil or baking paper and place the beans on top to prevent the dough from puffing up or sliding off. Bake for about 25 minutes until golden brown, remove beans, cool the cake on a wire rack.
6. Make frosting for berries: soak gelatin in cold water.
7. If you are using jam, and not berry juice, then rub it through a fine sieve and, if too thick, add a few tablespoons of water. Add squeezed gelatin into the jam or juice and, stirring it, bring it in a saucepan over low heat until it is completely dissolved. Cool down.
8. Cut off the tails of strawberries so that the berries can be placed vertically. Spread the cake with a thin layer of fromage blanc to "glue" the berries. Put the strawberries, in the voids between the berries - raspberries, and generously cover everything with strawberries.
9. Gently cover the entire surface with a generous brush with jam or juice with gelatin. Refrigerate for 2-3 hours.

The speed of disappearance is the third cosmic one!

Read about what else needs to be prepared for the New Year in the "Home" section of our women's online magazine! Holiday greetings!