What Table To Lay In The Year Of The White Metal Rat?

The New Year is slowly approaching us. Very soon it will be time to prepare for your favorite holiday, with all the attendant worries and troubles.

The New Year is slowly approaching us. Very soon it will be time to prepare for your favorite holiday, with all the attendant worries and troubles. You need to decorate the Christmas tree, buy gifts for everyone, and the New Year's table is a separate song!

New Year's table traditions

In their New Year's culinary preferences, Russians are quite conservative. Traditions, and even in the New Year, are a sacred thing.

Take at least Olivier. Perhaps every second inhabitant of our country celebrates the holiday with this salad. It has long been equal in popularity with the very dish that Francois Olivier prepared from crayfish necks of quail eggs, red caviar with Provencal sauce. And it also became a classic.

Of course, each family has its own recipe: someone bothers with making homemade mayonnaise for dressing, and someone uses ready-made mayonnaise. But with certain nuances, and Olivier must be present on the festive table without fail. Otherwise, what is the New Year?

 

Cooking Olivier, by the way, is a rather laborious process. On a holiday, I want cooking not to take all the time and effort, because you can spend them much more interestingly. So how to speed up the process of preparing dishes for the holiday, but so that the table pleases both you and your guests?

How to speed up the process of preparing dishes for the New Year's table

Now there are a lot of recipes for simple salads that do not take much time and effort from housewives. If you cut up a chicken breast, add corn and dress it all with mayonnaise - you will also have a salad, but cooked in a matter of minutes.

In principle, you can do without salads at all, and at the same time not lose face in front of the guests. For example, bake whole fish or poultry in the oven. Both here and in Europe, this is considered a solemn dish, which is appropriate on the festive table and corresponds to the festive atmosphere. To get a crispy crust, it is enough to pre-lubricate the selected carcass with mayonnaise (for those who like it spicier, Maheev “Spicy with Jalapeno Peppers” is perfect).

 

If you are cooking meat, then you can dry it in a pan - 5 minutes on each side. And, by the way, the meat will also have a delicious crispy crust. But in no case should you sacrifice the time that meat needs to absorb the juice. Let the meat stand for 5-10 minutes, then it will be tender. If you hurry and cut it into pieces right away, you will lose both the texture and the unique smell of the dish.

Healthy salads

But back to salads. Now more and more popular are gaining proper nutrition and a healthy lifestyle. An example is a dish that includes baked beets, goat cheese and pine nuts. And how do you like this New Year's salad: celery, cucumbers and daikon?

 

On a holiday, it is not at all necessary to overeat and it would be nice to follow the golden rule: it is better to eat a little, but tasty, than a lot, but so-so (however, this applies not only to holidays).

And yet, in the New Year, somehow I don’t really want to think about calories, but I have to think about the time spent on preparing holiday dishes. Therefore, tartlets will be a wonderful alternative to salads. Especially if they are not only tasty, but also look beautiful.

What should (and should not) be on the New Year's table in the year of the Rat

Recall that the upcoming 2020 is the year of the White Metal Rat. And in order for it to be successful for you, on New Year's Eve it is necessary to take into account the taste preferences of the hostess of the year. The rat is an omnivore with a great appetite. She, for example, will be pleased with the variety of all kinds of snacks on the table.

There are not so many unwanted dishes on the table in the year of the Rat:

Cabbage (especially sauerkraut) Semolina porridge Coffee (if it comes to sweet, drink tea with the cake) Strong alcohol (it is better to limit yourself to wine and champagne).

We are sure that by the New Year you will find time to cook dishes that will delight you, your guests, and the symbol of the year, the Rat.