New Year is associated not only with the smell of tangerines, gifts and a smart Christmas tree, but also with a festive feast. And the first thing that comes to mind is not a sweet dessert or a substantial main dish, but a salad "Olivier", so adored by our compatriots. And it's not surprising, because salads are not only delicious, they decorate the table, look beautiful, elegant and simple in cooking. Therefore, the question of what salads to cook for the New Year, you need to pay close attention.
Create New Year's mood
The variety of New Year's salads is amazing, but what makes an ordinary salad New Year? Of course, the decor. The New Year is a fairy-tale holiday of childhood, so when decorating dishes, you can give yourself fantasies to clear out and not be afraid that the dishes will look childish or too bright. There are some simple tips for decorating New Year salads.
1. Decor
To turn an ordinary salad into a New Year's salad, you need to decorate it accordingly. Form a snowflake, a Christmas tree, a snowman or a Christmas toy. If there is a desire and time, you can lay out the salad with more complex figures, as a symbol of the coming year or Santa Claus, Snow Maiden or a hare. The flight of fantasy in this case is not limited, the main thing is to look it beautiful and festive.
2. Name
Be sure to give all of your salads beautiful New Year's names in accordance with the decor and voice them to guests. And you can invite them to give a name to your culinary masterpiece, turning the serving of food into a kind of entertainment.
3. Serving a dish
A festive New Year's dish requires a special feed. For example, instead of the usual "Olivier Basin" to serve a salad in tartlets made from short-pastry. Or in pieces of toasted baguette, it will look very elegant. The main thing is not to use waffle tartlets, they will get wet from the sauce in the salad.
You can also use orange peel or pineapple as a dish for salads.
4. Ingredients of
Due to the fact that the New Year is associated primarily with tangerines, you can use this fragrant citrus as an unusual ingredient or decorating a salad.
You can put a Christmas tree out of the twigs of greenery, and with the help of vegetables you can depict on the layered salad a dial that shows the time of approaching the New Year.
It is important to carefully cut all the ingredients. If this is a layered salad, then all the products must be equally ground, for example, straw, cubes or slabs.
5. Reduce calorie content
New Year's feast is a test for the stomach. The abundance of hearty salads with fat high-calorie dressings for a long time will remind you of yourself in the form of extra pounds and skladochek on the sides. Therefore, in order to reduce the calorie content of salads, without giving up your favorite recipes, you need to know a few secrets:
- increase the share of vegetables in salad;
- do not use egg yolks, but only proteins;
- fatty meats and sausages replaced with low-fat chicken meat;
- cheese can be replaced with fat-free cottage cheese;
- instead of mayonnaise use yogurt or lean sour cream with mustard;
- potatoes replaced with avocados;
- use a large number of spices.
Salad menu
Experienced housewives usually make several different types of salads. They can be divided into categories and prepare a small amount of this dish from each, so that guests can choose a treat according to their taste and preferences.
Meat salads
New Year salads can be prepared from any kind of meat: pork, beef, turkey, veal, however the most popular ingredients are chicken and cooked sausage. The most favorite and popular salads are prepared from these products, these are Olivier and Caesar.
"Olivier" is considered the king of all salads, each hostess can bring some zest to this all favorite recipe, experimenting with ingredients and dressing. And in order to prepare a basic salad recipe, you need to use the following products:
- 500 grams of meat( sausage);
- 5 potato tubers;
- 3 cucumbers;
- 5 eggs;
- 1 carrot;
- 1 pea pot;
- dressing( by default mayonnaise).
Cook potatoes, carrots and eggs, cut into the same cubes with the same cubes, cut the cucumber and meat in the same way, send all the ingredients in one bowl, mix and dress with sauce.
"Caesar" every year is gaining increasing popularity, especially it is like the female half, because it consists of such light ingredients as lettuce leaves, tomatoes, boiled eggs, chicken fillet and croutons.
Meat salads are usually filled with mayonnaise, but with the advent of a large selection of interesting sauces on the shelves, the situation is changing. A refueling, cooked by hand, will always be profitable to differ from the purchase by its originality and quality of preparation.
In addition to these salads, from meat products for the New Year are prepared:
- egg salad with beef tongue;
- salad with chicken breast and bell pepper;
- with ham and tomatoes;
- with sausage and potatoes;
- with chicken, eggs and tomatoes;
- with chicken and champignons;
- with chicken and pineapple;
- with chicken liver and mushrooms.
Salads with fish and seafood
Salads with the addition of seafood, shrimp, squid, red fish, canned tuna or mackerel, herring and crab sticks are no less tasty. It is impossible to imagine a New Year's table without your beloved "Herring under the fur coat", "Mimosa" and "Crab salad".They are filled with the same sauces as meat, but there are original dressings that are ideal for seafood salads.
Here is a recipe for a very tasty dressing: 200 grams of natural yogurt or sour cream beat in a blender with garlic, dill, green onion and a spoonful of mustard, season with spices. An excellent alternative to mayonnaise.
Vegetable
It is important that in addition to heavy and high-calorie puffs, light vegetable salads were also present on the New Year's table. They will help relieve the stomach and prepare the body for more satisfying dishes. In addition, these salads look very beautiful due to the abundance of colorful vegetables.
Vegetables can be used raw, boiled and canned, add mushrooms, eggs and cheese, and necessarily a large amount of greens. These salads are usually seasoned with vegetable oil and lemon juice. The leaders in this category are "Greek salad", "Vinaigrette", "Salad with sauerkraut", "Salad with Pekinese cabbage and peas".
Traditional "Vinaigrette" also became one of the symbols of the New Year. To make it, you need to boil the beets, potatoes, carrots, chop them with the same pieces, add pickled cucumber, sauerkraut, spring onions and canned peas. Mix everything and mix with a mixture of olive oil, vinegar and mustard.
Fruit
Fruit salads are an excellent variant of the New Year's dessert. He will certainly please children and those who do not like to eat up for the night. For the New Year's salad, grapefruit, orange, pineapple, tangerines, bananas and apples are used. Season with honey, ice cream, syrups and yogurt, cream or chocolate.
New Year's salads are a great opportunity to show your culinary imagination and resourcefulness. Enjoy your guests with your favorite dishes in the author's interpretation for the New Year, and your holiday table will be remembered for a long time by satisfied and well-fed guests.