Salads on the holiday table - general principles and methods of preparation
What is the difference between a regular table and a holiday table? Of course, an abundance of salads and decoration. Familiar salads can sparkle with new shades of taste, if you approach them with love and imagination. Even an old familiar “Olivier” can open from a new, unexpected side, external designer “little things” and a couple of “real” ingredients can change it beyond recognition.
The festive salad must be bright. Everyone knows how to put a Christmas tree on a beloved New Year’s salad, but how to make any salad truly festive?
Learn to combine as many ingredients of different colors as possible - green, red, yellow or orange - and you will be able to produce works worthy of the culinary Tretyakov Gallery. Carving of fruits and vegetables, wonderful roses made of cool eggs and carrots, magnificent daisies and real mushroom glades - the fantasy can be simply limitless. Beets, carrots, olives, tomatoes, eggs, peppers, cucumbers and necessarily greens - everything that has color and is well cut is used. Remember only one thing - it is necessary to decorate salads before serving, so that they look fresh and mouth-watering. In addition, different salads should have different colors.
Salads on the festive table - preparation of products
Decorating a holiday salad is a very exciting process. Showing maximum imagination and work, you can feel like a famous designer, and, of course, guests will appreciate your efforts, and you yourself will feel a huge creative upsurge and good mood.
Here is a short list of food colors to help the culinary designer:
Red color is given by tomatoes, sweet peppers, pomegranate, cranberries.
Pink or raspberry - beet or cranberry juice.
Orange - carrots, sweet peppers, tomato.
White - rice, egg whites, cottage cheese, sour cream, whipped cream.
Lilac or blue - grated egg white, rice, stained with red cabbage juice.
Burgundy - beets.
Yellow - egg yolks, corn, lemon.
Violet - red cabbage or egg whites stained with its juice.
Salads on the holiday table - the best recipes
Recipe 1: Puff pastry salad with chicken and mushrooms
This puff salad cake is called so because outwardly it cannot be distinguished from a real birthday cake. The simple ingredients, laid out in layers and decorated in the form of a cake, and the taste is completely different - festive, backed by the admiration of the guests and the pride of the hostess for her creation.
Ingredients: chicken breast (1 pc), fresh mushrooms (champignons, 300 gr), onions (3 pcs), carrots (4 pcs), potatoes (3 pcs), eggs (for decoration, 3 pcs), mayonnaise.
Cooking method
Fry finely chopped mushrooms and separately fry the onions until golden. Fried meat is also cut into cubes. Boil the potatoes and finely chop. Putting our cake together. The first layer of chicken, then mushrooms, mixed with half an onion, mayonnaise. Next is potatoes, boiled carrots. We cover everything with mayonnaise and move on to decorating the salad. First, cut out roses from carrots, rub the remaining parts on a coarse grater. Boiled eggs are also formed in the form of flowers, the rest three in a large grater.
We close one half of the salad with snow-white protein, the second with a bright orange carrot. From above, we lay out the flowers asymmetrically, and, of course, the leaves. To do this, use greens - parsley branches. This is just a miracle, a win-win option for any holiday.
Recipe 2: Pineapple
Pineapple in our country is exotic. It’s not often seen on the Russian table, but today is a holiday, and we’ll present a surprise to the guests - a real flaky “pineapple”, sweet and sour, hearty, and a wonderful holiday dish.
Ingredients: Potatoes (3-4 pcs), ham (200 gr), canned pineapples (a small jar), eggs (5 pcs), onion, sour apple, lemon juice, salt, pepper, mayonnaise, a bunch of green onions, walnuts.
Cooking method
We will prepare the ingredients: we will cut pineapples into slices, ham, straws, onions, eggs. Apple and potatoes are grated. Potatoes, onions, ham, apples, pineapple, eggs are laid out on an oval dish. Layers are smeared with mayonnaise and sprinkled with pepper. Pineapple tail is formed from a bunch of green onions, with walnuts we spread the “peel” of the pineapple. I assure you, you have not tried such an appetizing and unusual pineapple!
Recipe 3: Cheese Squid Basket
Seafood in our country is so exotic in itself that, for example, simply squid fried with onions are already worthy of attention. However, we cannot allow that there was something banal on the festive table. See how an ordinary piece of cheese can turn the idea of plain squid.
Ingredients: squid (400 gr), cucumbers (3 pcs), eggs (2 pcs), cheese (300 gr), mayonnaise.
Cooking method.
The baskets are made in a very simple way and are well cooled in the refrigerator.
Lubricate the bottom of the flat plate with butter and lay out the cheese circle (10-12 cm in diameter). Place the plate in the microwave for 20 seconds, then carefully remove the warmed and slightly melted cheese and form a basket.
Salad: peeled squid carcass is poured with boiling water, after 5 minutes it is slightly cooled and cut into half rings. Cucumbers cut into strips. Finely chop eggs. Mix everything in a salad bowl and add salt, season with mayonnaise. Before serving, put in a basket a leaf of green salad, lettuce itself, decorate with greens, olives, flowers from lemon slices and cucumber petals not only the baskets, but also the dish on which they are exposed. Eat with a wonderful cheese "container".
Recipe 4: Greek soccer ball salad with feta cheese
Each festive table must have a light salad made from natural ingredients to simply cause an appetite and facilitate the digestion of complex dishes. Vegetable Mediterranean salad fits perfectly. The “soccer ball" during the football championship will undoubtedly be appreciated by many men - especially if you are celebrating the male anniversary of an inveterate football fan or other men's holidays. We stock up on cheese and olives - the decoration of our ball.
Ingredients:
Cucumbers (3 pcs), tomatoes (5 pcs), green onions, sweet pepper (2 pcs), seedless olives, feta cheese (300 grams), vegetable oil and salt.
Cooking method
It is not difficult to make a classic Greek salad - just cut the vegetables into cubes, and tear the greens with your hands, season with vegetable oil and mix. And now we’ll directly form our ball - three white cheese with a fine grater and fill up the salad. On top, we lay out the polyhedrons from olives cut in half. A real soccer ball! If ours did not reach the final, then the final of our holiday will undoubtedly be in our favor!
Salads on the festive table - useful tips from experienced chefs.
Salads are served on the festive table in various ways - on a dish or in small portioned salad bowls. The original way - on slices of bread or in the form of "sausages" from pita bread. They can be used as fillings in tomatoes or other vegetables, making beautiful baskets with “cloves” edges. Plastic and porcelain boards do not absorb juice. Use stainless steel knives to make salads so that vitamin C does not break down when it comes in contact with iron.
