It was a New Year's menu with 8 small dishes at our friends' home. What a New Year celebration, and what a fantastic dining experience! Here is a picture gallery from the evening's dishes.
New Year celebrations with our friends
We celebrated the new year at the home of our friends Lennart and Beata. They live at a reasonable cycling distance from us, so it was perfect to take the electric bikes there. Since Peter has a large box on the back of his bike, we could also bring a lot of food with us. We had together planned and prepared a New Year's menu with 8 small dishes (or actually another one, but we had to modify and choose during the evening).
We met already at 15 o'clock, and then it was a long evening with both talking and cooking together. Or well, it's mostly Peter and Beata who cook. I (Helena) and Lennart are mostly assigned simple tasks like serving wine or chopping some vegetable, haha.
New Year's menu with 8 small dishes
When preparing a New Year's menu with 8 small dishes, it is important to make sure that the dishes are really small. You don't want to be stuffed after the first two dishes, but continue to be a little hungry throughout the meal. We succeeded well not really with this. Nevertheless, it was very good, and the dishes were enjoyed for many hours. The crusts were offered at 15:00, and the dessert was only served after 12:00 ... So wow, what a fantastic dining experience it was!
1. Crusts with shrimp scrambles
Beata first offered small crusts with shrimp scrambles. A delicious start! The small rye crusts on the left were a novelty for us. Very good and crispy!
2. Lobster soup
We then continued with Peter's magical lobster soup (you'll find the recipe in the post about the Starters for New Year). This time, however, he added a little extra touch and put pieces of filleted tomatoes (without the seeds) and some fried cabbage in the bottom of each bowl. It fit nicely in the soup!
3. Hot prawns
Course number 3 was provided by Beata: large prawns fried in oil and spices. I can't explain the recipe, but I think it included garlic, chilli and fennel. Delicious!
4. Scallops in champagne sauce
For dish number four, Peter seared scallops. We like to serve them in pea puree, but this time we varied it with a "champagne sauce". The sauce is made from onions (which are then strained), fish stock, white wine, cream and cornflour. Just before serving, you pour in a little sparkling wine to make it bubbly, and decorate with red rum and chives.
5. red rum
Now it was Beata's turn again! They had been inspired by a restaurant visit and served toast with red rum, creme fraiche, red onion, chives and lemon. What a smart and tasty starter!
6. Foie gras with apple
A week before Christmas, while cleaning out the kitchen cupboards, we found a tin of foie gras that we had forgotten we had. What to do? Eat it on New Year's Eve of course! We served it with buttered bread, fried apple and a glass of Hungarian tokaj wine. Luxury!
7. Roe deer fillet with chanterelles
There weren't supposed to be any main courses on the menu, but we have to admit that this dish was a little too big to qualify as a "small dish". It was fantastic anyway! Deer fillet with asparagus, chanterelles, Peter's delicious game sauce and potato gratin flavoured with chevre.
8. Cloudberry pannacotta
The last dish on the menu was a cloudberry panna cotta (you can find the recipe in the post about the Desserts for New YearThis was served after and was a good finish, even though we were very full by this time.
12 stroke
What about 12 o'clock? We simply went out onto Lennart and Beata's balcony and watched the fireworks from there. We were actually surprised that it was so... very fireworks this year. An opportunity to toast and hope for a better year ahead!
A few hours later it was time for us to cycle home to Pampas marina. Oh how we appreciate our bikes! It is such a freedom to be able to get home easily at night, without being dependent on trying to hunt down a taxi or similar.
How did you celebrate the new year?
diana's dreams says:
Happy New Year, what a nice New Year's Eve you have had Hugs!
02 January 2021 - 8:04
Helena says:
You too, Diana!!!
02 January 2021 - 16:09
Lena - good for the soul says:
Oh, wow. Eight courses! How good it looked. Hehe, those tasks such as pouring wine and chopping a little, even I usually feel comfortable with!
Hug Lena
02 January 2021 - 9:18
Helena says:
It was a fantastic dining experience indeed! And I at least contributed a little with chopping and stuff, haha. And then I photographed! 😉
02 January 2021 - 16:10
Ama de casa says:
Yummy so many goodies! You seem to have the same distribution of cooking as we do - I don't cook much but I'm a fan of chopping (although I don't chop on the chef, not so much anyway 😉 ).
We celebrated by going to a restaurant with friends, but had to go home before midnight because there was a curfew after 24.
Happy New Year!
02 January 2021 - 9:45
Helena says:
How nice that you don't pick on the chef, haha. I try to avoid that too 😉 Nice to celebrate at a restaurant. even though maybe a little boring to go home before 12 o'clock. Wish good continuation!!!
02 January 2021 - 16:11
Nils-Åke+Hansson says:
So many good things have been served to you.
02 January 2021 - 10:30
Helena says:
Very tasty! 🙂
02 January 2021 - 16:11
Lena+in+Wales+and+Spain says:
Wow, what food! Totally in my favour.
Good luck!
02 January 2021 - 13:31
Helena says:
Thank you very much!
02 January 2021 - 16:12
Ditte says:
Good luck for 2021!
What a fun idea with several small dishes. It looks really good. And perfect to help with the cooking and planning. My "favourites" will probably be the lobster soup, the scallops and the hot prawns. We also had the crusts here with roe and prawns - delicious! (And the rye crusts are good because they don't get "wet").
02 January 2021 - 14:11
Helena says:
Thank you the same! The small dishes are usually the best, so we thought we'd make a lot of them 😉 Glad you also found the rye crusts, really good and tasty!
02 January 2021 - 16:13
BP says:
Totally in my favour! A fantastic menu that the four of you put together for New Year's Eve. Real cooks leave the little things, like chopping onions, to the boys. Everyone should do what they do best.
Once again - I love your food blog:-)
02 January 2021 - 16:22
Veiken says:
Oh yeah, or WOW WOW WOW! What wonderful food. So smart to make many small dishes for a long time!!!
There were some dishes I will copy! Thanks for that and good luck in 2021!
Hope it will be a good year!
02 January 2021 - 18:24
Christian says:
What a menu, lovely!
02 January 2021 - 21:10
Arne Lindh says:
Fantastic starters. I myself offered B a three-course meal which was ok. In the motorhome at Stegeborg's car park. More than 20 cars, with distance, and the lord of the castle offered sausages and mulled wine. It was very cosy and at the same time corona-adapted. See our blog
http://xoeocholivia.blogpost.se
05 January 2021 - 18:19