Christmas days. What interesting things to cook for family and guests?

How to please your family and guests if your favorite Olivier salad or fried chicken no longer inspire you? We have put together a whole Christmas menu with appetizers, hot and main courses, desserts that you can cook at home throughout these festive days.

Along with kutia, or koliva in Ukrainian tradition, the main dish of the Christmas table is considered to be goose or duck with apples. Incidentally, turkey, which is widely used in Western cuisine, has recently become popular here.

Goose with apples

Ingredients:

1 goose carcass, gutted

0.5 kg apples, clove of garlic, salt

For garnish: 1 kg potatoes, salt

Wash the goose and rub it generously with salt. Cut the peeled apples into four parts and stuff the goose's belly with them. Sew it up with a coarse thread, put it on a baking sheet, pour in 0.5 cups of water and place it in a well-heated oven. As the sauce boils away, skim off the fat and add water. 15-20 minutes before it's ready, rub it with garlic, pricking a clove with a fork. Then surround the bird with potatoes cut into wedges, salt it and bake until ready.

Then the goose is cut into portions, placed on a plate, and baked potatoes and apples are placed around it. By the way, a good alternative to potatoes is, for example, buckwheat porridge.

The following are suitable as a simple and quick snack:

Croutons with tomato paste and onions

Ingredients:

0.5 loaf (or the whole loaf if there are a lot of guests)

2 medium onions

200-300 g hard cheese

Tomato paste

2-3 tomatoes

Lightly dry the loaf slices in the oven for a couple of minutes. Peel the onion, rinse in cold water, cut into rings (you can sprinkle with vinegar or scald with boiling water). Grease one side of each loaf slice with tomato paste, then put onion rings on it, and a circle of fresh tomato in the center. Then “cover” everything with a slice of cheese. Bake in the oven for 2 minutes. Serve hot, you can sprinkle with herbs, garnish with sprigs of rosemary. Also, for example, small pieces of lard, bacon or brisket go well with cheese, and for the Italian version, add mozzarella and a “drop” of mayonnaise to a piece of tomato.

Even the usual herring with onions and sunflower oil can be easily diversified

Herring fillet with onions and marinated mushrooms

Ingredients:

2 herrings

300 g pickled mushrooms

1 onion

Vegetable oil

½ lemon

1 tbsp vinegar

0.5 tsp mustard

Clean the herring, remove the tails, heads, bones, rinse under running water. Cut the fillet coarsely, then place in a herring dish or any oblong plate, pour with vegetable oil, preferably olive oil, mixed with vinegar, mustard and lemon juice, and garnish with onion rings. Put diced marinated mushrooms on the side. You can also add 1-2 tbsp. canned green peas, and for decoration - olives, a couple of lemon wedges, green onion feathers.

Baked carp with potatoes

Ingredients:

2 carp

6-8 medium potatoes

2-3 onions

1 lemon

Vegetable oil

Salt, pepper, bay leaf, spices

Carefully gut the fish, but leave the heads and tails - we will bake them whole. Then wash them and rub them with salt, having made 3-4 cuts on each side beforehand: this way the spices will penetrate the meat, and the cooking time will be reduced. Also, by the cuts it is easy to understand whether the fish is ready: if the flesh has become opaque all the way to the spine - it is ready.

Peel the potatoes, wash them, cut them into circles (or half circles), salt, pepper and fill the carp bellies with them, layering the potato pieces with onion rings and lemon wedges (you can put 2-3 bay leaves inside, a clove of garlic cut in half). Take a baking sheet with high sides (or a suitable metal container), generously grease it with vegetable oil, for example, olive oil, put onion rings on the bottom, you can add a vegetable pillow of the same potatoes or zucchini to them, and put the fish on top, pour oil over it, and sprinkle with spices. Bake for 30-40 minutes in the oven at 180˚C. You can serve it whole, sprinkled with fresh chopped herbs, or cut into wide pieces.

Homemade noodles

Ingredients:

350 g flour

2 eggs

1 tbsp butter

Salt

Meat broth

Fresh herbs

Make a hole in a mound of sifted flour, beat eggs into it, add water and knead a stiff dough. Divide it into two parts, roll each one out so thinly that the board is visible through it. When the dough dries, sprinkle it with flour, roll it into a roll and cut across into thin (1 cm wide) strips. Before serving, boil the noodles in a large amount of salted water.

Of course, you can serve it, say, poured with melted butter and sprinkled with grated cheese, sprinkled with ground pepper or herbs, but personally I like homemade noodles in a strong meat broth, say with pieces of chicken or boiled beef. To do this, just boil the noodles directly in the broth itself (3-5 minutes over medium heat, do not bring to a strong boil), or add ready-made ones, and before serving put meat cut into large cubes and finely chopped herbs in a plate.

Mushroom soup with meat

Ingredients:

500 g beef with bone

100 g dried mushrooms

Parsley root and greens,

I onion

Ground pepper, bay leaf, salt

Wash dried mushrooms, soak in cold water for 1-2 hours and boil in it. Pour 2 liters of cold water over the washed meat and put on the fire. When the water starts to boil, skim off the foam, then add parsley, onion (after 5 minutes you can add potatoes if you wish), salt and cook on low heat until done. Add bay leaf a minute before the end of cooking. Strain the broth and mushroom broth, combine, add finely chopped parsley, salt and pepper.

Best served in deep ceramic bowls.

Jellied pork legs

Ingredients:

1 kg pork legs

5 liters of water

1 carrot

2-3 onions

1 parsley root

Garlic, pepper, salt, bay leaf - all to taste

Separate the legs at the joints, saw or chop large bones, put them in a saucepan and fill with cold water at a rate of 4-5 liters of water per kilogram of legs. Cook the legs at a moderate boil, covered with a lid, for 5-7 hours, until the tendons are easily separated from the bones. Immediately after boiling, remove the foam. Put the chopped carrots, onions, parsley root and bay leaf into the broth. When the legs are ready, separate the meat from the bones and cut it into small pieces. Then add crushed garlic, remove from heat and pour into deep plates. Put the plates in a cold place and leave until hardened.

Well, what kind of Ukrainian feast would it be without traditional cabbage rolls?

Cabbage rolls with meat

Ingredients:

1 white cabbage

300 g meat or ready-made minced meat

100 g rice

1-2 onions

1 tbsp flour

2 tbsp tomato paste

2 tbsp sour cream

2 tbsp butter

Salt, pepper

Remove the leaves from the cabbage head, cut off the thick parts from the stems and boil for 5 minutes in boiling water. Then remove and cool.

Prepare the minced meat and mix with half-cooked rice, fried onions, salt, pepper and mix well.

For the gravy, fry the flour in butter, add tomato paste and sour cream. Another gravy option: fry the onion, carrot, add tomato paste, a pinch of salt, a pinch of sugar, salt, pepper and a little water, bring to a boil and finally add sour cream.

Then put a tablespoon of minced meat on the prepared leaves and wrap them into an envelope. Put the cabbage rolls in a deep saucepan and pour in the gravy, add a glass of water, cover with a lid and simmer on low heat for 30-40 minutes.

Children's mulled wine

Don't worry - there's not a drop of alcohol in it, just a liter of juice and a handful of aromatic spices.

Ingredients:

1 l grape or cherry juice

100 ml of water

3-4 tbsp sugar

2-3 buds of cloves

2 cinnamon sticks

1 lemon

1 orange

Squeeze the orange juice and grate a little zest on a fine grater. Combine the grape juice, orange juice and water in a ladle. Add sugar, cloves and cinnamon, season with zest and bring to a boil, but do not boil. Pour into glasses and garnish with a lemon circle or a tangerine slice.