It is still a cool November outside, and the New Year has already firmly "occupied" the thoughts of most of our compatriots, although it is possible that their compatriots as well. The upcoming year 2014 according to the Eastern calendar is the year of the Blue Wooden Horse, although some astrologers prefer to consider it the year of the Green Horse.
But regardless of the color of the next year's patroness, you and I will have to take into account her preferences when preparing a solemn New Year's feast in order to appease her and enlist support for the entire coming year.
We will try to give some recommendations: how to set the festive table, how to decorate it, and most importantly, what to cook for the New Year 2014, the Year of the Horse, how to surprise and please the long-awaited guests.
On New Year's Eve, I want everything around to shine and create a festive mood. It is preferable to accompany a solemn feast with napkins made of snow-white linen. However, in order not to embarrass the guests with such aristocracy, you can come up with all sorts of bandages made of ribbons, beads and other bright jewelry for their decoration. For more tips on how to decorate your home, read the article at this link .
The soft aroma of sandalwood, coupled with the smell of freshly baked bread, will create an atmosphere of an indescribable New Year's holiday. The most necessary, but not always possible, drink on the table is koumiss. Spicy fragrant herbs, all kinds of buns and cakes, cheeses will be in place here.
Of course, oats, which the Horses love so much, in their original form are unlikely to be present on the festive table, but you can put a beautiful dish with grain or a bright green bunch of sprouted oats as a decor, but you need to take care of this in advance.
Since all these traditions come from the East, much of our time is copied from the Chinese. Under the beautiful Christmas tree, they advise putting a small piece of black salted bread, and on the table - saucers with water and finely chopped hay, decorated with a red cotton cord, symbolizing a bridle for a horse.
Of the food on the New Year's table, vegetarian salads are more preferable, nowadays it is not difficult to find recipes for amazing dishes that will surprise and delight the guests of your home.
Simple, well-known salads can be served in such a way that the Horse that comes to us is satisfied. The same favorite herring under a fur coat can be served with a top layer of carrots, so beloved by horses. Or lay out any other salad in the form of a carrot, horseshoe, horse head, decorating the dish accordingly.
We think that every housewife has in stock more than one recipe for excellent salads, which, with a little refinement, can be put on the New Year's table to celebrate the Year of the Horse.
Crispy oatmeal cookies that melt in your mouth and a cake decorated with apple roses will impress dessert lovers. Of course, you can bake a simple apple charlotte, but if you are a baking master, then the proposed recipe for a masterpiece of culinary art was created just for you.
If you are not too sure that you can handle such a job, then you can bake a French apple pie, the preparation of which does not require much skill.
French apple pie
For the test you need:
200 grams of flour, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 1 yolk, 150 grams of margarine, a pinch of salt.
Filling: 500 grams of sour apples, 3 tablespoons of apricot jam, margarine for greasing the mold.
The dough is shortbread and very tender, and so that the cake does not crumble in advance, it is better to bake it in a detachable form.
Knead the dough from the sifted flour, sugar, salt, margarine and yolk; it is not recommended to knead for a long time. Roll the finished dough into a ball, wrap in cling film and place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
Peeled and seeded apples cut into thin equal slices. Roll out the finished dough thinly and line the bottom and walls of the mold with it, after lubricating it with fat. Put apple slices on the dough, placing them in a circle in the form of fish scales. We put the cake in an oven heated to 200 degrees for 60 minutes.
While the cake is baking, prepare the topping. We dilute the jam with 1 tablespoon of water, mix thoroughly and warm it up a little to a liquid state. 10 minutes before the end of baking, grease the surface of the pie with the resulting apricot filling and put in the oven until cooked.
Oat cookies
But oatmeal cookies can be baked in many different ways, and they always turn out delicious and are eaten instantly. My old notebook contains one such very easy recipe, which was passed from each other in those days when there was no Internet, and for cookbooks you had to stand in line or look for "thieves" friends.
So.
Grind one and a half cups of oatmeal in a meat grinder. We take 200 grams of butter or margarine, rub with 150 grams of sugar and two eggs. Add ground cereal, two teaspoons of baking powder or 1 teaspoon of soda quenched with vinegar, 150-200 grams of flour.
Mix everything thoroughly and knead not very steep dough. Sometimes it can even be a bit watery.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or grease with oil. We tear off small pieces of dough from the dough and form balls or cakes (to facilitate the work, hands should be moistened with water), if the dough is watery, take the dough with a wet teaspoon and put it on a baking sheet at large intervals (the dough doubles during baking).
Bake for 15-20 minutes in an oven preheated to 180 degrees.
Alcohol lovers will be slightly disappointed by the upcoming holiday, because the Blue Horse prefers soft drinks. For lovers of cocktails - scope for imagination. Traditional champagne, as always, will reign on this festive night.
Fans of symbolism can copy the festive representation of the element of wood from the Chinese and put boxes of chocolates in the form of a hut on the table, thereby paying tribute to the patronizing element of the coming year.
And one more small detail. All preparations must be completed a few hours before the chiming clock, because you cannot do without a knife in the kitchen, and with this you yourself can “cut off” the happiness that is already rushing to you.
Nadezhda, specially for shop-ultra.ru
Lev Alex
07/10/2015 at 13:29
I did not expect such nonsense from various sources. There is no year of the “Blue Wooden Horse”, as well as of the Goat. Years of wood animals should always be green, fiery - red, Earth - yellow or orange, metal - white, and water - blue or black. What planet did you find blue trees on? In general, only Wikipedia is right. And then in doubt that the whole.