New Classics: How New Year's Eve appetizers are being transformed in restaurants
A modern Russian New Year's table is unthinkable without a certain set of traditional dishes, and hearty appetizers play an important role on it. During the holidays, our compatriots want to see these items in restaurants, and chefs try to surprise guests with creative interpretations of traditional treats. "Izvestia" collected several interesting appetizers from different gastronomic projects of our country and found out what regional peculiarities can be found in them.
"19" (Nizhny Novgorod)
The name of this Nizhny Novgorod project is directly connected with its concept, which is based on recipes from a cookbook of the late 19th century, which the restaurant's brand-chef Alexander Nikolayenko found in the archives of the local library. Having reinterpreted these ancient records, he adapted more than 50 dishes for modern equipment, which are created using mainly local products, as well as open fire, on which it was customary to cook food two centuries ago.
- One of the most favorite salads on the New Year's table of my fellow countrymen has always been the capital (the Soviet version of olivier) and crab stick salad," Alexander Nikolaenko told Izvestia. - It was these two appetizers that I decided to combine into one dish in our New Year's menu.
New Year's salad
The treat is made of potatoes baked on the coals, and this gives the root vegetable a pleasant smoky flavor of the fire. The dish also includes egg, cucumber and Kamchatka crab meat. The salad is dressed with homemade mayonnaise and topped with crispy chicken skin. Served position inside dough tubes decorated with krill meat on top.
"Rusiko" (Samara)
The menu of this Samara restaurant is a symbiosis of Russian and Georgian cuisine, to which a distinctive Volga accent was added. Many treats are imbued with traditions, which originate on peasant table and continue in city merchants' feasts.
- Developing the authentic menu, we got acquainted with the culture of domestic cuisine up to the end of XVIII - beginning of XIX century, inspired by the recipes of that time, immersed in the cultural code and taste habits, eating traditions of our ancestors, - shared with our publication brand-chefs of the restaurant Evgeny Gurin and Andrey Rogachev. - The new dishes played out in a special way when we integrated local products into them.
Herring under a fur coat
Of course, we did not do without modern rethinking of the New Year's Eve classics. For example, herring under fur coat is served in "Rusiko" with tonnato mousse, and sprats are a complement to a warm salad with pickles, red caviar, small potatoes and leafy greens.
"Baran-Rapan" (Sochi).
The New Year's menu of the Sochi project is mostly created from local fresh seasonal products. At the same time, one part of the restaurant's guests usually wants to see classic dishes for the holiday, and the second part expects author's approach, so brand-chef Andrey Gryazev has to balance between these two requests, keeping some of the positions in the usual form and adding new, experimental treats to them. This year, for example, eggs "Mimosa" became such a novelty.
- Historically, the guests like the appetizer made of egg halves, which evokes nostalgic memories, - admits the brand-chef. - The peculiarity of the new appetizer is that I replaced canned fish with local fish, trout, and changed the shape, making not the classic New Year's Eggs stuffed eggs, but adapting them to mimosa salad.
In the filling of the appetizer in addition to lightly salted black sea trout comes boiled yolk and baked carrots. The treat is dressed with homemade truffle mayonnaise with the addition of green onions and served in half of the boiled white of a farmer's egg, decorated with red caviar (and this is the only non-local product) and yolk.
"Poseidon" (Tyumen)
In Tyumen, this fish place has existed for more than 20 years. It offers various Mediterranean and Asian dishes with inclusions of Nordic cuisine and bright Siberian notes. The latter are represented by stroganina from fresh muksun and sterlet, pike cutlets and Sosva herring. For the New Year's menu concept-chef of "Maxim" restaurant company Vladislav Persianinov created an original Olivier salad with smoked salmon and burnt scallop with dill mayo dressing, Dijon mustard and fresh spinach sauce. Another interesting novelty is Kamchatka crab bay (dubbed "Cabaret") with homemade dill mayo dressing and saffron. Cold dish is supplemented with mousse of young cheese with horseradish, quail egg, black caviar and accompanied by fresh citrus note.
- Pike caviar is very popular in Siberia, before the revolution it was even called royal caviar because of its rarity," adds concept chef Persianinov. - I'm not sure that it is directly regional specificity, but many families (especially where there are hunters) on the New Year's table is sure to have game, as well as pâtés, chestnuts, pies with nelma or muksun.
Mr. Bo (St. Petersburg)
The Northern capital is represented by the restaurant, whose cuisine subtly intertwines elements of Asian and Mediterranean gastronomic traditions. Chef Dmitri Bogachev's author's establishment is also not without New Year classics. For the special Christmas set he came up with a very unexpected version of mimosa salad.
- For me, mimosa is probably a tribute to fashion and interpretation, because what we serve at our restaurant is far from the dish that everyone is used to seeing," Chef Bogachev shares his idea. - It is rather a set of similar flavors of those appetizers that were on everyone's table, with which a festive mood is associated.
Mimosa salad with fresh tuna, cod liver cream and egg balls
In Bogachev's author's interpretation, mimosa is prepared with fresh tuna in the style of carpaccio (or thin slices resembling sashimi). The dish is served with unagi-based sauce and complemented with cod liver cream, which gives the very feeling of the familiar salad. It is decorated with egg in the form of balls.
Sadko (Krasnoyarsk)
Another Siberian project with international cuisine, which recently updated its menu, emphasizing dishes with local products. Crispy baskets in the style of New Year salads appeared in the appetizers section . One of them contains tartar from Khakassian beef in the style of herring under fur coat, only with dried beet, aioli and taramasalata. The second is Kamchatka scallop with millet popcorn. In another "homemade" appetizer, instead of herring, tender chirp fillet is placed under the coat.
- I am a passionate fan of olivier, and for me this beautiful, hearty, contrasting in textures salad is the quintessence of Russian New Year's taste, - admits brand-chef of Sadko restaurant Mikhail Mikhailov. - I love olivier with beef and pickled cucumbers, sweetish vegetables and soft peas. And if you add a little horseradish, mustard and pepper to the dressing, it will be a win-win combination.
Olivier with Murmansk trout and red caviar
Olivier at Sadko is prepared with Murmansk trout of low salt and caviar of the same fish, baked vegetables with dressing based on homemade aioli with Dijon mustard. The salad is topped with quail eggs, a generous handful of trout and a spoonful of red caviar on top. According to our expert, in addition to traditional Russian salads (olivier, mimosa, herring under fur coat), Siberian salad chafan is very popular among Krasnoyarsk residents.
"VKareliaEst" (Petrozavodsk)
The museum-restaurant prepared "Karelian envelopes" for the holiday - an interesting interpretation of traditional rye flatbread sulchin. The chef of "VKareliaEst" Ivan Balin decided to play them up in the New Year style, inspired by popular rolls, which are usually rolled up from ham or eggplant. Sulchins are usually filled with semolina, wheat groats or mashed potatoes. Author's envelopes will be available with three fillings: smoked cheese, mayonnaise, garlic and cranberries; smoked ryapushka and pickled cucumber; sugudai of whitefish and cream cheese. The fillings are wrapped in pancakes made of rye dough, just like in the original version, but they look different.
- We deliberately called them "Karelian envelopes" because this is our fantasy on the theme of sulchin, not the original dish," Chef Balin explained to our publication. - Otherwise, the guests of the republic could have a wrong idea about traditional Karelian cuisine.
According to our interlocutor, on the New Year's Eve table of Karelians must have salted fish and sandwiches with caviar. Traditional for the region are also homemade pickles - pickled and salted mushrooms and snacks from them, as well as sauerkraut with the addition of cranberries, which makes the snack more beautiful and gives a pleasant sourness instead of vinegar.
Relict (Moscow)
The cuisine of the new Moscow restaurant develops the RusFusion gastronomic direction. Within this concept they rethink both traditions of Russian cuisine and many other national and ethnic culinary traditions united by common history of our multinational country. One of the brightest New Year's positions in the project's menu is author's crab salad.
- Crab salad is one of the iconic dishes of the New Year's table, which made an important contribution to the formation of modern Russian cuisine, - Ilya Romanov, Relict's brand-chef, is convinced. - In addition to Kamchatka crab, our appetizer includes tomatoes and cucumbers with tarkhun, giving the treat juiciness and freshness. Fresh cauliflower is also added for crunch. And the sauce is based on mayonnaise with sour black rowanberries.
Crab salad
According to the expert, various spreads have recently become very popular for New Year's Eve in the capital. People more and more often put chicken pâtés, beet spreads and forshmaki on the festive tables. Their demand is explained by the successful combination of simplicity of the dish with richness of flavor.
