Features of preparation, decoration and serving of hot dishes for a solemn occasion. TOP 5 amazing recipes for a festive table with different ingredients. Video recipes.
Hot dishes are an obligatory attribute of any festive meal. They are made from fish, meat, game and vegetables. The main feature is that the products are subjected to various heat treatments, before serving on the banquet table, they must be decorated with beautifully chopped vegetables and sauces, and served warm. Further, the most popular methods of preparing hot dishes, their design and serving, as well as 5 delicious recipes that will surely delight long-awaited guests.
Features of cooking hot dishes on the festive table
In the Middle Ages, it was by the abundance of hot dishes on the table that the wealth of the hosts who organized the banquet was estimated. At one feast in Spain in the 17th century in honor of the main admiral of England, 1200 types of various hot meat and fish were served. Later, French cuisine was famous for its rich tables, which, along with hot meat dishes, offered delicious treats with all kinds of sauces from truffles, boiled tongue, turkey and ham.
In Russia, the festive table had to consist of 50-100 types of hot food, which was served on gold and silver trays. A spit-on calf was an obligatory treat. Nowadays, banquets are not celebrated on such a large scale, but the preparation of hot dishes is a must for modern holidays as well.
The process necessarily includes heat treatment. Most often it is boiling in water and steam, baking and frying food. The boiling time depends on their types, shape and size, for example, if it is meat, then also on the age of the animal. The preparation of the ingredients has certain differences from the preparation of the broth for the first hot dishes. In this case, the products are dipped into the already boiled water. This will create a protective film on them that prevents the loss of nutrients.
Meat, fish, mushrooms, vegetables, etc. can be baked on the festive table. For this, use a deep thick-walled form or a baking sheet. The products are baked with the addition of a small amount of fat, in their own juice or in a sauce. Some ingredients are fried before baking. Cooking time depends on the structure of the food and the size of the serving. You can bake them in foil, a sleeve, or just on a baking sheet.
Fried hot second courses are prepared in several ways:
- On a baking sheet in the oven with added fat;
- Grilled;
- Deep-fried;
- Breaded;
- Heat, but no fat used;
- On an open fire.
Depending on the type of hot dish, pretreatment of food may be necessary. Frozen meat or fish must be defrosted initially. It is not recommended to do this in cold water or a warm place, as this will cause the products to lose their quality. Remove them from the freezer, rinse under running water and leave for 2-3 hours at room temperature. If thawed too quickly, the thawing ice crystals can damage muscle tissue, causing the product to lose a lot of juice and change its taste.
After defrosting, the meat must be cleaned of veins and excess fat, gut the fish and remove the scales from it. All food must be washed and cut into portions, the size of which depends on the type of hot dish you are planning to cook.
During the primary processing of poultry, it is singed over a gas burner. This processing method removes the remaining feathers and down from the carcass. When preparing hot vegetable dishes, an auxiliary cooking method such as blanching can be used. In this case, the food is placed in boiling water for a couple of minutes, and then quickly placed in cold water. This makes it easy to remove the dense skin from them. This is done with tomatoes, bell peppers and other vegetables. Also, vegetables can be sautéed in a small amount of fat, that is, lightly fried until soft, but not until cooked.
Another important point is serving and arranging hot meals. First, hot fish is served, then meat dishes, game, and the last hot vegetable is brought to the table. Meat dishes are served on small plates or trays, the size and shape of which depends on the size of the meat product. Vegetable stews and stews in sauce are served in portions in pots, covered with a lid or bread cake. Game and poultry are also served on small plates and stews in pots. Separate bowls are used to serve warm poultry salads. If poultry, game, leg of lamb or suckling pig are cooked whole, they are initially shown to guests, only after that they are cut into pieces and served in portions.
Festive food should not only be tasty, but also beautiful, so special attention should be paid to the design of hot dishes. For this, you can use fresh and boiled vegetables. With sufficient skills, you can create whole compositions by cutting flowers and plant motifs from vegetables. You can make white flowers from raw potatoes and white radish, and red flowers from beets and tomatoes. Lettuce leaves can serve as a "pillow" for a dish, and leaves and stems can be made from herbs, leeks, cucumbers and bell peppers.
Hot fish and seafood dishes can be decorated with lemon roses; boiled potato mushrooms are suitable for meat dishes. Sauces for decorating dishes can be given any color using natural dyes - beetroot juice, tomato paste, paprika, curry or saffron, and any green sauce can be dyed with chopped herbs. It is important to prepare all decor and side dishes for complex hot dishes in advance so have time to make the original design and serve food on the table while it is still warm.
TOP 5 recipes for hot dishes on the festive table
Second hot dishes of meat, fish and poultry are especially popular at banquets and on the festive menu. Each housewife has her own "signature" recipe only for special occasions. Further, there are several options for hot dishes for a festive table, which can easily become favorite for you and your loved ones.
Wellington beef
This is an exquisite hot beef dish in which a tender tenderloin in a thin layer of mustard is wrapped in mushroom pate and thin slices of bacon. This incredible yummy is baked in a crispy puff pastry shell. The original recipe doesn't use bacon, but Parma ham. But it is impossible to replace beef tenderloin in the recipe with other parts of the carcass, since they will not give the necessary juiciness and softness to the dish. For it, only the middle part of the tenderloin is used. The piece should be even and uniform.
- Caloric content per 100 g - 367 kcal.
- Servings - 4
- Cooking time - 1 hour 10 minutes
Ingredients:
- Beef tenderloin - 750 g
- Champignons - 400 g
- Bacon - 200 g
- Puff pastry - 500 g
- English mustard - 2 tablespoons
- Egg yolk - 2 pcs.
- Wheat flour - 10 g
- Olive oil - 2 tablespoons
- Sea salt - 1 pinch
- Freshly ground black pepper - 5 g
Cooking Wellington beef step by step:
- Wash the mushrooms, dry them on a towel, put them in a food processor and chop them in puree. Place the resulting mass in a hot frying pan without oil and evaporate the water from it.
- Fry the mushrooms over high heat for 10 minutes with constant stirring. Place the prepared mushroom mass on a separate plate and refrigerate.
- Heat some olive oil in a clean skillet. Season the tenderloin with salt and pepper and fry for 30 seconds on each side. Remove the meat from heat, cool slightly and brush with mustard.
- Roll out cling film on the table, spread the bacon slices on it in one layer, spread the mushroom mass evenly on top of it, and place the tenderloin in the center. Close the edges of the film so that the meat is wrapped in mushroom pate and bacon. Lightly press the resulting roll with your palms.
- Sprinkle the table with flour, roll out the puff pastry on it, cut a rectangle from it a little larger than the roll. The rectangle should be 3-4 mm thick.
- Remove the film from the roll, place it in the center of the dough. Spread the dough around the meat with whipped yolk. Wrap the roll in the dough, cut off the excess and place the resulting "loaf" seam down on a baking sheet. Top the dough with whipped yolk and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
- Remove the roll from the refrigerator, make cuts on the top of the dough with a knife, coat them with yolk. Bake the dish for 20 minutes at 200 ° C, then another 15 minutes at 180 ° C.
- After baking, remove the meat from the oven, leave for 10-15 minutes, and then you can serve it on the festive table. Like any other hot meat dish, Wellington beef goes well with mashed potatoes or grilled vegetables.
Chicken with oranges in the oven
You will need a whole, carefully gutted bird to make this hot chicken dish. Thanks to the use of orange juice in the marinade, the meat is very juicy with a sweet and sour note. The herbs and hot hot peppers added to the treat will add special piquancy to the treat. If desired, the orange can be replaced with Clementine tangerines, you need 2 of them. If you don't like rosemary, you can mix 1 tsp instead. ground coriander, 1 tsp. turmeric and 1/2 tsp. cumin.
Ingredients:
- Chicken - 1 pc.
- Orange fresh - 80 ml
- Honey - 80 ml
- Olive oil - 2 tsp
- Garlic - 2 cloves
- Dried rosemary - 1 tsp
- Orange - 1 pc.
- Salt to taste
- Red hot pepper - to taste
Cooking chicken with oranges in the oven step by step:
- Prepare the marinade for the poultry first. To do this, mix orange fresh juice, honey, olive oil, garlic and spices passed through a press in a deep small container.
- Wash, dry and fill the chicken with the marinade so that it is both outside and inside. Cover the container with marinated poultry with a lid so that the carcass does not dry out. After 30-40 minutes, turn the chicken over to the other side.
- Place the pickled poultry in a heat-resistant dish, belly up. Rub it with salt and pepper on all sides, including the inside.
- Wash oranges or tangerines, dry, cut into quarters together with the peel. Place the fruit slices inside the carcass, pour 2-3 tbsp into the same place. the remaining marinade.
- Preheat the oven to 180 ° C. Roast the chicken in it on the middle rack for 1 hour. If it is small, 40 minutes is enough.
- On a separate baking sheet, you can make a side dish, for this, peel the potatoes and carrots, cut into slices, salt, pepper and pour the marinade left over from the chicken on top.
- Bake the side dish at 180 ° C for 40 minutes. Place the whole chicken with oranges on a serving platter, and spread the vegetable garnish around it.
Accordion pork with cheese and tomatoes
This delicious hot dish got its name because in it a piece of pork pulp is cut into pieces 1-2 cm thick, but not cut to the end. Thus, a meat "accordion" or "book" is obtained. Tomato slices and cheese plates are inserted into the slots between the pork pieces. The finished dish comes out very juicy and soft. From spices to pork, ground coriander, red pepper, paprika, thyme are perfect. You can also take ready-made spice mixes.
Ingredients:
- Pork (tenderloin, loin, neck) - 1 kg
- Hard cheese - 150 g
- Tomatoes - 2 pcs.
- Garlic - 1 head
- Salt, pepper, spices - to taste
Step by step cooking of accordion pork with cheese and tomatoes:
- Wash the tomatoes, dry them, cut them into thin slices or semicircles.
- Cut the cheese into slices 3-4 mm thick.
- Peel the garlic and cut into thin slices.
- Wash the meat, dry it, make cuts almost to the end of the piece at a distance of 1-2 cm from each other. Season the meat with salt and pepper on the outside and in the cuts.
- Cover the baking sheet with foil, place the meat accordion in its center. Place 2-3 slices of garlic, a cheese slab and 2 circles of tomato in each cut. Sprinkle spices on top of the accordion. Wrap the foil tightly so that the juice and steam from the cooking meat does not escape.
- Bake a hot pork dish for 1 hour at 180 ° С, unfold the foil and bake until golden brown at 200-220 ° С.
- Serve with fresh herbs. If desired, raw potatoes, cut into bars, can be added to the accordion in the foil, then both the second course and the side dish will be cooked at the same time.
- Fans of experimenting can add plates of fresh mushrooms, eggplants or zucchini to the accordion cuts, and you can also play a little with the choice of spices and seasonings.
Julienne with mushrooms
This is a delicious hot dish made from cheese and fresh mushrooms. For meat-eaters, you can offer a similar recipe, but using boiled chicken fillet, which is cut into strips and mixed with fried onions and mushrooms. Without meat, the dish also turns out to be incredibly rich and aromatic. 6 servings come out of the proposed amount of products.
Ingredients:
- Fresh mushrooms (champignons, shiitake) - 100 g
- Cream, 10% - 70 ml
- Bulb onions - 1/2 pc.
- Dutch cheese - 50 g
- Salt to taste
- Allspice - to taste
- Olive oil - for frying
Step by step cooking julienne with mushrooms:
- Wash the mushrooms, dry, cut into small cubes and fry in hot olive oil.
- Peel the onion, chop finely, add it to the mushrooms and fry everything well.
- Pour the cream into the onion-mushroom mass, salt and pepper everything and heat for a few minutes over a fire.
- Pour the finished mass into 6 cocotte makers or take ready-made shortcrust dough tartlets. Grind the cheese and sprinkle each portion with it. Bake the julienne at 170 ° C for 20 minutes.
- Serve hot julienne, garnish with lettuce leaves.
Dough-baked salmon with spinach
Hot fish dishes must occupy one of the most honorable places in any festive menu. Regular fried or stuffed fish is already a little boring, and you will not surprise anyone with it, so take on board the interpretation of the classic French dish Salmon en croute. Salmon in a spinach-creamy "cap" wrapped in a tender puff pastry will become a real decoration of any banquet table.
Ingredients:
- Puff yeast-free dough - 500 g
- 1 side of salmon / salmon / trout - 1 kg
- Spinach - 500 g
- Butter - 20 g
- Sour cream - 2 tablespoons
- Nutmeg - 1 pinch
- 1/2 lemon juice
- Salt, spices for fish - to taste
- Flour - on the dust
- Egg - for lubrication
Step by step cooking of baked salmon with spinach:
- With a sharp knife, remove the skin from the fish, remove the bones, and cut the fish fillet lengthwise into 2 parts.
- Wash the spinach, place in a saucepan. Add butter and nutmeg to it. Cover the saucepan with a lid and put on low heat. Simmer the spinach until tender. This usually takes 5 minutes. Drain excess liquid. Wait until the mass has cooled slightly, remove the remains by placing the spinach between sheets of parchment paper.
- Finely chop the spinach, add sour cream and lemon juice to it. Salt the mass, season with spices.
- Sprinkle the table with flour, roll out the dough on it, cut a rectangle of 30 by 50 cm from it. Divide the resulting rectangle in half and roll each piece with a rolling pin to the size of a fish fillet.
- Cover the baking sheet with parchment paper, place 1 rectangle of dough on it. Put 1 half of the fish fillet on it, cover it with the spinach mass, place the second piece of fish on top.
- Brush the dough around the fish with a beaten egg. Place the second piece of dough on top, pressing its edges against the first and thus sealing the filling inside. Top the dough with a beaten egg.
- Bake the salmon in the dough for 30-35 minutes at 200 ° C.
- Cool the cooked salmon with spinach, cut into portions like a roll and serve with herbs and fresh vegetables.
