Dear readers,
Happy holidays! I’m getting ready for a ten-day family trip to Quebec, where I intend to find out just how one can enjoy winter activities in places that have barely seen their first snowflakes of the season, and where ice can still only be found in freezers. But I wouldn’t want you to get bored while I’m away, so I’ve prepared a small compilation of my recent recipes for your dinner parties, ranging from Central Europe, to Siberia, to Central Asia! Let’s take a quick look at this year’s most holiday-worthy dishes:
- Have a traditional Georgian Christmas and prepare a Gurian Khachapuri.
- Remember those Hungarian Goulash, Blood Sausage, Foie Gras and Pear Tartlets that silly me blogged about in the middle of the summer? Now would be a good time to make some!
- If you’d rather a seafood appetizer instead, try my Moravian Trout Tartare and Rillettes, or my tongue-in-cheek Blini with Smoked Salmon. Or if caviar must be had, I highly recommend my Russian Pasta-Caviar Duo, twenty years in the making.
- There’s nothing like a hearty stew as a main course, like Bosanski Lonac, Bosnia’s National Dish.
- Staying on national dishes, which were the object of my 2015 New Year’s resolution, I’d also suggest Beshbarmak, Kazakhstan’s National Dish.
- I posted quite a few dessert recipes this year, and any one of them would be a great way to close your holiday meal, in particular the Soviet-ish Blueberry-Chocolate Roll, Apple Sorbet, and Buckwheat Crème Anglaise, or the almost Canadian Siberian Birch Syrup Pie and Kefir Ice Cream.
Then there are always the sheep, people who want to be like everybody else and try the most popular things, already half-certain that they’ll enjoy them. They think Starbucks makes the greatest coffee, love baking cupcakes, dream of tasting a cronut, and most likely own several Apple products. If this sounds like you, then you can fall back on this year’s most popular posts:
- Qurutob, Tajikistan’s National Dish, the best-looking qurutob recipe inside or outside of Tajikistan. How this obscure dish became so popular on my blog is a mystery. You know what? Maybe I’ll concede you an extra half-point of personality if you make this one.
- Imeretian Khachapuri, or Simple Georgian Cheese Bread, simple but so addictive. Some day it will supplant pizza as the go-to-food for club kids, office workers in a rush, and people in search of $10-a-pie countryside authenticity. Mark my words!
- Crème de Cassis and Black Currant Liqueur, because everybody loves the illusion of making their own booze.
- Lángos, Hungarian Deep-Fried Flat Bread, yet another bread recipe, the 3rd one in this years top 5! (There’s a fatir recipe in the qurutob post.)
- Blini and Oladi, Russian Pancakes, an all-time favorite that makes me wonder why I bother coming up with elaborate recipes. Won’t anyone please try my Blini with Smoked Salmon instead?
Previous years:
Happy Holidays 2014
Happy Holidays 2013
Happy Holidays 2012
Happy Holidays 2011
(photo credit for featured picture of Vladimir Putin: AAP)