Christmas Eve in France is the most popular Family celebration in the year, like Thanksgiving in the US. Each year, one member of my family organize the dinner in his home and invite all the rest of the family. This year, the dinner is at home. I have invited my parents, my sister, my parents in law and my brother in law with his wife and their kids. We would be 13 people around the table if everybody could come.
Here you have the feast menu I will suggest to my family to celebrate Chritmas Eve. This time, it will be a lot of work but I love to cook, I have taken a day off to cook and my nanny will keep the babies during the day. In France, we love to stay around a table with a good dinner and, as we do not have many opportunities to find us all together in the year, we can stay sitting for a long time to talk, eat and drink, in the french way of life.
The menu :
The apéritif : soup of champagne, basil cakes like canelés, prunes in the bacon and glass cup of espuma of chorizo with a cream of asparagus.
The starter : Foie gras in three versions and presented like a dessert, with 1- a puff with foie gras ice cream, 2- a foie gras candy and 3- a foie gras crème brûlée. To drink, a Sauternes.
First main course : scallop in a champagne sauce. To drink, a Tariquet.
Second main course : quails in mandarins with a risotto in hazelnuts. To drink, a Pomerol.
Dessert : Baked Alaska. To drink, a Clairette de Die Imperial.
At midnight, we would have finished the dinner and open the gifts we have offered to each other, except for the kids who would sleep at that time. They will wait the morning to open the gifts Santa would brought for them.
If some of thoose dishes give you some ideas, I promess you will find all thoose receipes on my blog just after Christmas Eve and, maybe you could try it for the New Year’s Eve.