At New Year's Eve, you know, you have to bring only special dishes to the table. Have you ever thought about cooking with champagne?
You can not start a new year without a toast. And what's better than an excellent champagne?
We talk about champagne generalizing, but in reality we also refer to Italian sparkling wine because there are so many at the height of the famous French wine.
At the New Year's day, the glasses rise and toast to what is to come and to what has been. The bubbles are a good omen and glasses have to make cheers while the looks cross each other in a smile.
Champagne or sparkling wine are the ingredients of the evening. Why not try to use them in the kitchen too?
We suggest simple but effective dishes that will make you look great with your friends.
From appetizers to desserts, to cocktails, here is a champagne menu perfect to greet the last day of the year and start a new year.
1. Cream of zola and champagne
This cream is perfect as an appetizer served on toasted bread crostini. It has a strong taste for strong palates. Preparing it is very simple. Just mix 300 gr of sweet gorgonzola with 50 gr of mascarpone and 25 gr of fresh cream. Then pour 150 ml of champagne onto the cream and let it rest for an hour. Before serving, mix everything.
2. Champagne and pomegranate risotto
This risotto is a classic that always pleases everyone and is ideal for important occasions. It is prepared as usual by roasting the rice in a sauté of oil and onion and then blending with the champagne and gradually pouring the vegetable stock stirring constantly. When cooked add a knob of butter to cream and pomegranate grains that give acidity to the dish … and bring good luck!
3. Champagne chicken
This second course is very simple and not too demanding. Hang a whole chicken (better if free range) in the butcher's shop and let it clean. In a baking dish melt 60 grams of butter and then place the chicken so that it greases well in every part. Bake at 180 degrees until the chicken is golden. Wash 300 gr of champignon mushrooms and add them to the pan along with the sliced truffle, two glasses of champagne and a glass of brandy and cook for another 40 minutes.
In a saucepan, filter the cooking base, add two tablespoons of flour and toast it. Add a glass of fresh cream and a knob of butter. Season with salt and cook with a whisk. Before serving, pour the sauce over the chicken.
4. Champagne sorbet
A light dessert to close the beauty. This sorbet is prepared by dissolving 500 gr of sugar with 1.5 l of water on the fire. After preparing this syrup let it cool and then mix it with the juice of two lemons and four glasses of champagne.
Let the liquid cool in the freezer for an hour, mixing it every 20 minutes. Alternatively, use an ice cream maker. In the meantime, whisk an albumen and then slowly add it to the mixture. Leave it in the freezer for another couple of hours and then serve in the glasses. Decorated with strawberries and raspberries or pomegranate grains.
5. Champagne cocktail
This is a very famous cocktail invented in 1889 in New York by a journalist. It is prepared by wetting a sugar cube with bitter angostura and placed on the bottom of the serving glass. Then pour in the glass 2 cl brandy and 8 cl champagne, being careful not to damage the lump that will melt slowly after sip.
