If you feel like changing up your New Year’s dinner and starting the year off with something new, you can take a look at New Year’s traditions from other countries. In many places they incorporate special dishes as a form of ritual to attract luck and start the year well: there are those who celebrate it with sweets and those who organize large banquets, as in the case of the France. I suggest you try one of them Simple recipes to celebrate the New Year 2023 inspired by the traditions of other countries, so that you can welcome 2023 in the tastiest way possible!
New Year’s dinner in Denmark: kransekage
Kransekage is a preparation that will seem familiar to us because marzipan is used as a base. The traditional thing is to take a tour of these sweets, but it is also very common to serve them in individual bars. As this option is easier, this is the one we recommend.
Kransekage recipe for New Year’s Eve
Ingredients:
For mass:
- 300 g marzipan (it can be homemade or purchased, without honey or eggs)
- 100g icing sugar
- 2 tablespoons wheat or buckwheat flour
- A pinch of water (about 2 tablespoons)
To glaze:
- 50g icing sugar + a pinch of water
- 75g chocolate (>75% cocoa) (optional)
- Preheat the oven to 180°C with rising and falling heat.
Preparation:
- Place baking paper on a baking sheet.
- To make the paste, let the marzipan harden in the fridge or freezer and grate it with a grater.
- Add the icing sugar, wheat flour and water and knead. It should be a creamy, manageable mass. If it’s very brittle, add another tablespoon of water, and if it’s very sticky, add a little more flour.
- Shape cylinders of dough about 15 cm long and put them on the baking sheet, leaving a space between them. You can flatten the sides a bit to give it a pyramid shape.
- Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.
- Take them out and let them cool on a wire rack.
- To glaze them, put the icing sugar in a bowl and add a teaspoon of water. Mix well. Add water very little by little (drops, not tablespoons) until a thick white glaze forms. Put it in a piping bag with a very thin round tip and draw on the zigzag bars.
- To glaze them with chocolate, melt them in a bain-marie and proceed in the same way as for the sugar glaze.
- You can leave them in the fridge until ready to serve.
New Year’s Dinner in Japan: Toshikoshi Soba
In Japan, it is traditional to end the year and start the new one by enjoying a bowl of soba noodles.The essence of this action is to start from scratch in the year that begins.
It is a simple dish that we can adapt to our tastes and what we have at home.
The basics are buckwheat soba noodles in shiitake and nori broth (or both) and chopped spring onions on top. To this we can add a few slices of tofu, shiitake mushrooms, nori seaweed, etc.
New Year’s Toshikoshi Soba Recipe
Ingredients:
For the broth (dashi)
- 1 liter of hot water
- 6 dried shiitake mushrooms
- A small piece of kombu (about 5×5 cm)
- 3 tablespoons of soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons mirin or rice vinegar
For the noodles and toppings:
- 200g soba noodles
- Broth shiitake mushrooms
- 2 spring onions chopped
- 4 slices of fried or grilled tofu
Preparation:
- Put the water, shiitake mushrooms, kombu, soy sauce and mirin in a saucepan and let sit for at least 30 minutes.
- Take out the shiitake mushrooms and cut them into strips.
- Put it on the fire and when it starts boiling add the noodles. Cook according to package directions (usually 1-2 minutes).
- Serve the noodles with the broth and add the chopped mushrooms, spring onion and tofu to each bowl.
- Serve hot just before midnight on New Year’s Day.
New Year’s Eve dinner in Italy: lentil soup
In Italy, the New Year celebration is the Feast of San Silvestre, and it is typical to make a good plate of lentils, which is often complemented with cotechino (a type of sausage). It’s an easy dish to make and you can make more to refrigerate or freeze.
Lentil soup recipe for New Year’s Eve
Ingredients:
- 2 cups Castilian lentils
- 3 tablespoons of olive oil
- 1 carrot
- 1 stalk of celery
- 1/2 onion
- 4 peeled tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon of tomato puree
- 1 liter of homemade vegetable broth
- 2 vegan sausages per person (this is optional)
- 1 handful of fresh spinach (optional)
Preparation:
- Soak the lentils in plenty of water for 4 hours. After this time, drain them.
- In pressure cooker, heat oil over medium-low heat and add chopped carrot, celery and onion to sauté. Add a pinch of salt.
- When the vegetables are poached, add the peeled tomatoes, tomato puree, drained lentils, vegetable broth and sausages and fill with water until well covered. Add a little more salt.
- Close the pan and put it on high heat. When it starts to hiss, put it on low heat. Let everything cook together for 15 minutes.
- Turn off the heat and when the pressure is released, open the pan.
- Put it back on the heat (medium heat).
- Add the spinach and reduce everything until it is a creamy soup.
- Taste it and adjust the salt. Serve it hot.
New Year’s dinner in the Philippines: round fruits
In the Philippines, fruit of the Spanish colonialist heritage, 12 round fruits are consumed at the end of the year. It can be 12 grapes, as is done in Spain, or a tray with 12 different round fruits.
For example, you can serve a platter with grapes, apples, tangerines, cherries, longans, plums, persimmons, loquats, guavas, blueberries, sand eels, lychees, rambutans, mamoncillos … Use what is in season in your area and serve the fruit already washed
.