Secrets of the hostess: cold appetizers on the festive table.

We always try to outdo ourselves when we have to meet the guests at the festive table. In search of unusual recipes, culinary books of mothers and grandmothers are "dug out", new dishes are invented, recipes of different cuisines of the world are being searched on the Internet, because you want to surprise everyone with something unusual and exotic! Are the works of the hostess and the guests' gratitude equal? Hardly, because you can often hear from them only modest: "Thank you, everything was very tasty." We suggest you make a festive menu of a snack table with simple, tasty and simultaneously spectacular dishes, which do not require any special effort from you while preparing and at the same time suitable for a special occasion.

A very important, and sometimes the main place at the solemn meal is snacks. This word in cooking means any cold dishes, except for soups, which should stimulate the appetite of dinner guests. Dishes of a cold table are traditionally divided into two large groups: finished products (marinated, pickled, salted, smoked), which are served in its natural form, without mixing with other products, and dishes prepared for a particular celebration with the help of cold or heat treatment. Cold appetizers on the festive table are represented by a variety of salads, jellied and stuffed vegetable dishes, meat dishes and half-finished products (sausages, canned food, ham, jellies, jellies, etc.). The fish group includes herring, jellied, smoked and stuffed fish, canned food, caviar, separately presented egg dishes, pates and sandwiches.

Cold snacks on the festive table are selected in accordance with the financial capabilities of the host guests. If you are able to make the table expensive groceries - hams, caviar, smoked products - wonderful, but also monotonous. With a more modest budget for the proposed lunch or dinner, you can get by with inexpensive products, but you need to bet on serving the dish - serving and decorating. Even canned or stewed inexpensive fish can look tempting, for example, fish in oil can be decorated with lemon slices, and fish in tomato sauce - with parsley and onion greens. As for vegetables, as a cold snack on a festive table, marinades are very suitable. Good home vegetable caviar, pickled green beans, eggplant, or such salads with beans as "Greek snack". If during their preparation in the season of blanks the recipe and technology were maintained, they would decorate the festive table with bright colors and tastes of the summer.

Especially it is necessary to talk about "smorgosburdet" - this is the right way to call the Swedish cold table. Cocktail reception is usually organized when it is not possible to put all the guests at the table. For example, the average Russian family can spend such a dinner in a country house in the garden area. The Swedish table on the set of dishes is no different from the usual snack bar, but the special popularity was given to small portioned dishes, which are convenient to take with a hand or skewer. It is a variety of sandwiches, salads in tartlets, vegetables, fish, deep-fried meat, stuffed eggs, potatoes, tomatoes. Very attractive seafood: shrimp, mussels, crabs. Snacks on the buffet table can be selected any, as there are no restrictions on etiquette.

Cold appetizers on the festive table, like desserts, can be prepared in advance, 2-3 days before the celebration, which allows you to significantly relieve the hostess. Directly on the day of reception, only a hot dish with a side dish is prepared, without which one can not do without, but there is no need to make a few changes.

Snacks at the wedding table, in case the celebration is held at home, it is better to cook the usual ones so as not to spoil the celebration with failed culinary experiments. To emphasize the special solemnity of the event, about which guests were invited, it is possible with the help of serving. Buy a dressing set in white tones or themed wedding colors, pick up beautiful woven napkins, tablecloth, make more effort to decorate the dishes - and you will convey the atmosphere of the holiday.