How to decorate dishes at home. Decorating appetizers and salads step by step!!! great selection!!! Examples of decorating children's salads

Carving is the art of carving fruits and vegetables. decorated with beautiful flowers carved from vegetables using the art of carving. In many restaurants, at formal banquets, there are bouquets of vegetables and fruits in vases.

The art of curly cutting of vegetables is taught at special courses and catering establishments.

Flowers are made from cut vegetables and placed on the festive table in a vase, as in the photo or dish.

Special tools are used for cutting. In this article you will become familiar with the art of cutting vegetables into shapes.

Set of carving tools

Main knife

An ordinary knife may be quite suitable for cutting vegetables. The knife should have a pointed end and a durable blade made of high-quality metal and not bend.

The knife handle should be ergonomic so as not to feel tired while working.

As the main knife, you can also use a sickle knife or, as it is also called, a Thai knife. It is convenient for them to make rounded cuts and cuts in hard-to-reach places, somewhere in the middle of the flower.

Carving knives

Carving knives are special knives for shaped cutting of vegetables and fruits.

They are sold in a set (over 100 items) and individually.

In this article, a carving knife with a triangular cross-section (acute or V-shaped) will be used to make flowers from Chinese cabbage and

creating oblique cuts when making some flowers in carving art.

Knife notch

Notch knife - also called a noisette knife or ball knife with a diameter of 10 mm, 15 mm, 18 mm. This is a very convenient and necessary tool.

With its help, you can cut out a small ball from any vegetable to make the stamen of a flower (chamomile, primrose).

Scissors

Scissors are needed to give the petals of finished flowers the desired shape: pointed, oval, wavy, as well as to cut fringe along the edge of the petals when making a double flower.

Carving and the process of choosing the right vegetables

How to choose vegetables for carving?

Flowers can be cut from a variety of vegetables: radish (black, white, daikon and radish), beets, carrots, rutabaga, Chinese cabbage, turnips, bell peppers, zucchini, cucumber, kohlrabi, eggplant, onions and other vegetables.

Choose vegetables depending on the shape of the flower you want to get. For example, to cut large flowers you will need large, hard, round-shaped vegetables - beets, red beans, turnips. For cone-shaped flowers, such as lilies, bells, it is better to use oblong-shaped vegetables - radishes, daikon.

You can cut lush chrysanthemums, asters and daisies from Chinese cabbage. From the leaves of leeks and red bell peppers - amazing flowers and poppies.

When purchasing, make sure that the vegetables do not have rot or mechanical damage, as well as voids in the pulp. choose heavier ones and estimate the weight on your hand. If there is cotton wool inside, the vegetable weighs much less.

Do not try to purchase very fresh vegetables “fresh from the garden”. Their flesh is very juicy and elastic, and when cutting out a flower, small parts can break off.

How to color and preserve cut-out flowers?

Yellow flowers can be cut from pumpkin or turnips, green ones from green radishes, red ones from beets and bell peppers, orange ones from carrots.

If you want to cut out a flower of a different color: burgundy, pink, lilac, lemon, blue, violet, use food coloring.

To do this, cut a flower from a white root vegetable and place it in a container with a solution of food coloring of the required concentration or in a vegetable broth. You can dip only the petals in the dye, then you will get a beautiful color transition from dark to light.

Remember, flowers from vegetables come into contact with food on the table, so they must be safe for human health, therefore, the dyes must be natural.

If your color is too intense, run the flower under cold running water until you get the desired shade.

In order for the flower to “bloom”: and the petals to bend beautifully, place the freshly cut, not yet painted flower in a container with cold water for 10 - 15 minutes, and then carefully bend the petals with a knife at your discretion. To do this, carefully run a knife along the outer or back side of each petal, as if stretching it, and bend the tip in the desired direction. Decorate dishes with cut out flowers.

To preserve flowers until the day of the celebration, place them in a container of cold water and place them in the refrigerator. Change the water often, then the flowers will look fresh and elegant even after a few weeks. Decorate the snacks as in the photo.

Carving flower cutting on the theme - Orange blossom

Orange blossom is the white flowers of the orange tree. They (live or artificial) decorate the bride’s wedding dress.

Vegetables for flowers: radish

Execution of work (carving):

1. Take a large round radish.

2. Form the first row of petals by making rounded cuts across the entire surface of the radish from top to bottom.

3. Parallel to the petals of the first row, cut another petal from each side. Try to leave a strip of skin at the end of each petal.

4. Finish the flower by removing the pulp from the middle: first cut the ribs and then “split” the remaining pulp into stamens of different lengths.

5. Dip the flower in cold water for 5 - 10 minutes, then bend the petals of the first row outward, and the second row inward.

You can continue to cut out the petals until you have used up all the pulp in the middle.

You can decorate dishes with salads and cut flowers from radishes, and if you are a very enthusiastic person with imagination, you can decorate the holiday table itself and create a bouquet of vegetables and place it in a vase on the table. There will be enough surprise for the guests for the whole evening.

Cutting flowers from vegetables to decorate dishes on the theme - Forget-me-not

Vegetables for flowers: radish (black, white, daikon, radish), carrots

Execution of work (carving):

1. Cut an even cylinder with a diameter of 2 - 3 cm from the root vegetable. At the same distance from each other, make 5 grooves on its side surface and round their corners.

2. Place the cylinder on the board and cut thin flower plates from the base.

3. Dip the flowers into a container of blue or pink food coloring.

4. Cut the carrot strip into small squares.

5. Using a toothpick, secure the squares in the center of each flower.

6. Form a dome around a piece of any white, hard vegetable and attach the flowers to it as tightly as possible to each other.

Tip: You can cut the plates from a round cylinder, and then give them the desired shape using metal flower-shaped molds designed for cutting out chocolate and jelly figures.

Use Forget-me-not flowers to decorate culinary dishes or create a bouquet to decorate a festive table.

DIY carving on the theme - Buttercup

Vegetables for flowers: pumpkin, turnip

Execution of work (carving):

1. From half a peeled medium-sized turnip or a cylindrical piece of tuyuva, cut a thin round plate with a diameter of 3 - 4 cm.

2. Using scissors, make 5 cuts from the edge of the plate to the center, at an equal distance from each other. Round the petals and give them a heart shape, making a bend in the middle.

3. Using a paring knife, cut a round ball out of the turnip. Prick it onto a toothpick, dip it into gelatin diluted in cold water, and then into millet.

4. Using a toothpick, secure the stamen ball tightly in the center of the flower. Make another 10 - 12 flowers and assemble the composition.

You can use a piece of yellow bell pepper with seeds as the center.

Tip: If you carved a daikon or radish buttercup, color it yellow using food coloring.

Tip: Before arranging the dish, shorten the toothpicks that secure the center of each flower to the desired length.

As you understood correctly, you can decorate dishes with flowers and create a bouquet.

Vegetable figures on the theme - Chamomile

Vegetables for flowers: radish (black, white, daikon), carrots for the middle

Execution of work (carving):

1. Peel a large root vegetable and cut off a thin plate with a diameter of 5 - 7 cm.

2. Using scissors, make 4 cuts on the plate at equal distances from each other.

3. Now make 3 cuts inside each sector. It turned out 12 petals.

4. Using scissors, give the petals a pointed shape by cutting off the corners.

5. Using a gouge knife, cut a ball out of the carrot. If desired, cut it into a mesh.

6. Using a toothpick, secure the ball in the center of the daisy.

You can decorate dishes with daisies and place them mounted on branches in a vase on the festive table.

Decorating vegetable salads on the theme - Scarlet poppy - carving to help

Vegetables for flowers: red bell pepper, black radish for the center

Execution of work (carving):

1. Select a large pepper without scratches or blemishes. Step back a few centimeters from the stalk and cut off the top part. We won't need it anymore.

2. Remove the seeds from the pepper. Decorate the edge by making 4 - 5 arched petal cuts of the same size.

3. Use knives to carefully separate each petal. Bend the outer petals outward and soak the flower in cold water for a few minutes.

4. Cut a large piece of unpeeled black radish into a mesh.

5. Use a toothpick to connect the center to the flower.

Tip: If you used a white radish to make the center, dry it, then dip the top in the dissolved gelatin and then in the poppy seed.

You can create a bouquet of scarlet poppies and it will be a real sensation for guests. And then the guests will understand - this is carving.

Good luck to all blog readers in decorating dishes and holiday tables with figured flowers from vegetables, created with your own hands using carving art.

Making sandwiches is an art. Beautiful and tasty sandwiches can be prepared for almost any occasion: for breakfast, a quick and inexpensive snack during the day, as an accompaniment to the main course, or as a chic main course. ›

A cake decorated in a simple style always has clear lines, subtle patterns and one or three colors in the design. All attempts to decorate a cake in a classic style using butter cream will be doomed to failure: it is “tailored” to other shapes (the same roses, for example). Frosting will help transform your cake into the epitome of elegance. ›

Salad is perhaps one of the most popular dishes. Not a single holiday feast is complete without salads, and they are also frequent guests on our tables on the daily menu. Many housewives divide salads into festive and everyday, and it’s not a matter of composition, but of design. ›

It’s not enough to bake a delicious cake, you also need to make it beautiful. Do you think the task is impossible to accomplish at home? In fact, you can create a real work of art from ordinary cakes at home, without resorting to large financial expenses and without using expensive decorating kits. All you need is chocolate, foil, parchment paper and the desire to create, surprise and delight others with your culinary talent. ›

The art of serving and decorating dishes is addressed primarily to the taste and imagination of a particular person, however, for your creation to become a real work of art, it must comply with certain rules. ›

Everyone knows that greens are healthy, that they are rich in a wide variety of vitamins and minerals, and that you need to eat as much of it as possible. But only an avid vegetarian would agree to replace the usual meal with several bunches of different types of greens. Decorating dishes with herbs is one of the easiest ways to make a dish not only beautiful, but also healthy. ›

More and more often, when choosing a cake in a store, we hear the Italian word “marzipan”, which has become popular recently. It's worth thinking about its meaning. What do we know about him? That marzipan is a kind of sweet mass, reminiscent of plasticine in consistency, which, thanks to its plasticity, allows you to create decorations for desserts of a wide variety of shapes. ›

Anyone can read the recipe, look at the photos and bake a cake that until recently seemed to be the pinnacle of culinary excellence. But not everyone will be able to beautifully decorate their masterpiece. Of course, you can admire the taste alone, but your creation deserves original decoration and beautiful presentation. ›

You baked a delicious, aromatic cake, but like a real housewife, you set out to make not only the taste attractive, but also the appearance of the baked goods. The question naturally arises: how to achieve this goal at home, especially if you are tired of butter, protein cream, chocolate, mastic and other delicious decorations? Today Culinary Eden will answer this question. ›

Caramel is a delicacy known since childhood. It was a rare child who, after eating a cockerel on a stick, did not try to melt the sugar and make candy on his own, and many succeeded. It would seem that decorating a dessert with caramel - what could be simpler? Indeed, making caramel is quite simple, but working with it requires additional tools, talent and patience. ›

Tea cups on thin saucers filled with your favorite tea, a pleasant company of your closest people and an amazingly delicious cake that fills the kitchen with the seductive aroma of baking. Most home tea parties take place in this atmosphere, when a homemade cake brings a feeling of coziness and homely warmth. ›

Easter is the brightest, quietest and most comfortable holiday. There are no noisy, incendiary parties on Easter; it should be spent at home, with your family, next to your loved ones. And in order to create the mood of a bright holiday and please loved ones, especially children, on Easter it is customary to prepare special Easter dishes and paint eggs. Culinary Eden offers you original, fresh, bright ideas for decorating Easter eggs with your own hands. Let your family have a beautiful holiday! ›

Even the simplest salad can be dressed up in such a way that it becomes the main decoration of the holiday table. In this article we tried to select the simplest and most beautiful ideas for decorating salads.

Salad decorations for any occasion

Salad decoration: Shape, sprinkle with grated cheese. The keys are made of slices of cheese and olives. Rods from tomato and greens.

Salad decoration: salted straw; fresh cucumber rings arranged in the shape of a chain, red fish rolled into a roll at the ends of straws, lettuce, olives, canned corn.

Salad decoration “Bees”: black olives, olives and fresh cucumber for wings.

Calla lilies salad decorations: calla flower base from processed cheese (in bags), stamens from boiled carrots, stems and leaves from green onions.

Decoration of the Asters salad: crab sticks are used as flower petals. The leaves and stems are made from fresh cucumber.

Decoration of the “Basket” salad: the basket is made of green onions, which are intertwined between salted straws.

Decoration of Lukoshko salad: basket weaving is made from pieces of hard cheese, flowers from egg whites and boiled carrots. Green onions, cut into rings.

Decoration of Palm Tree Salad: Palms are made from olives skewered on wooden skewers and green onions.

Decoration of “Heart” salad: grated cheese, green onions at the base, pomegranate seeds for edging, cherry tomatoes as berries, fresh cucumber - leaves, green onions - stems.

Decoration of the “Bouquet” salad: tulips made from tomatoes stuffed with lettuce; green onion stems.

Decoration of Chamomile salad: egg white and yolk, thinly sliced ​​fresh cucumber.

Decoration of salad "Mushroom": mushroom stem - egg white, lower part of the cap - grated cheese or boiled potatoes, upper part - Korean carrots.

Salad decorations: Grapes made from green peas and cucumber. The following shows ideas for original decorations for salads made from simple ingredients (cucumber, egg, olives, radishes). You can make beautiful spirals from green onions: separate the feathers from the onion, cut each feather lengthwise, carefully tear into thin strips along the entire length, soak the onion strips in cold water for 0.5 hours.

Decorate the salad You can also use regular bell pepper.

Decorating Christmas salads: dill, pomegranate, corn, green peas.

Salad decoration: In this version, the salad is simply portioned onto potato chips.

Decoration of “Boats” salad: original fresh cucumber boats filled with salad. The sail is attached with a toothpick.

Decoration of Lapti salad: processed cheese (in bags), herbs, canned mushrooms.

Pineapple salad decoration: walnuts, green onions. The second option uses chopped canned mushrooms and green onions.

Decoration of the “Mice” salad: mice are made from boiled eggs, cheese and black pepper (peas), the surface of the salad is sprinkled with grated yolk.

Decoration of salad “Slice”: Place the salad on a plate in the shape of a crescent. Sprinkle the top completely with grated cheese. The edge of the “watermelon slice” is grated cucumber. Next is the cheese. And then a tomato without a crust. Watermelon seeds from olive half rings. In the second version, grated egg white and boiled carrots were used as decoration.

Decoration of “Fish” salad: Sliced ​​sausage (of different types) and cheese are laid out in the shape of a fish. The mouth is a cutout of a tomato, the eye is a ring (white from an egg), the pupil is a piece of tomato or olive.

Decoration of the “Roses” salad: roses are made from a thin slice of sausage, rolled into a roll, with the edges straightened.

Decoration of beet salad.

Decoration of salad "Cob": Canned corn and green onions, cut lengthwise on one side, are used for decoration.

Decoration of the “Cards” salad: green onions, tomatoes and olives.

And thus, you can roll any puff salad into a roll and then cut it. Looks original. In the photo, ““ is wrapped in a roll.

Salad decoration “Bags”: the salad is placed in portions into pancakes, the pancake bag is tied with green onions.

Boiled egg swan.

Roses from tomatoes.

Ladybugs made from tomatoes and olives.

Scallop of tomato and boiled egg.

Chain, fan and openwork rings made of fresh cucumber.

To decorate a salad, sometimes all you need is a head of onion and a little imagination.

Decoration of New Year's salad "Dog"

This Poodle will perfectly decorate any New Year's dish 2018. Symbol of the year. The muzzle is made of cauliflower inflorescence, the body is made of eggplant, the paws and tail are made of zucchini.

"Cockerels from boiled eggs"

Charming New Year's table decoration "Cockerels made from boiled eggs." They can decorate any salad. Or make an independent dish by seating the cockerels on the greens. The photo clearly shows how easy it is to make such a rooster from a boiled egg. In a small incision at the sharp end of the egg you need to insert a scallop with a beak, made from boiled carrots. Eyes can be made from poppy seeds by first preparing a hole with a toothpick.

"Egg White Rooster"

Shape the salad into a rooster shape and sprinkle grated egg whites on top. The feathers on the tail and wings are made from half olive rings, the rooster's paws and beak are made from French fries. Tomato comb and beard.

"Chicks in an Egg"

Well, aren't they cuties! Boil the eggs, carefully cut off the sharp end of the egg, down to the yolk. The yolk needs to be taken out, mashed with a fork and mixed, for example, with melted cheese. Fill the egg again with the filling and cover with a “hat of whites.” We make the chickens' eyes from black pepper, and their beaks and legs from boiled carrots.

Decorating New Year's salads

Also, the ideas presented below are perfect for decorating a New Year's salad.

Christmas trees for the New Year's table

Cut the apple in half. Place the apple half cut side down on a plate. Insert a wooden kebabs skewer into the middle of the apple. And put slices on it. You will get wonderful Christmas trees.

Father Frost

The art of serving and decorating dishes is addressed primarily to the taste and imagination of a particular person, however, for your creation to become a real work of art, it must comply with certain rules. That is why in this field, as in all others, expert advice is always a certain guarantee of success.

The ability to make a dish beautiful is one of the components of cooking. For this purpose, decorations made from a wide variety of products (vegetables, herbs, fruits, etc.) are used. These decorations can themselves be independent dishes: in the first case, these will be appetizers, salads or fruits for dessert, in the second - just decorations that are placed on plates or on the table (dinner or with cold appetizers).

KITCHEN TOOLS

Before you start making the jewelry you have chosen, make sure you have the necessary tools at hand. They are quite simple and will successfully complement a standard set of kitchen utensils.
The most complete set includes sharp knives, scissors, different sizes of noisettes (hemispherical spoons with sharp cutting edges), an egg slicer, a knife for zesting citrus fruits, special tools for notching, for removing the core of an apple, several metal cookie cutters and attachments for a pastry bag. or a syringe, as well as a brush. Do not be confused by this long list - most often we are talking about tools that can be easily purchased at any specialized store.

RULES TO FOLLOW

Finally, you have acquired all the necessary kitchen tools. However, this is still not enough to immediately move into the category of masters in terms of decorating dishes. There are also certain rules, the observance of which will allow your culinary creations to make the right impression on your guests.

The right combination

Remember the main thing: the dish and the decoration that complements it must be combined with each other. In fact, most often it is enough to adhere to the generally accepted combination of certain products, and the originality should be ensured by the decoration itself. So, potatoes - but in the form of mushrooms or buttercups - will perfectly complement meat. Lemon in the shape of a rose or butterfly will decorate fish and seafood dishes.

Simplicity

Very often, to achieve the best effect, you have to limit the number of decorations. Some dishes look much better in their natural form. If the main, “crown” dish is beautifully decorated and looks great, you should not diminish the effect it produces by overloading the rest of the dishes with all kinds of decoration.

Location of individual elements

Carefully consider where and how all decorative elements will be located. Remember that any dish with decoration attracts much more attention than without it. Choose dishes that cannot compete in beauty with the food you have prepared and decorated.

Color harmony

To make your jewelry look more impressive, use contrasting color combinations. To get green, use vegetables such as leeks, cucumbers, parsley or watercress, orange - carrots, red - tomatoes or beet juice, white - hard-boiled eggs or turnips... Your imagination will do the rest. It is also useful to have patrel seasoning in the kitchen: it can be used to turn neutral-colored vegetables, such as potatoes, brown.

Clarity, precision and accuracy

Your jewelry will be attractive if it is done carefully. When cutting out individual pieces of jewelry from products, make sure that the lines of the decorative cutouts are clear and concise, and use different types of cutout shapes if possible. Sharpen your knives regularly. In addition, before serving food, do not forget to wipe the edges of the plates.

Products used

The base foods used to create decorations are not always meant to be eaten. For the manufacture of various decorations and their parts, raw products are very often used, which cannot be subjected to culinary processing, since they then lose their decorative qualities. For example, raw, and therefore hard, potatoes or turnips are used to create white flowers, and red flowers are cut from raw beets. The same applies to carrots, which must be raw and fresh so that they can easily be made into various sculptural forms. Lettuce leaves, bay leaves, mint, scallions, leeks, cucumber or sweet pepper skins can be successfully used to make leaves and stems of culinary flowers. And finally, lemons, oranges, watermelons, and melons are easily transformed into all kinds of baskets, sailboats, and funny animals.

Combination of taste and color

Color, as a rule, serves as one of the means of creating or emphasizing the taste of food. If you need to resort to dyes, use natural products that are pleasant in color and taste. For example, to tint vegetables, saffron and other spices (paprika, curry) are used, and to give the desired color to sauces, for example, mayonnaise (or sour cream), ketchup and tomato paste are added to them. In addition, mayonnaise (or sour cream), which is often served with cold fish, fresh vegetables or hard-boiled eggs, can be colored green using parsley juice or by adding finely chopped spinach leaves.

For hot dishes, decorations are prepared in advance. After all, they need to be placed as quickly as possible before the food gets cold. Otherwise, it will lose most of its taste.

Immediately before serving dishes of fish, meat, grilled or skewered poultry, “walk” over them with a brush lightly dipped in vegetable oil. This will add shine to the fried crust and make the dishes even more appetizing. To enhance the color and shine of cold dishes and snacks, they are coated with a thin layer of edible gelatin.

Orange pomander with cloves

Pomanders are French crafts that have been an integral aromatic decoration for winter festivities for several centuries. The word “pomander” comes from the French “pomme d’ambre”: during the Renaissance, this was the name for aromatic ambergris balls that were produced in Venice and were used to aromatize living spaces.
Over time, the word “pomander” began to be used to describe round bottles made of silver, gold or ivory, which allow the original tart aroma to be preserved for a long time.
Fruit pomanders appeared in France at the beginning of the twentieth century. French women hung pomanders in their linen closets to add a sophisticated scent to their linens.
For this we used ordinary apples, dried with spices in a special way.
Citrus pomanders appeared in England. They were made from oranges, cloves, cinnamon and other spices. This scent has become a symbol of Christmas and New Year.
Pomanders can be made from apples, lemons, oranges and limes.

There is a classic recipe for a spice mixture for a pomander (based on 4 fruits):
– 1/2 cup ground cinnamon
– 1/4 cup ground cloves
– 2-4 teaspoons (heaped) nutmeg
– 2-4 teaspoons ground allspice
– 1/4 cup chopped orris root

Manufacturing:
Take a wooden stick and pierce the peel of the fruit. We insert a clove of cloves into each hole, sprinkle generously with a mixture of spices and place in a beautiful fabric bag. The pomander will gradually dry out and emit aroma throughout the room for about six months.
In a simplified version, we simply stick cloves into the orange and lightly sprinkle with a mixture of spices. For New Year's decor, carnation caps are sometimes tinted with gold paint.
You can hang these fragrant balls around your apartment or give them to your loved ones... They will bring joy and New Year's mood to any home!

Deep-fried "Roses" from potatoes (turnips, beets)

These deep-fried “roses” can be made from potatoes or turnips (“white roses”) or beets (“red roses”). Red roses can also be made from potatoes by coloring them with beet juice. It is advisable to take older potatoes - slices from young potatoes turn out to be quite fragile.

It is convenient to cut the “petals” of the future “rose” with a thickness of 1-1.5 mm from raw potatoes on a special grater for vegetables.
And if you don’t have it, then try to cut it with a sharp knife as thinly and evenly in thickness as possible. The “petals” should be thin and translucent.

We cut one plate thicker (3-4 mm) in order to cut it into long square bars for the central “buds”, around which we will wrap the “petals”.

Then soak the “petals”, “buds” and toothpicks for chopping off the “rose” in a bowl of cold water, to which you must add salt (1 full teaspoon of salt per 1 liter), for 2-3 hours. This will soften the petals by dissolving some of the starch and make them much more pliable when rolling the roses.

Toothpicks need the smallest ones you can find on sale. If you do not first soak them in water for 2-3 hours along with the “petals,” they will burn when frying the roses in hot oil.

Let's start making roses:
Take the central “bud” and wrap it tightly with one petal. Then we take another petal and twist it in the other direction. After this, secure the bud with a piece of toothpick.

Like this:
After this, we wrap the other petals, moving them slightly from above, so that the “rose” turns out to be open, “blooming”.
The rule must be strictly followed: one petal goes clockwise, and the next petal goes counterclockwise.
The larger you want to make the “rose,” the more petals and toothpicks to hold them together.
Then lightly shake the “roses” from the water and set them aside on a napkin to dry for 3-5 minutes. Otherwise, in hot oil, excess water will “explode” and splash. (If you put a wet rose in boiling oil, then you will have to spend a long time and tediously cleaning the entire kitchen from scattered grease.)
While the roses are drying, put a small cauldron with vegetable oil on the fire and heat to the desired temperature.
To check if the oil is hot enough, take one petal from the bowl, dry it with a napkin and drop it into the oil. If it sizzles happily and bubbles appear, then the oil is ready for frying, but if it sizzles weakly, then you need to wait a little longer.
So, the oil has reached the desired temperature.
We lower the rose head down and try not to let it tilt to one side for 1-2 minutes. At this time, all the petals will open. Now carefully turn it over and fry on all sides until golden brown.
When the “rose” acquires a crispy color, it is ready.
Remove it from the cauldron onto a paper napkin to allow excess oil to drain. Lightly sprinkle with salt.
When the “roses” have cooled down a little, remove the toothpicks. It is easier to pull them out if you turn them a little around the longitudinal axis before pulling them out.
The finished “roses” no longer want to fall apart into “petals”, and they can be carefully transferred to a plate and served as a finished separate dish, or as a decoration for dishes.

"Pearls" from balsamic vinegar

You need: -1 glass of odorless vegetable oil, put in the freezer for at least 30 - 60 minutes (the oil should be cold, but not frozen); -150 ml balsamic vinegar; -2 g (vegetable gelatin); -syringe (you can also use a pipette)

Bring balsamic vinegar + agar-agar to a boil, stirring (do not boil), let cool for 5 - 10 minutes.
Fill a syringe and pour the balsamic vein into the cold oil, drop by drop.
Using a slotted spoon, collect the pearls and rinse in a container of cold water. Drain the water and use the pearls in salads.
The answer to the question why all this? This is done in order to surprise your loved ones and guests with a new format of a familiar product. It’s very interesting when the “eggs” burst on the tongue, leaving the taste of the sauce.

New Year's ice for drinks

Pour well-boiled water into a layer of pre-boiled water (to make the ice clear) into ice molds and freeze.
Pour a thin layer of water onto the frozen ice and lay out bright, beautiful berries.
We freeze again so that the berries are thoroughly frozen and cannot float.
Fill the molds to the top with water and place in the freezer until completely frozen.

Sugar roses

We rinse the roses with cold water, carefully shake off drops of water from the flowers and dip them into a slightly warm (but not hot!) jelly solution of one and a half or double concentration (what is written on the gelatin package).
Sprinkle generously with sugar or fructose and place in the refrigerator until the jelly solution has completely cooled (about 2-3 hours).
We use sugar roses to decorate various desserts, cakes, or serve as a decoration for the tea table and sweets.

Cucumber “Christmas tree” for decorating the New Year’s table

You can also make “Christmas trees” from sliced ​​meat and cheese.

Original potatoes for decorating salads and snacks

Using a thin and sharp knife, cut the potatoes into thin, almost transparent slices.
Or use a grater to cut thin chips.
Place a sprig of parsley on the slice.
Cover with another slice and trim the edges so that both slices are the same size.
Fry in hot vegetable oil on both sides.
Season the fried slices with salt and serve hot.

Potato decoration

New Year's decoration of potato roses.
We cut out stars from sweet peppers (yellow, red, green) and place them on the rosettes after baking before serving.
The New Year's roses in the photo are prepared with double the amount of yolk.

Needed: 0.5 kg potatoes 3 tbsp. l. heavy cream 3 tbsp. l. parmesan, finely grated 1 yolk

Dry the potatoes boiled in salted water a little after they are ready, drain the water at the end of cooking and remove the lid over very low heat.
Then, without allowing it to cool, knead quickly and thoroughly until smooth.
Add the yolk, cream, cheese, season with salt, freshly ground pepper and a pinch of nutmeg.
Mash everything thoroughly again and beat lightly with a spoon.
The puree should not be liquid, homogeneous and without lumps of unmashed potatoes.
Using a pastry bag with a star tip, pipe “roses” onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper (see the previous recipe “Potato roses for decorating dishes” above).
Bake the roses in a preheated oven at 200 degrees. Leave in the oven for about 20-25 minutes until lightly browned.
The finished “roses” can be sprinkled with spices to taste.

New Year's apple

New Year's apple to decorate the festive table.
To prevent the cut from darkening, lubricate it with lemon juice or a solution of citric acid. You can cut a heart from an apple of a different color and insert it into the cut hole.

Cookies with wishes

Ingredients:
cookie dough, shortbread or flavored shortbread, or sweet with soda and sour cream, or gingerbread, or ginger - this is your choice (the dough can be tinted with cocoa or dry berries grated into a fine powder)
sugar-protein glaze (180-200 g of powdered sugar and 1 chicken protein)
food coloring for tinting glaze
pastry bag and tip No. 1 (or a plastic file with a corner cut off)
paper
scissors
satin ribbons

Preparation:
Knead the dough, roll it into a layer about 7-8 mm thick, cut out shaped cookies with die-cuts and make 2 holes in them, as shown in the photo.

It is convenient to make holes with a cocktail straw.
Then we bake our cookies and let them cool completely.

The recipe for icing sugar is quite simple - gradually grind 1 chicken protein thoroughly with 180-200 grams of powdered sugar.

The powder must be of sufficiently high quality to avoid the formation of lumps.
The amount of sugar in the glaze is selected based on the convenience of painting with this glaze - it should not be too thick or too thin.
You can leave the icing white and decorate the cookies painted with it with colored ribbon - it will be very beautiful.
You can add a few drops of food coloring of the desired color to the icing and stir thoroughly.

Use icing to carefully outline the cookies and around the holes for the ribbons.

Then we cover the space inside the outline with icing.

Let the icing on the cookies dry sufficiently - at least 6 hours, preferably 1 day.
Using the dried glaze, you can make various patterns with glaze of a different color and let it dry for another 1 day.
While the glaze dries, we print on paper with a printer or write by hand our wishes, congratulations, and predictions.
The size of the pieces of paper should be close to the size of the cookies.
We roll up the leaves with the inscriptions into rolls and tie them with ribbons to the cookies with well-dried icing.

Options for decorating cookies with congratulations:

Funny snowmen made from eggs

Note: Because 2017 is the year of the Rooster, so you only need to take quail eggs. The result will be not snowmen, but snowmen! 🙂

Ingredients:
hard-boiled eggs (chicken - 8-9 minutes of boiling when placed in cold water; quail - 5 minutes)
carrot
wooden skewers for shish kebab

Preparation:
We cut off the ends of the eggs to make them stable.

To make a snowman's hat, cut two carrot circles of different diameters. Cut a large circle from the thick end and a small circle from the thin end.
We cut a wooden skewer from one end to a length equal to the height of two eggs placed on top of each other. When cutting, make sure that there are no splinters on the cut.
Our prepared skewer has one sharp end and the other blunt end.
Using the sharp end of a skewer, make holes in the centers of the carrot circles.
Then insert the skewer into the circles with the blunt end, as shown in the photo.

Note: You can use wooden toothpicks for quail eggs.
We place two eggs on top of each other and vertically stick a skewer with a carrot hat into them on top.
The snowman is assembled.

All that remains is to decorate it with black peppercorns (these will be the snowman’s eyes and buttons on the stomach) and a wedge cut out of carrots to represent the nose.

Note: If the snowmen are intended for children, cut out the eyes and buttons from black olives or from the crust of black bread.
We insert the peppercorns and carrot nose into the indentations made in the egg whites with the sharp end of, say, a skewer.
Decorate the snowmen with parsley sprigs and serve.

"Love Heart" made from tomatoes

Plum tomatoes are suitable. Cut in half diagonally. Glue a cut-out shape from a white sheet onto the blunt part of a skewer or toothpick.

Cheese baskets

To prepare cheese baskets, grate 200 grams of hard cheese on a fine grater. Mix with a full tablespoon of corn or potato starch, add crushed garlic to taste.

As an option. You can use only grated hard cheese without adding starch and garlic - this is to taste.

In a well-heated frying pan, lightly greased with vegetable oil, or in a dry frying pan with a non-stick coating, spread 2 tablespoons of the resulting mixture over the surface in the form of a pancake... the middle should be denser. As soon as one side has set, remove the pan from the heat, hold for a minute and remove from the pan, placing the pancake on an inverted cup, glass or any other vessel that you want to shape the product.
To prevent the cup from straightening out at the initial moment, you should grab the basket on the cup with a thin rubber band or press it with a napkin until it cools. Place the baskets in the refrigerator for a while...then fill with salad and serve.

"Christmas tree" made from beets

Beetroot Christmas trees will look beautiful and tasty on the table. Boil the beets, cut into even circles about 1 cm, but no thicker. You can make a cream layer as in the photo: 1) Mix cheese with lemon zest, chopped garlic and ground pepper. 2) Remove the avocado pulp with a spoon, add sour cream, ground pepper and mash thoroughly with a fork. Pipe the cream using a pastry bag. Garnish with fresh herbs.