🥂 New Year Recipes — Cocktails & Party Food

Bulgaria's festive meatloaf — seasoned minced pork and beef rolled around a row of hard-boiled eggs, gherkins and carrot, so every slice shows a bright cross-section; served hot or cold on holiday tables.

⏱ 110 min · 8 serves

Chicken breasts pounded thin and rolled around kashkaval and roasted red pepper, wrapped in bacon and baked until the bacon crisps and the cheese melts into the meat — a favourite on Bulgarian New Year and party tables.

⏱ 55 min · 4 serves

The Greek New Year cake, cut on St Basil's Day with a coin hidden inside — whoever finds it has luck all year. This is the cake version: buttery and orange-scented, with the new year's numbers dusted on top in icing sugar.

⏱ 85 min · 12 serves

The Bulgarian festive turkey — roasted for hours on a deep bed of sauerkraut fried with onion and paprika, which catches the fat and juices and comes out as good as the meat; a fixture of the Christmas and New Year table.

⏱ 370 min · 10 serves

Solenki are Bulgarian savoury sticks of short butter-and-yoghurt dough with sirene, brushed with egg and scattered with sesame and salt — the crunchy nibble set out with drinks at name days and parties.

⏱ 47 min · 10 serves

The Georgian walnut sauce of the New Year table — walnuts ground with garlic, blue fenugreek and coriander and thinned with chicken stock into a pale, spiced cream, served cold over poached chicken or turkey.

⏱ 40 min · 8 serves

The Soviet New Year layered salad — tinned fish, potato, carrot, cheese and egg white under thin coats of mayonnaise, finished with grated yolk that looks like the yellow mimosa flowers it is named after.

⏱ 55 min · 8 serves

The sharing plate born on the Mexico–Texas border in the 1940s — tortilla chips layered with cheese, black beans and pickled jalapeños, baked until melted and heaped with salsa, guacamole and soured cream.

⏱ 25 min · 4 serves

Mushroom caps filled with their chopped stalks, onion, sirene and parsley, topped with kashkaval and baked until bubbling — a Bulgarian party appetiser that can be filled hours ahead and baked at the last minute.

⏱ 45 min · 4 serves

A Texan salad of black-eyed peas, peppers, onion and sweetcorn marinated in a cumin vinaigrette, eaten as a side or scooped up as a dip. In the American South, black-eyed peas are eaten on New Year's Day for luck.

⏱ 20 min · 8 serves

The centrepiece of Thanksgiving and the British Christmas table — a whole turkey salted overnight, roasted with herb butter pushed under the skin and rested long, with gravy made from the pan juices.

⏱ 230 min · 10 serves

The bar snack from Buffalo, New York — chicken wings baked until crackling, tossed in a buttery cayenne hot sauce and served with a cooling blue cheese dip and sticks of celery.

⏱ 90 min · 4 serves

The Soviet New Year salad called shuba — salted herring under layers of potato, carrot, egg and beetroot, each spread with mayonnaise and left overnight until the beetroot tints the coat pink and it slices cleanly.

⏱ 90 min · 8 serves

The party salad of Bulgarian and Russian New Year tables — surimi crab sticks, sweetcorn, boiled eggs and fresh cucumber bound in mayonnaise with dill, ready in half an hour and always made by the bowlful.

⏱ 30 min · 6 serves

A three-layer shot from the late 1970s — coffee liqueur, Irish cream and Grand Marnier floated one on another; the densest goes in first and a slow pour over a spoon keeps the stripes clean.

⏱ 3 min · 1 serves

Burgundy's aperitif made festive — the Kir of white wine and blackcurrant liqueur, with champagne in place of the wine; one part cassis to eight of champagne keeps it dry rather than syrupy.

⏱ 2 min · 1 serves

Five spirits, citrus, and a splash of cola — looks innocent, hits hard. A legendary party cocktail that's stood the test of time.

⏱ 5 min · 1 serves