Creations with Caviar for New Year's Celebration

This year we decided to spend money on champagne and caviar for the New Year's celebration. This was our New Year Eve's dinner and the rest of the caviar was used to make New Year's Day breakfast.

We got three types of caviar - 2 black and 1 red from the Seattle Caviar Company located on Eastlake. The owner Betsy was helping us out and let me try different types of caviar they sell. I settled on these three.

Choosing champagne was easy - 4 years ago when I was in Paris I got one bottle to bring back with me and loved it. Ever since then I like getting it for special occasions. Pete's Wine shops on Eastlake and in Bellevue always have it in stock. It is Champagne Ruinart. 

So, what can we do with the caviar? It is usually served as a garnish. Though, in my native Russia we would simply spread it on a white bread with butter. I just received a cookbook for Christmas from one of my favorite places in Sonoma The Girl and The Fig. We browsed through it and found an appetizer recipe with brioche, creme fraiche, lox, black caviar and chives. That's it! This is what we made.

We got brioche bread from Le Panier French Bakery, lox and creme fraiche from PCC and chives from the local grocery store. Following the recipe we sliced the brioche bread in small triangles, toasted them in the oven at 375F until golden on the sides and let them cool. To assemble we took one toast, put a little bit of creme fraiche on one corner and a small slice of salmon on another corner, placed a little bit of black caviar on creme fraiche and sprinkled with chopped chives. We also did few appetizers using untoasted brioche, creme fraiche and black caviar. The end result is seen below.

This was our New Year Eve's dinner. We did not have dessert or any other food. This was it!

So, New Year's Day. We still have red caviar left and I decide on Russian Blini (crepes). I made blini using my recipe which was posted a week or so ago on my blog and served blini with creme fraiche and red caviar. I also had few with creme fraiche and honey from my dad's bees in Lithuania. Delicious breakfast! This was truly decadent meal(s) that I only make few times a year.