Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2012

On Easter Sunday we hosted yet another Easter brunch to our dear friends - something of a tradition by now, as we've done this for almost five years, I believe (see overview of 2009 and 2010 and 2011). This year we were twenty people in total - 16 guests and our own little family of four.

Here's an overview of this year's table:

Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2012

And here are the individual dishes, with links to recipes, where appropriate.

Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2012

We started with Mimosa cocktails, using freshly squeezed orange juice and Spanish cava. We also drank wine, apple juice and water, followed by tea and coffee later:

Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2012: Mimosas

Crostini with dill-marinated pork tenderloin and a dab of Meira's cognac-mustard (based on a Bon Appetit recipe):
Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2012: Crostini with dill-marinated pork

Our friends Kristiina and Paavo brought along this delicious salad with alfa-alfa sprouts and various citrus fruits:
Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2012: Salad nr 2 (courtesy of Kristiina & Paavo)

I had composed a salad of avocado, mango, pumpkin seeds and mozzarella cheese:
Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2012: salad nr 1

Liina (also a food blogger ) had baked this delicious savoury Italian pizza pie, using wild boar meat and Estonian goat cheese:
Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2012: Vernanda's Italian pizza pie

Estonian home cheese, SÕIR, which I had seasoned with roasted caraway seeds. This was especially delicious with home-baked rye bread (courtesy of our friend Kristiina again):
Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2012: Estonian home cheese, SÕIR

Fun focaccia shots, topped with sun-dried tomatoes (I got the idea from Kerstin Rodgers' inspirational Supper Club: Recipes and Notes from the Underground Restaurant):
Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2012: focaccia shots with sun-dried tomatoes

Marinated olives (a mix of Kalamata, green Greek and black Amfissa olives) with Aleppo chili flakes, roasted garlic cloves and caperberries (inspired by Kerstin Rodgers again):
Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2012: marinated olives with caperberries, Aleppo chili and roasted garlic

Our friend Piret brought along a bowl of wild mushroom salad:
Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2012: wild mushroom salad (Pireti võiseenesalat)

A Mason jar full of beetroot-pickled quail eggs. I've written about them before, this time I used beetroot juice, balsamic vinegar, caraway seeds, salt and pepper. I find that 12 hours is more than enough to dye and flavour the quail eggs:
Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2012: Quail eggs, pickled in beetroot juice

Thinly sliced cold-smoked salmon from my favourite fishmonger, Pepe Kala (this was especially delicious on top of all those boiled eggs we ate):
Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2012: Pepe Kala's smoked salmon

Thinly sliced Estonian "lardo" or Ristemäe's herb-crusted lard:
Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2012: Ristemäe "lardo"

There were three desserts. First on the table, a traditional Easter pudding, paskha. Very creamy, rich and delicious. I added raisins, dried sour cherries, pistachios and flaked almonds to the paskha mixture:
Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2012: Paskha

There was also a cardamom-scented apricot and curd cheese cake, topped with almonds:
Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2012: Cardamom-scented apricot and curd cheese cake

And a very traditional Estonian curd cheese sheet cake, cut into small pieces to feed loads:
Nami-Nami Easter Brunch 2012: Estonian curd cheese cake

Our friends Liina and Tauno also brought along a traditional Russian Easter cake, kulitch, that they had bought on a weekend trip to Narva:
IMG_0822.jpg

What was on your Easter table?

10 comments:

Katarina said...

What a great Easter Brunch, lots of good food and the salads looked so fresh and delicious, not to mention the desserts :) Lovely!

Claudia Moser said...

Strange, you have something called pashka, in Romania we have something called pasca, but I am sure it is more or less the same. Our Easter is this weekend and I am curious what mom will prepare, I am being pampered!

Anonymous said...

vinge!
ebe

Lemon said...

What a lovely Easter brunch, I'm sure everybody attending enjoyed a lot.

Piret said...

Väga tore traditsioon ja imeline laud!

Anonymous said...

Superilus! Tegin ka ise mustikatega mune (kõik peale parketi sai pärast puhtaks ka).
Kadri

Natascha Coester said...

YUM, it alls looks so delish :)

Melissa Bakth said...

Wow, this spread looks incredible!

Pille said...

Hovkonditorn - thank you :)

Claudia - well, in Estonian it's simply 'pasha', but the English spelling is usually paskha

Ebe - aitäh!!!

Lemon - well, our friends seem to come back every year, so they must enjoy attending as much as we enjoy hosting the brunch :)

Piret - suured tänud.

Kadri - parketist on muidugi kahju :D

Natasha and Melissa - thank you for your kind words!

Anonymous said...

Could you share the recipes for those adorable focaccia buns, Estonian cheese, and marinated olives.

Thanks in advance!