Almost any baked ham recipe will take well to being served chilled and sliced.
Citrus based dishes would work wonderfully with Christmas, your cold seafood dishes, and chilled ham as well.
One very elegant warm weather option you might do very well to serve would be a chilled aspic. For example, a fresh fennel and orange aspic would work very well served before or even next to chilled ham, it follows wonderfully with traditional Christmas flavors, and it would undoubtedly be both beautiful and delicious. Consider doing miniature versions as individual servings for each of your guests.
Another great option would be to serve a chilled, homemade pineapple, lemon or orange sorbet at some point between your courses.
If you're looking for an interesting, elegant and delicious salad that would work well with Christmas, try sliced blood oranges, sliced red onion, vinegar (quality balsamic or red wine vinegar), a fearless drizzle of high quality olive oil, salt and black pepper. You can also add oregano and leave out the red onion if you so desire. This also works with regular oranges.
Consider serving your chilled ham with a small variety of chilled accompaniments like a chilled, homemade horseradish sauce, a light fruit relish, or a couple of quality mustards (for example, you might want to take your regular Dijon and tweak it so that you would have one that is honey-sweet, one that is herb based, one that is sharp, one that is whole grain, or one that is creamy, etc.) on the side.
Also, herbs such as dill, rosemary, parsley, lemon thyme, or fennel fronds would go great within your menu.
|