Christmas dinner starter please

[ACurlyWurly]

What shall i made as a starter for Chirstmas dinner.

the rules...
must not contain fish or seafood
must not contain red meat
must not be melon
must not be filo parcels with cheese and cranberry (like the last 3 years)

please share your ideas with me.

Also if my fussy lot were not coming to dinner and the rules didn't apply what would you be having?

@AdaColeman heaven... we always used to have that too, but we stopped the year I was pregnant at Christmas, and have just never started again as we don't have room for dessert!

Probably something mushroomy given your requirements. Or celeriac based. Or both. Boost mushroom vol-au-vents with celeriac remoulade served on a radiccio leaf. Or celeriac latkes with a dollop of soured cream and some fried mushrooms. You could fry the latkes the day before than warm them up in the oven, and it would be lovely, and I want some.

And what I will be having is canapes and fizz about an hour before the main meal. There will be croutons with paté, wheaten bread with smoked salmon, blinis with avruga, and something involving salami.

Baked Camembert with share and tear bread?

You can bake the camembert in the tear and share bread and it is awesome!

Tbh, I'd buy one of the 'posh' premade starters from supermarket of choice. Maybe a couple of different ones so people can choose. A vegetarian one should suit requirements. Christmas dinner is stressful enough to cook as it is!

So many lovely replies. Work made me do work instead of reply!!

May try a soup this year however ‘something in aspic’ made me snort my coffee as my first thought was ‘a sock?’ (I’m tired!)

Soup. Although given the fussiness of your guests I'd be inclined to just put out bowls of crisps and say 'there you go'.

Breaded camembert with light salad and a relish

We'll be having prawn cocktail as it's not Christmas without prawn cocktail!

For you though?

• a soup. Butternut squash, tomato, something like that?
• garlic or breaded mushrooms
• roasted peppers

Oooooh prawn cocktail.

We usually have seafood for Christmas Eve dinner though so maybe not again on the 26th.

No starter, it is too hard to finish off the main course in between.

Lots of nibbles with drinks/Buck's Fizz though, including smoked salmon blinis, sausage rolls and cashew nuts.

We put a lovely selection of cheese, fancy crackers, chili jam, honey etc and let everyone help themselves before Christmas dinner. Then what ever is left we have again after dinner. Works a treat. Everyone loves it.
Easy to prep the day before.

No starter here but if I did one-

soup - would be homemade vegetarian lentil either smooth or chunky , very small bowl , slice of nice crusty bread

or

breaded camenbert with mango chutney

or

base of bitter leaves like rocket and crispy salad, walnuts and blue cheese with a drizzle of french dressing

depends who I was catering for though

Does it have to be a sit down starter? We have a selection or canapés with champagne a while before dinner. The variety suits everyone and it means dc don't get too bored being sat at the table for too long. It seems to work really well.