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A toast to the New Year By Andrew Chase and The Canadian Living Test Kitchen

Pop a cork and celebrate with this splendid menu created by Toronto's chic Canoe Restaurant and Bar to complement fine wines from the Mission Hill Family Estate winery.

Photography by Yvonne Duivenvoorden

Start the evening by serving Scallop Seviche and Truffle-Scented Goat Cheese Tartlets with Sauvignon Blanc 2001. Then invite your guests to the table for Lobster and Potato Ravioli with Tomato Saffron Sauce paired with Chardonnay Bin 99 2000. Next on the menu, Beef Tenderloin with Marinated Walnut Sauce, Oka Semolina Gratin, Braised Red Cabbage and Haricots Verts with Cabernet Merlot 2000. End the meal with Canoe Rice Pudding with Rhubarb Compote and pair it with Late Harvest Riesling 2001.

Wine notes
Our menu centres around Mission Hill wines, but you can use the wine choices as a guide to wine types, then mix and match wines from different Canadian or foreign wine-growing regions for each course. Of course, on New Year's Eve you might want to serve a sparkling wine with the hors d'oeuvres, with dessert or after the meal to toast the new year. Some excellent Canadian Champagne-type sparkling wines (made from various proportions of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir) are British Columbia's Sumac Ridge Steller's Jay Brut and Gray Monk Odyssey Sparkling, and Ontario's Hillebrand Estates Trius Brut, Pillitteri Duemila Sparkling and Henry of Pelham Cuvée Catharine Brut. Or try a personal favourite made entirely from Riesling: the marvellous, crisp Vineland Estates Riesling Méthode Cuve Close (Ontario).

Lobster primer
Many supermarkets and fishmongers sell cooked lobster meat by weight; frozen lobster is also available in 11.3-oz (320 g) cans (it's fine to use the entire can in the ravioli recipe). But it is easy to prepare lobster yourself. Here's how.

To make 8 oz (250 g) lobster meat: In large saucepan of boiling salted water, boil or steam 1 lobster (1-1/2 lb/750 g) for 13 minutes; chill under cold running water. Pull off claws; crack shells and remove meat. Separate tail from body by folding back. Snap off back fins and remove inner meat with pick; pull out tail meat from body end with fork. Pull off outer meat from tail to expose digestive tract; remove and discard tract. Remove body from shell, reserving green tamale (mix it into meat, if desired). Pull off legs (since it is very difficult to pull out meat with pick except in very large lobsters, suck it out as the cook's dividend). Separate sections of body and remove meat, carefully avoiding long bitter gills attached to outside of shell.