Having your family and friends over for Christmas lunch is a great way to celebrate this festive day.
Celebrate Christmas this year in style, Italian-style with our Tuscan recipes
Tuscan
Chicken Liver Crostini A traditional
appetizer of Christmas.
When it
comes to Tuscan cooking the Christmas period, it is impossible not to mention
the Chicken Liver sauce, which are part of a true Tuscan Christmas dinner,
accompanied, if you like, a good red wine, Chianti, of course!
Preparare
this recipe is very simple but the effect is very tasty. Fry onion in which you
add the chicken livers, capers and anchovy fillet. Freshly baked mince mixture
and sprinkle on fried croutons, plain or just wet in a vegetable broth.
Ingredients
800 gr.
chicken livers | 250 gr. onion | 20 gr. garlic | 40 gr. anchovy fillets | 100
gr. capers | 250 gr. butter | 100 g. extra virgin olive oil | 500 g. bread
Preparation
Finely chop
the onion and fry in oil and then add the chopped garlic and livers (washed and
cleaned) and cook everything on high heat.
Then
add to the mix the capers, anchovies and butter Finish cooking. Chop so as to
obtain a sort of pate.
Toast
in oven finely sliced bread. Then pour a spoon
of pate on each crouton and serve on a platter.
You can
prepare the liver pate before and keep it for more than two days in the
refrigerator and in a tightly covered with plastic wrap. Even the croutons can
be stored if advance, but I think that your guests will love so much that not
even the crumbs remain.
TORTELLINI
IN BRODO
Tortellini
pasta is a typical Emilian cuisine, especially during the holiday season. The
shape resembles a small ring that traditionally associated navel of Venus, and
the filling is a mixture of different types of meat with ham, sausage, egg,
Parmesan cheese and nutmeg. The most faithful companion of tortellini is the
capon broth, at least in the recipe traditionally
The point
is that the stock is meat (with fat and lean parts equally) and herbs (celery,
onion, carrots and parsley). Who wants can add a tomato or a potato. Water is a
key (one liter per 100 grams of meat) and should be added from time to time to
compensate for evaporation and not to stretch the broth. To form the tortellini
you have to take a bit of stuffing, place it on a square of dough, and then
close the dough over the filling, with a wise pressure in the right places.
Finally, the cooking. The tortellini are cooked gently, slowly dropping them
because they do not stick together. The cooking time is short, just enough to
see them rise to the surface. Of course the preparation of tortellini is not
easy, but worth the effort because the result is great and the Christmas dinner
with a plate of this kind, will remain a sweet memory for everyone.
INGREDIENTS
800 gr.
flour 00 | 9 eggs | 150 gr. lean pork | 150 gr. lean veal | 100 gr. sausage |
100 gr. ham | 50 gr. mortadella | 150 gr. grated Parmesan | 2 cucchiaiopangrattato
| 30 gr. butter | salt and nutmeg
PREPARATION
Let grind 2 times the butcher veal, pork and sausage. Apart chopped ham and
mortadella. Melt the butter in a pan and add the minced meat. Cook for a few
minutes, add salt after cooking, then drain the water that inevitably the
ground did the cooking and let cool.
Prepare the
filling: In a bowl, pour in the cooked ground beef, ham and mortadella raw,
Parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, egg, salt and sprinkle with very little grated
nutmeg, stir the mixture well and place in refrigerator .
Prepare the
dough: Sift the flour with care, formed the classic fountain, then put yourself
in the center of the eggs and a pinch of sale.Sbattete the eggs with a fork,
then start to incorporate the flour with your fingertips, starting from edge of
the fountain. Work the mixture with your hands for 15-20 minutes, mixing the
ingredients well and taking care to sprinkle the pastry from time to time with
a little flour. Continue in this way until dough is firm and smooth, then when the
dough begin to see bubbles, pick it up to form a ball. Let rest in a bowl for
half an hour.
Now the
dough can be rolled out by hand with a rolling pin or with the electrical
machine. The dough should be thin and is cut into little squares of 3-4 cm.
Place in
the center of each square of dough a little 'first prepared stuffing, then fold
the dough into a triangle by the edges stick well. After tightening between the
thumb and forefinger of both hands corners of the longest side, pivot with your
right hand triangle of dough around the index of the left hand, then joined the
2 corners and tighten them until they match , do this until all the
ingredients.
Casting the
broth, boil splurge tortellini, cook a few minutes, about 5 (but it also
depends on the thickness of the dough). Serve in soup and sprinkle with grated
Parmesan cheese.
element
essential for the success of the broth is time. Why is worthy of tortellini
that you will plunge, the stock has to be on fire four hours or so. It should
be degreased frequently, eliminating the fat that rises to the surface and the
foam that is forming.
ROASTED
FOWL WITH BAKED POTATOES
Ingredients
A guinea
clean about one kilogram
A glass of
dry white wine
Beef broth
Olive oil
rosemary
Ingredients
for the filling:
a sausage
A cup of
bread crumbs
50 grams of
grated parmesan cheese
an egg
butter
a little
milk
Preparation:
flamed, wash and dry the guinea fowl, chop up the sausage and brown with a
little 'butter: Mix the pieces of sausage with bread and grated Parmesan
cheese, beaten egg, then mixing them with a little warm milk until the mixture
is soft but firm.
Guinea fowl
stuffed with the filling, making sure to close well with a cotton thread.
After
rubbing the guinea fowl with salt, put in a pan with rosemary oiled in the oven
at 180 degrees for about two hours, taking care to spray every now and then
with white wine and broth. Serve the guinea fowl served with baked potatoes
cooked in its own juice.
CONTORNO- Slide Dish
What I
propose today is a typical recipe of Christmas dinner. The protagonists are the
humpbacks, also called thistles, especially a vegetable that belongs to the
same family as the artichoke, but which are edible only the stems.
The recipe
of the pie is really easy, the only difficulty is to clean up the thistle,
which must be removed the hard outer coast and filamentous to the heart. The
coasts remained to be blunt and cut into small pieces, if not used immediately,
should be immersed in water acidulated with lemon juice to prevent them from
discolouring.
INGREDIENTS
500 gr.
gobbi clean | 4 eggs | 50 gr. Parmesan | 30 gr. butter | a glass of milk | a
tazzabesciamella | salt and nutmeg
PREPARATION
Boil the
thistles cut into pieces in salted water. As soon as they are cooked but crisp
pass them to the mixer for one minute. If you notice that release water, let
them dry in a pan with a little 'butter for a few minutes.
Put
the mixture in a bowl, mix the cup of sauce, eggs, Parmesan, nutmeg and salt.
Butter a loaf-cake and line with baking paper, pour the mixture and bake in a
water bath for 1 hour at 180 degrees. Allow to cool on a tray suitable and
misshapen.
Since the
firing of thistle requires a very long time, even up to two hours, plan
accordingly and remember to put a tablespoon of flour into the cooking water to
prevent the thistle darken. The thistles have very few calories, which should
not be underestimated especially during the holiday season. Dinner or lunch
very sostansioso fact, can be lightened with the outline of this pie, but just
as tasty light. This pie is also delicious served with a fondue made with fontina or taleggio.
CAKES
Panforte is
for me the ultimate Christmas cake,
ingredients
• 150 g.
flour
• 120 g.
almonds with skin
• 120 g. of
peeled hazelnuts
• 120 g. of
orange peel cut into cubes
• 120 g.
candied citron cut into cubes
• 200 g. icing sugar
• 50 g. vanilla sugar
• 150 g.
acacia honey
• 1
teaspoon coriander seeds, crushed
• ½
teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 grated
nutmeg
• 1 host
process
Bring
together in a bowl the almonds, hazelnuts, candied fruits, coriander, cinnamon,
nutmeg and flour, less two tablespoons aside.
Put the
icing sugar, less two tablespoons, in a saucepan along with the honey. Melt the
ingredients over low heat, stirring gently.
Remove from
heat and pour the contents of the bowl into the saucepan (almonds, hazelnuts,
candied peel, coriander, cinnamon, nutmeg and flour). Work the mixture until
completely blended. Put the wafer on the bottom of a cake pan edges releasable,
pour in the mixture and level. Mix two tablespoons of sugar and flour and
sprinkle the gingerbread. Bake for 30 minutes in a preheated oven at 160
degrees.
Before
serving, sprinkle with vanilla sugar.
RICCIARELLI
Ricciarelli
are delicious Christmas cakes from Tuscany, made with dried fruits, fragrant
spices and blanched sugar icing.
• 1/2 kg.
almond private also dark skins
• 5 bitter
almonds
• 400 g.
granulated sugar
• 3 egg
whites
• 1 organic
lemon
• 1 pinch
of cinnamon
• the
contents of a vanilla bean, or a teaspoon of vanilla extract
• icing
sugar q.b.
preparation
Finely chop
the almonds using a food processor putting together some sugar (helps reduce
them to powder and absorbs the essential oils from almonds endure during the
process).
Pour the
powder into a bowl, add the remaining sugar, egg whites lightly beaten, the
grated rind of lemon, cinnamon and vanilla or vanilla. Work always get a smooth
paste.
Roll out
the dough directly on the parchment paper to a thickness of about 1 cm., Using
a little 'sugar to help you. Cut into diamond shapes.
Let dry ricciarelli
for one night in a cool place (for example, an unheated room).
Bake in
oven at 200 degrees for about 25 minutes. Let cool completely and sprinkle with
powdered sugar.
Ricciarelli
are kept in an airtight container.
.jpg)
