All recipes written by Gordon Ramsay
Meanwhile, prepare the lamb ragout. In a pan, heat a drizzle of oil and fry finely chopped onion, carrots and celery. Add the minced lamb and fry until golden. Pour in the red wine and let the alcohol evaporate.
Add the peeled tomatoes and mash them with a wooden spoon. Add the garlic, salt and pepper to taste. Leave to simmer for at least 1 hourturning occasionally.
Whether we’re talking about the Christmas Eve dinner or the lunch on the 25th, the Christmas appetizers they are often a big worry. What to do to amaze family members, without taking away the warmth of tradition? No problem: just use your imagination and seasonal ingredients.
A classic, for example, is the Neapolitan reinforcement salad, which has always been a side dish but, given the richness of dinners and today’s lunches, it can easily be “moved” to the starter. One appetizer pull the other one. Staying on the topic of appetizers traditional, also interesting fried cauliflower, typical of Abruzzo and Calabrian cuisine. Or the zeppoline with seaweed, another delicacy of Neapolitan cuisine. But let’s try to revisit tradition: so here are 10 ideas to start Christmas off right at the table
So let’s start immediately with the 10 best recipes in our cookbook, to be revisited with imagination: from quiche to classic crostini to raw fish.
Spicy salami quiche
Speaking of Calabria: why not put spicy salami or ‘nduja in a delicious quiche, for an entirely Mediterranean dish? The savory pie is filled with a filling of ricotta, cherry tomatoes, spicy salami, oregano, olives and extra virgin olive oil. But be careful: the risk is that her taste “cannibalizes” the rest of the lunch…
Crostini with stracchino and sausage
Liver croutons Tuscans they are a classic of the Italian mixed appetizer. And all year round. But we offer you an interesting variant: crostini with sausage and stracchino. After lightly grilling the bread, just fill it with stracchino and crumbled sausage and put it in the oven for a few minutes.
Cockles au gratin or… raw
An excellent appetizer for any dinner, the cockles from the Northern Adriatic can be a truly original idea: the shells must be filled with breadcrumbs, garlic, parsley, extra virgin olive oil, white wine, pepper and parsley. And then cooked in the oven. Or, for those who have a trusted fishmonger, shells and molluscs, all raw.
Savory yule log
The name recalls the famous French dessert, but obviously it is something completely different: take some slices of bread for sandwichessprinkle it with Capricciosa salad and mayonnaiseand then roll them up giving them the shape of a log. A quick and really clever appetizer! A bit like slices of sandwich in the shape of a Christmas tree…
Lasagna cupcakes
Put the Emilian lasagna in the appetizer? You can, by cutting the lasagna into squares and creating scenographic shapes baskets. And seasoning them with sauce tomato, bechamel and sausage.
Speck and cheese rolls
Slices of speckSouth Tyrol roll up and fill with a stick of Asiago and chives. Heat in the oven or on the griddle. Is there a simpler and, at the same time, appetizing appetizer?
Orange prawns
Refined and Mediterranean dish: it is necessary to cut thesliced orange, with all the peel, and cook it lightly in butter. Then, once the slices have been removed, i prawns shelled, they are cooked in a pan with Cointreau, chives, orange juice and salt. And then you arrange the prawns on the orange slices like a crouton. To try!
Gourmet panettone
The most classic of Milanese Christmas desserts also exists in savory version, all to be stuffed. There are ready-made ones: just cut it into a series of discs of dough about one centimeter high, divide them in two and then move on to the filling, adding the butter first. And here the imagination kicks in: salami fantasies, smoked salmon, shrimp with cocktail sauce, cheese layers with taleggio cream, gorgonzola and crescenza. And then again olive pâté, dried tomatoes, grilled vegetables, walnuts, Russian salad, pesto, béchamel sauce, pickles, pickles. A true “tower” of taste!
Radicchio boats
Treviso red radicchio or Belgian endive can be used for spectacular “boats”. The crew? Mozzarella, anchovies and rocket. And you can also use the hoax.
Parmesan Cheese Baskets
They always make an impact on the table. But what they contain should not be underestimated at all: don’t settle for the usual saladbut enrich them with slices of cured meats and cheeses, mushrooms and why not, also use someegg with Norcia black truffle!
You say nougats and images immediately difficult tempering of chocolate. Nothing more different: i nougat from Abruzzo (they also call them spumini) that they make during the holiday season are truly beginner-proof, quick to make, and gluten-free. In fact, the main ingredients are only 3: almonds, egg whites, sugar. And as in any recipe that includes very few ingredients, it is essential that they are of great quality.
The personal touch is given by the aromas that you decide to add to the dough. The lemon zest and cinnamon, as we propose in this recipe, for example. But also other spices, such as vanilla and cocoa, or you can enrich the covering meringue with almond flakes. Ideal to be served at the end of a meal with coffee or with a sweet wine, nougats from Abruzzo can also be eaten alone as a snack or as a snack.
300 g of almonds with the skin
2 egg whites
250 g sugar
Grated rind of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
To prepare the nougat we start with almonds. Toast them lightly in a pan (without salt or sugar). Once browned, let them cool, put them in a mixer and blend them until you get a coarse flour. It doesn't have to be too fine. In a bowl, add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and the grated zest of one lemon to the almonds. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 90 ° in fan mode.
Separately, whisk the egg whites in a bowl with an electric mixer, adding the sugar a little at a time. When they are well whipped, add about 2/3 of the egg whites with the sugar to the almond mixture. Mix everything together evenly until the mixture is compact.
Now you have to compose the nougats. Insert the mixture into two sheets of baking paper and help yourself with a rolling pin to roll it out until you get a thickness of about 1.5 centimeters in height. Use a large knife to file the edges. Once you have obtained a rather precise rectangle, cut the tile with the knife to obtain the individual nougats. The size, as long as it is long and narrow, is to your liking. Separate the rectangles and pour the remaining third of meringue over each nougat with a teaspoon.
Once the coverage is complete, the nougats always go in the oven at 90 ° for about an hour. This is not a real cooking, the nougats will simply have to dry. If you see them darken, pay attention to the oven temperature, it is certainly too high. After an hour, let it cool and then serve. Torroncini can be eaten even after days.
By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. Click here to read more information about data collection for ads personalisation
The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.
Read more about data collection for ads personalisation our in our Cookies Policy page