Tag: Eve

Eve lasagna with turnip greens and seafood sauce – Italian Cuisine

Ingredients for 6 people

1) Cleanse turnip greens, blanch them for 3 minutes in salted water, drain and sauté them in a pan with a drizzle of oil, 1 peeled clove of garlic and anchovies. Wash and open the mussels with 1 clove of garlic and 2 sprigs of parsley in a pan over high heat, drain and filter the emitted water. Repeat the operation with clams and cockles. Shelled molluscs and set them aside, covered with a few tablespoons of their water. Shell the shrimp, remove the black thread and add salt.

2) Reheat 3 tablespoons of oil in a saucepan, add the flour and toast it. Dilute with the fish broth and 1 dl of the mussel water. Bring to a boil stirring. When the sauce thickens, add the cream and grated lemon zest, season with salt and pepper. Let it cool down and add the shellfish and 1 tablespoon of chopped parsley.

3) Cook lasagna 1 minute in salted water, drain them and spread them out on a cloth. In an oiled pan, make a layer of lasagna, cover with part of the turnip greens, seafood sauce, shrimp and pepper. Carry on until all the ingredients are used up, ending with a seafood sauce and turnip greens. Cover with aluminum e bake at 180 ° for 30 minutes, uncovering in the last 5 minutes. Let it rest a few minutes before serving.

Posted on 18/12/2021

New Year's Eve: meat or fish? – Italian Cuisine

From paccheri with capon, to lentils with cotechino sauce, passing through lasagna with salmon: how many of these first courses will you bring to the table for the New Year's Eve? Discover all our sea and land recipes for a delicious December 31st

You have already decided on the New Year's menu? Sara of sea or land? And the courses? Will you limit yourself to the classic appetizer, first, second and side dish or will you bring to the table appetizers worthy of wedding buffets, encores of first and second courses and side dishes as if it were raining? How many difficult questions. To make it easier for you, we have selected a series of first New Year's Eve of meat and fish to choose from, to propose a taste of two different recipes or just one, someone to prepare in advance, others to do at the last and eat express: it is impossible not to find the right dish for you and your guests.

Never without pasta

It will be a cliché, but the first by definition is pasta. If you are looking for a very elegant New Year's Eve first course of meat, i paccheri stuffed with capon and chestnuts are the one for you. A rustic and decidedly rich dish are instead tagliatelle with cotechino sauce and walnuts. To prepare this unusual sauce, cook the cotechino in boiling water, as indicated. Let it cool, peel it and then crumble it. At this point, proceed as for your traditional ragù recipe, but using crumbled cotechino instead of minced meat. Season the tagliatelle and finish each dish with a few walnut kernels briefly toasted in a pan.
Pasta with salmon, despite being a cornerstone of the party, best left in the 80s, although very good. For this year's dinner why not experiment with crustaceans, preparing the garganelli with lobster, vegetables and lemon.

First New Year's Eve of meat and fish based on rice

The disadvantage of the risotto is that it goes prepared to the last, but it's worth it to serve a steaming and creamy dish at the right point, perhaps seasoned in a very different way than usual. For the seafood menu, a proposal could be a Prosecco risotto with mascarpone and scampi. To prepare it, blend the rice with the prosecco instead of the white wine and then cook it as usual. Stir in the mascarpone and serve, adding on each plate some peeled prawns that have been stir-fried and sprinkled with a little prosecco.
For the first New Year's Eve of meat the idea, however, is to draw on one of the symbolic foods of the New Year's Eve: pomegranate. The most boring part will be squeezing the pomegranate to get the juice, but then the preparation of the pomegranate and speck risotto it's all downhill. Fry the speck into strips or cubes with oil and finely chopped onion. Toast the rice, add some white wine and cook with the vegetable broth. Then stir in the pomegranate juice, butter and plenty of Parmesan. If you fear that this risotto is too little sought after, then try the risotto with sparkling wine and wild boar salami.

Baked pasta: the solution for those who want to move forward

There baked pasta is the ideal solution for the first New Year's Eve of meat or fish that must be transported or prepared in advance. Of the crepes stuffed with sautéed artichokes and Prague ham and then made au gratin in the oven with béchamel and plenty of cheese will be suitable for land menus. Among other things, to make the dish more elegant, why not prepare small single-portion oven dishes?
For those looking for a seafood first course, the lasagna with radicchio and salmon they could be a fanciful and colorful idea: season the different layers of pasta with bechamel, sautéed radicchio and pieces of fresh or smoked salmon (for a stronger taste) and you're done.

Decorations for the New Year's Eve dinner – Italian Cuisine

To celebrate New Year's Eve, in addition to the recipes, we must also think about how to decorate the table. From the place cards to the tablecloth, here are some themed ideas

Traditional, romantic, eco-chic? There are many atmospheres that you can recreate, according to your preferences and inclinations, in order to create one party table really special.

Then there is also the theme to think about: the New Year is linked to time passes, but also to the luck and ai money, which everyone hopes will multiply in the new year, and this year also and above all to health!

The starting point, therefore, is this: choose the mood and the topic you want to give to the evening. From there it will then be easier to evaluate each individual accessory so that it marries well with the choice made. Here are some of our suggestions for decorations for the New Year's Eve dinner.

Colors

The first thing to think about is the colors. For an environment elegant, opt for a mix of gold and ivory; while for a younger table, use thesilver to combine with more flashy shades, from purple to orange. A more classic and romantic choice involves the use of antique pink; but if you like more natural decorations, choose a nice one Emerald.
The secret is to choose a dominant color and then play on the shades and combinations, always without exaggerating: a good mix involves the union of up to three shades.

In this way you will be able to combine in the best way, the color of the tablecloth and napkins with that of the plates and all the other accessories.

Themed details

Depending on the theme you have chosen, it is good to think of a few details details. If you've opted for time, you could use clocks as a placeholder. Alternatively, you can make cookies in the shape of a pendulum or a number to be assigned to each guest.

For a lucky New Year, you can use a centerpiece shaped cornucopia with fruit inside, but also gods chocolate money. And under each plate you could have your guests find a lottery ticket.

Alternatively, you can create a gods placeholder with i lucky foods: a colored bag full of dried lentils; twigs of intertwined mistletoe; or pomegranates with the name of the guests written above.

Centerpiece

Always taking into account the theme and colors you have chosen, you can create different compositions to adorn the table. The most practical and elegant choice is to use the candles, which you can choose from different colors according to your needs.

Take a serving dish or a silver tray and place white candles in the center. Between one and the other, place silver or gold Christmas tree balls (or the color that best matches the other colors you will bring to the table). The light of the candles will reflect on the balls creating fascinating reflections.

Also for a refined effect, you can take a glass vase, preferably low and with high edges, and fill it with water. Inside put some candles, the color that best matches the tablecloth, and sprinkle some too petal of flower.

DIY placeholder

In order not to create confusion, the ideal is to decide before dinner where people will sit using place cards, so as to keep the aunts who are arguing away from each other and put all the people who serve at the table in the chairs near the kitchen.

A very simple idea is to take gods assorted sprigs of winter plants and tie them together with del colored ribbon. Without forgetting the mistletoe, The plant of luck.

If you have children you can use modeling clay. Roll it out with a rolling pin between two sheets of baking paper to a thickness of 5 mm. Take molds of different shapes and get as many placeholders as there are guests at the table. Before putting them on the table, let them dry and give them to your children to color.

Green decorations

For an extra touch, you can also use plants, perhaps in bloom. As long as the color of the flowers is in line with those you have chosen for the evening. You can use the Christmas Star, preferably with pink or white petals, for a more delicate effect. Insert the flowering branches in a sponge soaked in water and place it inside a serving dish or in a container with high edges.

They are also in fashion succulent seedlings, which you can distribute along the entire table, as a placeholder, or in a single vase to use as a centerpiece. The most suitable is perhaps the Christmas cactus, which blooms precisely in this period.