Christmas Tuscan Recipes

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.