In many countries and cultures,
Christmas Eve is a special celebration
with special food. A typical Calabrian
Christmas Eve dinner is always based
on seafood, and tradition requires that
a total of 13 dishes must be served.
We will enjoy a Seafood Extravaganza,
to be followed by an assortment of
typical Christmas desserts. We will
prepare some of the dishes in class,
and others will be made ahead, but you
will receive recipes and lore for all the
dishes on the menu.
We will start with assorted appetizers
that will include grispelle, yeasted fried
dough stuffed with salted anchovies,
bottarga from Pizzo, a wonderful
delicacy (tuna roe preserved with salt)
that I brought back from Calabria,
homemade preserved olives
and stuffed mussels. We will follow with
subsequent courses of pasta with
bottarga, swordfish braised in a tomato,
olives and caper sauce, a cauliflower
salad and a salad of escarole.
Our dessert buffet will include cicirata,
little pieces of dough fried and coated
with honey, cannariculi, or turdiddi,
which are made from the same type of
dough but shaped like gnocchi, the
classic mostaccioli with almonds and
chocolate and my favorite Semifreddo
where I have incorporate the traditional
Torrone candy eaten at Christmas time.
No dessert buffet would be complete
without the traditional dessert of
Calabria, dried figs stuffed with
almonds and coated with chocolate.
Buon Natale!
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Olive Verdi schiacciate
(Homemade cracked green olives marinated with garlic, wild fennel seeds and
peperoncino)
Grispelle con Acciughe
(Yeasted dough fried with anchovies)
Tartine con Bottarga di Pizzo
(Toasted bread topped with bottarga)
Cozze Gratinate
(Mussels stuffed with breadcrumbs mixture)
Spaghetti con Bottarga di Tonno
(Spaghetti with tuna bottarga from Pizzo)
Pesce Spada alla Ghiotta
(Swordifsh in a tomato, onion, capers and olive sauce)
Insalata di Cavolfiore
(Cauliflower salad)
Insalata di Scarola
(Green salad of escarole)
Cicirata
(Deep fried dough coated with honey)
Cannariculi
(Deep fried dough shaped like gnocchi)
Mostaccioli con Mandorle
(Honey cookies filled with almonds, chocolate,cocoa and anisette)
Semifreddo al Torrone
Semifreddo with Almond Nougat and Bittersweet Chocolate Sauce
Fichi al cioccolato
(Figs stuffed with almonds and coated with chocolate)
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