Once Christmas is over we only have a few days before recovering for New Year's Eve dinner. If you are superstitious you should know that there are some lucky foods to eat on New Year's Eve in Italy, while others should be avoided because apparently they would bring bad luck. Even non-superstitious people still end up including these dishes on the New Year's Eve menu with the excuse that they are "traditional". Yes, they are, but precisely because they hopefully bring luck and money.
These are some example lucky dishes to eat on New Year's Eve:
Lentils
The more you eat, the more money/luck you will have in the New Year. Lentils are certainly the best-known and most traditional lucky food everywhere. Due to their round and flat shape they resemble coins and for this reason, according to tradition, each corresponds to a coin.
Very often accompanied with zampone or cotechino, it is customary to eat lentils at the end of the meal after the midnight toast. Lentils and cotechino on New Year's Eve, because it is said that eating them on December 31st brings good luck
Chilli
The red horn is a very widespread amulet in Italy and especially in the areas of Campania and Naples against the evil eye. Since the chili pepper arrived from South America, it was immediately considered a good luck charm, as well as being used in the kitchen, it was hung in homes and shops to protect against the evil eye and bad luck.
Spaghetti with garlic, olive oil and chilli - Spaghetti triplo aglio, olio e peperoncino
The classic spaghetti with garlic, oil and chilli pepper today has even more character, try the triple spaghetti with garlic, oil and chilli pepper, a tasty and super fragrant first course for San Silvestro for a lucky start into 2024:
Ingredients:
350 g spaghetti; 3 fresh chili peppers; 2 cloves of black garlic from Voghiera; 1 dry red garlic clove; 1 fresh garlic clove; half onion; parsley; extra virgin olive oil; vinegar; salt.
Preparation:
Step 1: For the t riple spaghetti with garlic, oil and chilli pepper recipe, chop the red and fresh garlic. Step 2: Peel the chillies and simmer them, covered, with the sliced onion and 30 g of vinegar for 10 minutes. Blend everything to obtain a sauce, pass it through a sieve and cook for 2 minutes to reduce it. Step 3: Brown the chopped garlic in a pan with a few tablespoons of oil. Step 4: Cook the spaghetti in boiling salted water, drain them and stir them into the pan with the garlic. Step 5: Serve them finishing with the chopped parsley and the black garlic cut into small pieces and the chilli sauce. Grazie a La Cucina Italiana!
Mandarins
Mandarins for the Feng Shui Chinese its spherical shape recalls infinity. Even in Russia with the arrival of the first mandarins from China, where the tradition of eating and even giving these fruits as gifts during the New Year celebration had the meaning of wishing wealth and well-being for the new year. For Chinese New Year, mandarins are given to guests as a sign of good luck.
Red Cabbage Salad with mandarins - Insalata di cavolo rosso e mandarini
Ingredients
400 g Red cabbage 200 g Lychees, peeled and pitted; 20
g Extra virgin olive oil; 2 pcs Mandarins; salt
Preparation:
Thinly slice the cabbage, peel the mandarins and peel the segments, collecting the juice that forms. Cut the peel of a mandarin into small strips and blanch it in water for 3-4 minutes. Mix the cabbage with the mandarin, the lychees cut in half and the zest. Emulsify the mandarin juice with the oil, a pinch of salt and season the salad.
Homemade tangerine jam tart - Crostata alla marmellata di mandarini casereccia
A tasty tart with a delicate citrus flavour. With this tart with mandarin jam and ricotta, a good morning starts in the morning!
For the Mandarin Jam:
Take 1 kg of mandarins and wash them under running water (try to use mandarins with few seeds inside).
In a pan with boiling water, blanch the mandarins for about 6 minutes. Remove them from the water, cut them in half and remove any seeds you see. Remove half the peel (don't go crazy) and blend roughly in a blender. In a saucepan, add the mandarin pulp and 400 g of sugar. Cook for approximately 45 minutes over low heat. While the jam is cooking, sterilize 2 or 3 jars in boiling water for about 30 minutes to sanitize them. Once the cooking time of the mandarins has passed, if you see that they have not completely broken down, blend them with an immersion blender. Pour the jam into the jars and seal with their lids.
For the base of the Tart:
Knead 300 g of flour, 120 g of sugar, 4 egg yolks, a pinch of salt and 150 g of Prealpi Butter to make the mixture homogeneous, form a ball, cover it and let it rest for 1 hour. Roll out the dough, roll the dough until it is about 1.5 cm thick and place it on a cake pan (whatever you have leftover you will cut into strips and arrange in squares on top of the jam).
Place the prepared jam inside the tart and level. Add the strips forming the classic tart network, bake at 180° for 25 minutes, then lower to 170° for another 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool completely! Add some mandarin segments for decoration on the side with the uncovered jam. Now it's ready to be served!
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