Easter and Easter Monday lunch: everything will be fine if you read here

2023 Author: Cody Thornton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:20

Anxiety, anxiety, performance anxiety. Easter And Easter Monday they have arrived, panic! How why. Thanks to the crisis, the classic Easter with whoever you want is no longer in fashion: Cia says that 8 out of 10 Italians celebrate at home.

Eggs, asparagus and colomba prevail on domestic menus; in spite of the animal rights campaigns, lamb remains the main course.

And now that relatives, friends and boyfriends of other unidentified relatives are about to head in disorder, noisily, anarchically to your home, despite the Prussian bureaucratic organization that you usually follow, anguish wins.

Calm. Breathe slowly, I have here for you 5 useful tips to better manage the lunches of the festive period, if you know other tricks, do not be stingy and communicate them to me too.

1. There is only one oven - Stuffed hard-boiled eggs

Having to heat up / cool down 4 trays of appetizers in one go can get your nerves down. I am aware of that.

Two solutions: either we alternate hot appetizers with cold appetizers, thus having time to heat the dishes from time to time or, in a nutshell, we only cook cold appetizers. There are radiators, heck!

Speaking of appetizers, it's not Easter if stuffed hard-boiled eggs don't appear on the table.

The basic version requires that, once the eggs have been cooked and shelled, the yolks are recovered and mixed as best they can with canned tuna, pickles just removed from the jar, mayonnaise in a jar (egg on egg!) And so on.

The resulting mixture fills the dimples of the firm egg whites and the appetizer, decorated with sprigs of parsley, ends up on the table.

ALL ABOUT EGGS

- Scrambled eggs: 5 mistakes not to make

- Fresh eggs: how I recognize them

- Cook and shell hard-boiled eggs

- How to read the egg code

- Cooking eggs: 5 mistakes not to make

2. Be modest - Easter pizza

Throwing yourself in to cook the last dish you saw a multi-starred chef cook for Easter, without having experienced it before, is risky. Very risky. The same goes for the Sicilian specialty that you spotted and wrote on the bedside table while reading Il Gattopardo. Not even.

You have already studied a menu in time, do not get caught up in the sacred fire of the kitchen.

To say, it is not Easter if the savory pies do not appear on the table.

We start with the Easter pizza, a kind of soft panettone-shaped brioche, with brewer's yeast and lots and lots of pecorino cheese or, for delicate palates, half pecorino and half parmesan. In my opinion, it is also good for breakfast on Feast morning.

Just like her cousin (or sister? Twin?) From the Marche region, she grows up.

Both go well with cured meats: especially hams and salamis. But on a slice that has just been heated in the oven, a thin layer of lard definitely has its own reason.

ALL ABOUT SALT CAKES

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- Easter pizza or grown pizza

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- Easter lunch: Italian savory pies

3. The role of the waiter - Roasts

You know when, between reheating, taking a missing fork, an extra napkin, and so on, you constantly commute from the kitchen to the dining room?

Don't stay behind the conversation, don't understand what others are saying, and respond while thinking about the timer. Sometimes I thought, in certain situations, that I would have done better to eat first, like the waiters, in order to be able to take care of the service better. This is because I have not allowed anyone to help me. Now, in hindsight, I delegate.

How would you do otherwise, for example, with roasts?

If you wonder what the right cut of lamb is, the answer is simple: the one that is most suitable for the cooking you want to do.

Grilled scottadito? Ribs, which I prefer to be a little altine, to be served browned on the outside and still pink in the center.

Breaded and fried cutlets? Always cutlets, but thin, even slightly beaten because they cook in the time when the breading turns golden.

Casserole or skillet? Boneless loin: whole to be cooked roast beef style; cut into two fingers thick knuckles, to be blanched for a few moments on each side; chunks of pulp, for stews and stews.

Oven? Whole leg and loin, also rolled into a crown, give the most spectacular roasts; all parts, from the shins to the saddle, cut into pieces are good for the roasted lamb pans with bones; if you want to serve something super, order the whole stinchetti from the butcher, one for each diner.

ALL ABOUT ROAST

- Grilled lamb

- Lamb in the oven: 5 mistakes to avoid

- The perfect recipe: lamb in the oven with potatoes

- Diary of a recipe: lamb in the oven

4. Seasonal ingredients - How to clean artichokes

Use seasonal ingredients to avoid questions "but where did you find the melon at Easter?". Goodbye ham and melon, hello artichoke universal pleasure. Savings and quality, what more could you ask for?

Cleaning the artichokes is not tiring, but you need a good ceramic knife, perhaps, latex gloves, otherwise your hands will be black for two or three days, and a couple of lemons.

If you want to boil an artichoke, choose Romanesco, which is best suited to this preparation.

Cut the stem leaving it a couple of centimeters long, with the small knife remove the filamentous part of the stem, remove the first two turns of external leaves and, if the artichoke is thorny, cut the upper part, that is the tips.

With your thumbs open it in the center, season it with salt, pepper, garlic and chopped parsley, squeeze the leaves and cook.

Another way to cut the artichoke is into wedges, perhaps to fry it or to sauté it in a pan. In this case, choose the violet artichokes, proceed in the same way but remove several turns of leaves, then divide it vertically into four parts.

Remove the beard if there is one, and so that it does not blacken, leave it in water and lemon.

Cut in this way, the artichoke is perfect for being browned and fried. Transfer the wedges to absorbent paper to remove excess water, then pass them in the flour and then in the beaten egg. Fry them in plenty of peanut or extra virgin oil, drain on absorbent paper and devour them hot.

ALL ABOUT ARTICHOKES

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5. The perfect dish - Pastiera

Impress yourself with a seemingly difficult dish such as the Pastiera. You will win the attention of diners by attenuating their critical spirit.

Prepare the shortcrust pastry first because it needs to rest. Use 0 flour and potato starch flour in the ratio of one fifth.

All shortbreads are difficult to work with, especially the pastiera one. To facilitate the operation, work with parchment paper above and below the dough, then roll out a pastry disc about half a cm thick, place it in the greased and floured pan to the brim, then cut away the superfluous.

Do not line the mold with parchment paper because the pastiera is served in the pan in which it was cooked. Are you already thinking of removing the paper after cooking, right? Go ahead, once I broke everything.

Last advice on the filling: before using the wheat, boil it for about ten minutes in a little milk.

ALL ABOUT EASTER DESSERTS

- Handmade Easter Colomba: the best of 2016

- Easter stuffed Colomba: the best of 2016

- Easter dove: Alfonso Pepe vs. Sal De Riso

- Recipe of the Neapolitan pastiera

- Neapolitan Pastiera: 5 mistakes not to make

- The homemade Easter egg

- Easter sweets: the 5 favorite sweets

In short, Easter (and Easter Monday) is… having patience. Not only with close relatives, with everyone. If you have invited them, you have to treat them with all possible consideration.

If you survive.