Hey,

I suggested we have a bit of a theme for boxing day, as opposed to the typical/usual fair we'd normally have, and thought about italian.

Instead of Trifle we'll have Tiramisu, instead of normal cake, we'd have Panatone or something like, I did think of doing a risotto or something on those lines, but feel i'd like to do some food that we don't eat so often or that I might not be aware of…. was also going to look at doing some stuffed olives, of course a typical selection of meats…

So suggestions please 😉 foods, websites, books, other inspiration etc would be greatly appreciated!

thanks,
jt

grappa
vin santo
barolo
gavi

and some food to go with it.

Pizza?

More seriously how about some Italian style roast meat.

River Cafe do a slow roast shoulder of pork which would be great as part of a buffet. This is the Nigella version of the recipe. The original used garlic and fennel seed.

We always have Turkey risotto on Boxing day. Yum.

Lots of Limoncello. Make it yourself for an extra special touch. Nothing else will matter if you get that right 🙂

doug: what alcohol would I start with? I drank quite a bit of this a while ago 😉

Make your own pesto. Wizz up some fresh oragano(buy a plant at the supermarket) with pine nuts, good olive oil, garlic and freshly grated parmasan. Add to fish or pasta. The stuff in the jars will always taste rubbish again. Great taste and takes 2-3mins.

TonyG:
Pesto is made from basil not oregano.

make some carpaccio from a nice bit of fillet.

Some barolo with meat main, a nice Orvieto with a starter of baby octopus salad.

I love pannetone – in fact last week I went down to Aldi, where they have a pallet of the stuff, and I bought 5 😳

This is excellent!!! Please do keep 'em coming!!

thanks,
jt

My wife's mother will be in charge of cooking over Christmas – it's not planned like that, it's a hostile take-over

She'll take over the role of chief cook [following lots of arguing gesticulating with the wife] about half an hour after arriving from Milan & therefore all our Christmas food will be Italian

Don't knock homemade pizza's. Make your own dough using good quality flour etc, let it rise then knock the air out and roll into pizzaish shapes. You can make your own tomato paste by reducing down a few cans of plum tomatoes plus some herbs and seasoning (and a chilli or two if you like it hot). Get a selection of salami's sliced from the deli, some mozarella and any veg you might want.

Get oven as hot as possible and put the pizza's in as soon as they have been assembled. (I found the gas BBQ on full whack worked well as it gets up to about 350deg C).

Delicious.

JT – the shorthand advice is to buy The Essentials of Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan. She is, without the raucous Norwich City yelling, the Delia of Italian cooking.

Mrs North has used it as her staple recipe book for a good 10 years. Hazan's lasagne is the best I have tasted.

You will find all sorts of wonderful things in there, including a full section on breadmaking.

Clicky for Amazon.

I've never made limoncello but it's on my to do list! You need to start off with pure grain alcohol apparently but if you can't get that then good quality vodka will do too!

Good luck!

Hi algarvebairn – absolutely right – bit of a senior moment there – the stuff on the window sill. Smells nice when you crush it – you know…..

Spag bol, garlic bread, hawaiian pizza and walls vienetta. Washed down with copious amounts of lambrusco.

^^^ Ourmaninthenorth – thanks for that, mums christmas pressie sorted!