Xmas lunch/1

True that xmas has been now over for more than two weeks, but the silver nail polish I am wearing gives me all the rights to still feel the festive mood and talk you through my xmas lunch :)

To my super-nerd mind, Xmas is like a function that multiplies everything by ten, which means it increases the happiness content of the happy moments but also increases the pain in case the mood is not that happy. This year I felt my family needed a change, thus I decided to divert the lunch from a regular, traditional smooth periodic function, made of tortellini and mixed boiled beef, to a more eclectic collection of delta functions (the steepest and shortest function on earth), ten of them for the sake of precision, ten tiny dishes cute for the eye and tasty in the mouth :D 

CAPRESE FINGERFOOD

this is taken almost exactly from here. I have to say the result was very cute but "meaningless" taste-wise (according to my brother, who instead loved everything else)

RAVIOLI DEL PLIN

I had this amazing ravioli in Torino, and I felt in love with them. The filling is made with mixed pork and beef meat cooked with celery-onion-carrot, blended with spinach and scarola salad, one egg and parmigiano. The sauce is made by overcooking the celery-onion-carrot left in the meat juice and blending them, adding some flour to make it more dense. 

TORTELLONI SPINACH AND BUFFALO MOZZARELLA

These were my winners ;). I made the filling simply cooking fresh spinach in a pan sealed with a lid and a spoon of olive oil for few minutes. When ready, I let them cool down and added cubes of very VERY good buffalo mozzarella, one egg and some parmigiano. Then I made the giant tortelli, boiled them and served with a plain cherry tomato sauce (I made it by first peeling the tomatoes dipping them in boiling water for 30 seconds, and then cutting them into cubes and cooking the sauce for 5 minutes) and some thyme leafs to decorate.

BARLEY WITH HAZELNUTS AND FENNEL IN CASTELMAGNO FONDUE

The taste of barley, hazelnuts, fennel seeds and cheese fondue all together is absolutely stunning. I borrowed the idea from my chef friend, and every time I make them I am surprised by the pair fennel/hazelnut. It is indeed very simple: I boiled the barley, added grated hazelnuts, oil EVO and fennel seeds. I used a round pasta cutter to make nice towers of barley and served with a fondue of cream fresh, milk and castelmagno (a strong cheese from the north of italy).