Showing posts with label Christmas Eve. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas Eve. Show all posts

Thursday, December 25, 2008

An Italian Christmas Eve



When my children were little we always went to my parents house for Christmas Eve to help decorate the Christmas tree. The first thing that always went on the tree was their dreidels. As the years past, the Christmas Eve dinner became something that my family looked forward to although it is a little difficult to observe Jewish dietary laws in an Italian household on Christmas Eve, and I think my husband was grateful that he didn't keep Kosher.

A typical Italian Christmas Eve consists of the seven fish (or in some households eleven) fish dishes. When my father was still alive, we did it all, the octopus salad, the baccala (dried cod), fried flounder, lobster fra diovalo, and on and on. SInce my parents are gone, we've cut down a little, since they don't like all of the fish dishes. This year, Marc had to work, David and Lauren couldn't make it home so it was just the four of us and enough food to feed an army. We started with shrimp cocktail, fried calamari, mussels marinara with spaghetti, and lobster tails. The odor of garlic, mingling with the tomatoes and white wine simmering on the stove made the kitchen smelled divine. My father would have said, he could smell the love simmering.

I'm sure that you would like to be able to replicate the aroma in your kitchen so I am posting the recipes for the Mussels Marinara with Spaghetti, Fried Calamari, and Baked Lobster tails.

Marinara Sauce for the Mussels

Here is the recipe for the Marinara Sauce for the Mussels. I cut it in half in the recipe you are seeing below, but the recipe I am giving you is the full recipe that will serve 12.

FEINER'S FAVORITE MARINARA SAUCE FOR MUSSELS
Rosemarie DiPierdomenico


2 (1 pound 12 ounce) cans Chunky Crushed tomatoes (Furmano's®)
2 (2 pounds 3 ounce) cans Italian plum tomatoes
4 cans regular crushed tomatoes
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
6-8 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
Salt and pepper to taste
3 tablespoons dried basil
2 cups (about ½ bottle) of Inglenook® Chablis or any white wine
Olive oil (about ¼ cup)


Open all the cans of tomatoes and place the 2 cans of plum tomatoes in the blender (one at a time) and turn quickly on and off just to liquefy. In a very large pot, cover the bottom with olive oil. Heat, and then add the garlic and onions. You may need to add a little more olive oil at this point. SautĂ© for a few minutes until lightly browned. Add the pureed plum tomatoes and the rest of the crushed tomatoes, salt, pepper, basil, and the wine. (I usually add about half of the bottle). Cook about 45 minutes to an hour. I usually make this a few days in advance. Set aside enough sauce to fix the 3 pounds of spaghetti. Use to fix the spaghetti as per the directions in the mussel recipe. Set aside extra sauce for the gravy boat. Add the mussels to remaining sauce as directed in the mussels marinara recipe, being sure to drain about ½ to ¾ of the liquid from mussels or the sauce will be too watery (you do want to retain a little of the liquid for the garlic and wine flavor). Serves 12.

Here are the ingredients for the Marinara sauce:



Again, the key here is to have everything ready to go so you don't waste time

Peel and press your garlic and set it aside




Peel and chop your onion and set it aside (it doesn't have to be too fine)





Open all your tomato cans - you will be mixing three types of tomatoes here to get a good consistency that will allow you to add so much liquid to the sauce (plum tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, and chunky crushed tomatoes.)




Place your plum tomatoes in the blender and just turn it on and off quickly to puree the tomatoes. The rest of the tomatoes will go directly into the pot and will NOT be put in the blender.






Add the oil to your pot (about 1/4 cup)




Before you start to heat the oil, have everything lined up next to the stove because as the onions and garlic begin to cook, you will want to add the tomatoes quickly.




Heat the oil and add the onions, stirring frequently until they are golden brown





Add the garlic and just cook for a few seconds as you don't want the garlic to brown or burn.




Quickly, add the cans of tomatoes to the onions/garlic mix.



Add the dried basil



Salt and Pepper





and finally the wine



Take an empty tomato can and fill it about 1/4 of the way with water,



slosh it around the can cleaning any remaining tomatoes from the inside of the can and pour it into the next empty can, and repeat with all the cans until you have gotten every bit of tomato out of the cans



and add the water to the sauce.



Bring the sauce to a boil, and then lower to a simmer and let simmer about 1 an 1/2 hours. Keep on low if you are going to use it right away. ( You can also make the sauce in advance and just reheat it the day you want to use it.)





Fill your pot for the spaghetti with hot water and add salt to the pot,





bring to a boil





Place some sauce in the bottom of your serving bowl while the spaghetti is cooking.




Drain the spaghetti, and add to the sauce. Add cheese if you want to, but sometimes when serving a sauce with fish, you may want to eliminate the cheese.





In the picture you see below, the cheese is shown because this was the spaghetti that didn't have the fish mixture added to it.



Follow the directions for preparing the mussels that were given in the above demonstration as to mixing the liquid from the mussels with the sauce


Baked then Broiled Lobster Tails

We usually serve lobster in some form on Christmas Eve. My mother used to serve Lobster Fra Diabalo (in a tomato sauce with hot pepper), sometime, whole steamed lobsters, this year we did baked lobster tails. My dear friend Maria always does her tails this way.

Here is the recipe:

BAKED THEN BROILED LOBSTER
Maria Trainor

Lobster Tails (frozen)
Melted Butter to brush on
Paprika
Melted Butter to Serve

Defrost the lobster tails in the refrigerator. Crack the center of the TOP of the shell from beginning of the tail. Gently pull the lobster out of the shell and place either on top of the shell or remove from the shell completely. Brush the uncooked lobster with melted butter and sprinkle with paprika. Bake in a shallow pan or cookie sheet at 350° for about 20 minutes or until firm and white. Place under the broiler for a few minutes. Serve with melted butter

Place the defrosted lobster tails on a pan appropriate for baking and broiling (I uses a disposable cookie sheet but you can use whatever you have)



Slit the entire tail from the front of the tail to the back






Gently pull up on the lobster meat, spreading the shell to enable yourself to do this



Place the the meat of the lobster on top of the tail (this is how it should look from the from and side)






Continue until you have done all your tails




Brush with melted butter



Sprinkle with paprika




Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F




Bake the lobsters for about 20 minutes (for about a 9-12 ounce tail) a larger tail may require an additional 6-10 minutes. Then place under the broil for a few minutes.



Place on a serving tray and serve with melted butter...Enjoy