Spring is finally here, and with it a religious holiday that Italy celebrates with festive lunches with friends or relatives accompanied by a menu that almost always includes lamb, artichokes and so on. Spring and the Easter period is all about rebirth and celebrating life and the season gives you more than enough fresh fruits and vegetables to turn your table into a culinary celebration. Why no take some of these traditional plates that have been reinvented for you this Easter?

Claudio Arciglione, Gold’s chef who already gave us tips for New Year’s Eve dinners, is willing to do so for Easter, too, with two Menus, one meat-based and one fish-based.

Fish Menu

Chicory, burrata cheese and Sicilian red shrimps salad

 

Sear the shrimps in white wine and lemon. Boil the chicory in water with added citrus fruit juice so to give it a fresh taste. Place the chicory on a serving plate, add a burrata’s layer, then the shrimps. Season with anchovy, salt and pepper. 

Prawns risotto with Martini Gold and chopped pistachios

  

Follow the usual cooking process for a normal risotto, using Carnaroli Riserva kind and vegetal broth. While cooking, instead of white wine gently pour some Martini Gold and season with salt and pepper. Churn with some chopped pistachios and a spoon of Martini Gold and serve with one raw prawn on top

Amber fish with smoked hue with artichokes and lemon seasoned mashed potatoes

  

“The best way to cook this fish is simply to grill it, maybe outdoors, now that we have good weather”, says Claudio. But if you don’t have the space or time, here is his tip. After baking the fish, pour some “embers oil” on it. How to do it? Gather a small quantity for each herb you have at home (sage, thyme, rosmary…). Place it in a pan, set fire to them and cover with a lid – no, you are not going to set your house on fire, he reassured me. Let it burn out. Add some oil and obtain an infusion. Let it sit for half an hour, then filter and use the oil whenever you need a smoky taste. Cook the artichokes with garlic, anchovies and some white wine so to keep its green colour bright. Season the potatoes with some lemon to give it a citrus twist.

White Chocolate pudding with Citrus fruits cream

  

Use the recipe you would use for vanilla English cream. Add to it 500 grams of white chocolate for one liter of cream. Before pouring the white chocolate in, save half of the cream. Grate lime, grapefruit, oranges and citrus peels and add it to the still hot cream without white chocolate. Let it sit. In the other half with chocolate, add jelly and whipped cream and store it in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. Once ready, shape it with an ice cream scooper and serve it with the citrus fruits cream.

Meat Menu

Culatello with Ragusano smoked cream

  

It’s a sort of Crème Brulee revised to be served on the side of culatello, one of the most typical and delicious hams in Italy. Make a yolk-and-milk cream and add grated Ragusano cheese (a typical Sicilian cheese) and a bit of Isomalto, a special sugar derivate that sweetens 80 times less than normal sugar. Bake it in the oven for 40 minutes at 100 Celtius degrees. The cream will match perfectly with the savory culatello.

Basil lasagna

  

It is a light version of the much heavier recipe from Bologna. Make a simple crêpe and add to it some minced basil so to release the chlorophyl color. Make three layers and to each one add only one ingredient: asparagus sauteed in butter, stracciatella cheese and top with Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Bake it in the oven for 10 minutes at 100° C degrees.

Crumb-coated lamb ribs with pistachio and saffron tempura fried artichokes

  

Add some pistachios to the breadcrumbs before coating the ribs and fry them leaving the inside slightly rare (which is obtained not tenderizing the raw meat too much before cooking it). Fry the artichoke slices in a light batter made only of flour, very cold fizzy water and saffron powder (or curry, if you like). Keep some batter aside without saffron for the dessert preparation.

Pineapple slices with chocolate-coconut fried snacks

  

Everyone has heard of Bounty bars, right? Keep some in the freezer for an hour while slicing the pineapple and seasoning it with sugar, lemon and some Martini Gold. Then fry the still frozen Bounty snacks in the light batter so that they won’t melt and serve it with the chilled pineapple.

Written by: Elisa della Barba