Posted on
December 24, 2010 by
Stile Mediterraneo
I and Marika wish you and your families a wonderful and …delicious…..Christmas season! We hope you will do lots of cooking and hopefully you will cook some of our recipes.
Please let us know if you do cook any of our Italian recipes for your friends by adding a comment to this post!
And do not forget to send us pictures!
A presto in Puglia and BUON NATALE!
Tags: ChristmasholidaysItaly
Category
lifestyle in Lecce, things to do in Puglia, traditions
Posted on
December 26, 2009 by
Stile Mediterraneo
I and Marika don’t eat lots of sweets (apart from tons of the famous hazelnut ice cream from Lecce we already wrote about!).
However, we love the traditional Christmas sweets, just because they are really specific to this festivity and so we make them in Puglia only once per year. And this has been the same since always.
Our favorite Christmas sweet is a fish made of almond. In many families and countries it is a tradition to eat fish at Christmas time. In Puglia we also have fish as a dessert!
This sweet is very simple to prepare. We make the dough with sugar, almond and chocolate. Then we stuff the fish with Marika’s pear jam, biscuits and liquor. We decorate the fish eye with a coffee bean.
However, as for many other almond sweets we prepare during our cooking classes in Puglia, the almonds we use are what make the difference.
The fish we made for our family’s Christmas lunch weighed 1 kg. We understood that everybody liked it since there was none left.
And you, what are your favorite Christmas culinary traditions?
Tags: Christmas dessertsChristmas traditions
Category
Cakes & Desserts, traditions
Posted on
April 12, 2009 by
Stile Mediterraneo
Happy Easter to all our friends and readers!
What a wonderful joy for me and Marika to wake up this morning!
We were so excited at the idea of preparing the traditional Easter breads with eggs for our big family lunch.
This was something our Nonna used to make when we were very little: instead of chocolate eggs we used to receive this bread, which was prepared only for this special holiday. We still remember the smell and feeling the warm bread in our hands!
Now it’s our turn…..and I and Marika love making Easter bread!
This is our recipe:
- 1/2 glass freshly squeezed orange juice;
- 500 grams of flour;
- 250 whole grain flour;
- baking yeast (natural is better);
- 6 eggs;
- 1 yolk;
- 1 tsp sugar;
- 2 tsp sea salt;
- 1 lemon zest;
- 1/2 glass extra virgin olive oil;
Boil the water and prepare 6 hard eggs. Let them cool down.
Mix the two flours together. While mixing, add the olive oil and orange juice. In a cup, dissolve the yeast in warm water and add the salt and a pinch of sugar. Add the yeast to the dough. Finally add the grated lemon zest. Keep kneading the dough for a while. Then separate the dough in 2 pieces, make the shape of two round baskets and place three hard eggs in the middle of each dough. Let them rise for at least two hours, in a warm environment. Mix together the yolk with a tsp sugar and glaze it on top of each bread basket. Cook in a pre-heat oven for about 30 minutes at 180°C (350°F).
Do you have any similar Easter tradition?
Please let us know if you ever make this recipe.
Tags: Puglia bread
Category
cuisine, Puglia, Recipes, traditions
