Unexpected Bruschettas

Preparation time: between 5mins and 1h30. Serves 8 people

Tired of the usual tomato&basil bruschettas? Try out this recipe and you will delight your guest with a simple but sophisticated starter!


We present you two different kind of bruschettas, which can accompany both a rich or light dinner/lunch: 

Cherry "Confit" Tomatoes&Burrata

Here you are what you need:

• Bread, sliced
• Cherry tomatoes
• Burrata (a typical kind of mozzarella from Puglia, south Italy), if you can't find it, you can use Buffalo Mozzarella
• Oil
• Salt&pepper
• Sugar

First of all, cherry tomatoes need to be prepared: the only thing you need is time. Cut the tomatoes in halves and dispose them over a oven tray, upon a piece of baking paper. Sprinkle some sugar, oil, salt and pepper over them (sugar and salt in the same quantities).

Leave them cooking in a pre-heated oven at 170° for 1h40mins, at a medium height.

Once tomatoes are ready, put them over a slice of bread, with some Burrata or Mozzarella cut into small pieces.

Put again in the oven (max temperature) for 5 minutes, until the Burrata is melted down.

Serve immediately.

Lardo di Colonnata&Anchovies

For this recipe, the ingredients are a little bit more difficult to find, but once you find them the recipe only take 10 minutes:

- Bread, sliced

- Lardo di colonnata

- Rosemary

- Anchovies

We found the real Lardo di Colonnata in the refrigerated section at Best Of Italy, Ranelagh.

Cut the Lardo in very thin slices, and put it over the slices of bread. Add few rosemary leaves upon it and one anchovy on each slide of bread.

Put in a pre-heated oven at 200° for 5 minutes, or until lardo melts and anchovies become a little bit crunchy.

Simply delicious!

Limoncello!

For 3 LT of Limoncello: Preparation time: 30 mins, Sitting time: 15 days

No idea for Christmas presents? Try out this simple recipe and you will astonish your friends with a homemade, typical Italian liquor which will help them digest Christmas meals!
The only thing you need are:

• 1 LT Pure Alcohol (95% min)
• 8/9 untreated lemons
• 1 aTnd ¼ L of water
• 1 kg of sugar
• ...time: lemon peels have to sit for 15 days minimum, before completing the preparation process.

Day 1:
Pour the bottle of Alcohol and the bottle into a gallon jar.
Try to use organic lemons or make sure that lemons are cleaned to remove all pesticides, dirt, and fertilizer chemicals. Dry the lemons. Use a potato peeler to peel just the yellow part of the skin off the lemons. Make sure you have NO white pith on the back of the peels, because this causes bitterness in the finished liqueur. Try to make the peel pieces as large as possible, because this will make the straining process easier.

Put the lemon peels in the gallon jar and stir gently.

Cover tightly and put away in a cool (not cold) dark place for alcohol to extract oils from peels, creating an infusion. Let it sit for 15 days. Every two days gently stir lemon peels to refresh exposure to alcohol.

Day 15:

Put the water and the sugar together over the heat and let the sugar dissolve into the water. Do not let it boil, otherwise the water will evaporate.

Once the sugar is melted, set syrup aside to cool. It must be room temp before adding to infusion.

Use a slotted spoon to gently scoop lemon peels from the jar and discard. To avoid creating small pieces that will make straining more difficult, try not to break peels as you remove them.

Add the liquor to the syrup and mix gently. Use a strainer to pour the liquor into bottles and return to cool dark place to storage.

Now Limoncello is ready to use: label it and provide yourself with fancy Limoncello small glasses, as showed in the pictures.

Limoncello is best when served directly from the freezer. Enjoy!