A southern Italian Christmas Eve meal.
THE MENU
This is the meal I make every year...I do mix up the 13 seafoods depending on what I can get fresh...for example, no periwinkles then I will do green mussels in a sake dill broth.
1st Course:
Calamari, black mussels, conch, eel, monkfish, blue crab, giant prawns, fennel smothered in a thick Sicilian style red wine sauce, then baked.
Steamed whole octopus with white wine and garlic
Whole medium size prawns in Italian beer and butter.
Periwinkles in garlic and oil.
Plenty of sour dough bread for dipping in sauces etc.
Cipollini onions boiled with sea salt and balsamic vinegar.
Broccoli rabe fried with Italian sausage.
2nd Course:
Linguine with little necks, cockles, pignoli nuts, Italian parsley in a white wine sauce.
3rd Course:
Whole lobsters on a bed of large spring onions slowly smoked over chunks of Mesquite wood.
Asparagus with lemon, butter and parmesan cheese
4th Course:
Radicchio, endive, arugula, pomegranate seed, caper, escarole salad with tarragon champagne dressing.
Desert:
Italian lemon ice with fresh mint and cassis.
WINES:
Coppola Pinot Noir
Coppola Chardonney
Davinci Chianti