Five days to Christmas! Together with the last gifts, we are sure that the main issue, for now, is all about the lunch menu of December 25th. Wondering how to make your Christmas menu taste more Mediterranean and original? Don’t worry: we’ve come up with a delicious Sicilian menu for Christmas lunch, rich in typical recipes that are found on almost every table on this day!
Sarde a beccafico, image from ximenes12.it
See also: Sicilian Food – 5 delicacies you absolutely can’t miss and Our ultimate guide to cooking perfectly-Sicilian arancine
Let’s start with the appetizers: we suggest the most traditional Sicilian delicacies – eggplant “caponata” and “sarde a beccafico”. Eggplant caponata is prepared with tomato sauce, celery, vinegar, capers and a sweet&sour sauce, while “sarde a beccafico” are rolled sardines stuffed with a mix of breadcrumbs, pine nuts, parsley, oil, pepper, garlic, salt and raisins. You can choose to cook your sarde a beccafico with the oven or by frying them – whatever suits your taste!
As a main course we recommend an unusual (yet very typical and flavoursome) recipe from the province of Agrigento: “Riso di Natale” (Christmas rice), a rice pie stuffed with three different kinds of meat (pork, chicken, veal) flavoured with cloves. And then you can decide to go on with meat or to choose a fish-based second course: here are our two options.
As a meat-based second course we suggest the “brociolone“, a “roll” of veal stuffed with minced meat, spinach, eggs, pecorino cheese, breadcrumbs, mortadella, tuma cheese, onions and olive oil… A typical recipe from “Palermo” that will definitely knock you out. If you prefer something lighter, we suggest “Pesce stocco a’ ghiotta”: salted codfish slowly cooked with tomato sauce, potatoes, celery, onions, capers, black pepper, green olives – one of the most flavoursome and popular recipes in the province of Messina.
Buccellato, image from it.wikipedia.org
In Sicily, after the second course we usually eat some fruits of the season, and then it’s time for dessert: more than one is usually on the table at Christmas! Alongside the typical ricotta- or pistachio-stuffed “panettone”, and the evergreen cassata and cannoli, we highly recommend “buccellato”, the most typical Christmas dessert in Sicily. This delicious circular cake is made with a short crust mixture and stuffed with raisins, almonds, dried figs, orange peels and other ingredients that may vary according to the area of the island, then cooked in the oven and decorated with icing sugar and candied fruits.
Buon appetito and a Merry Christmas from the Scent of Sicily staff!
