This document provides recipes and information about Christmas traditions and foods in Italy. It describes recipes for Christmas little ring-shaped cakes made of flour, oil, water and sugar and fried dried cod made by soaking cod for three days and then flouring and frying it. It also provides background on pandoro, a sweet bread shaped like an eight-pointed star that originated in Verona, and panettone, a sweet bread with raisins and citrus that, according to legend, was created using leftover ingredients from a cook to a nobleman. Finally, it shares the recipe for petrali, crescent-shaped pastries filled with figs, nuts and citrus that are typical of Reggio Cal

1. CHRISTMAS IN ITALY

2. -Christmas little ring- Shaped
cakes
• Ingredients:
• 1 Cup of oil;
• 1 cup of water;
• 1 table spoon sugar;
• lb ½ flour;
• 1 liter olive oil for frying
• Sugar.

3. • Mix the flour with water;oil and sugar and
knead until it is soft and smooth enough that
it doesn’t stick to your fingers. Piece by
piece take the pasta and make a breastick
like form in a thickness of a finger,then cut it
into a lot of stiks of about 8/10 cm. From
these stiks make so many little ring-shaped
cakes,then fry them in boiling oil. Drain and
decorate them with sugar.

4. Fried dried cod.
Ingredients:
•lb 2;
•oz 3 dried cod;
•oz 7 flour;
•2 cloves of garlic;
•3 spoonfuls of white winegar;
•a pinch of salt;
•3/4 lt. seed oil for frying;
•3 spoonsfuls olive oil.
HOW WE DO
Soak the dried cod for three days in a bowl full of cold water, taking care of changing the water twice a day.
On the fourth day, when the fish looks well soaked, strain it, cut it to pieces, pass it in flour and fry it in a frying pan full of
hot oil.
In another frying pan you will shallow fry a little bit of chopped garlic and when golden lay the frie dried cod with a little bit
of winegar and some water.
Cover and let the oil evaporate at a very mild fire.

5. Pandoro
Pandoro appeared in remote times, the product of the ancient art of breadmaking, as the
name, Pan d'oro ("literally: Golden Bread"), suggests. Throughout the Middle Ages, white
bread was consumed only by rich people, while the common people could only afford
black bread and, often, not even that. Sweet breads were reserved for nobility.
Breads enriched with eggs, butter and sugar or honey were served in the palaces and were
known as "royal bread" or "golden bread".
His birth dates back to 1800 , as an evolution of the " Nadalin " , Verona sweet . On October
14th 1894 Melegatti Dominic , founder of the confectionery industry in Verona , filed at the
patent office a sweet soft and the characteristic body -shaped eight-pointed star , by the
artist Angelo Dall'Oca White , impressionist painter .
• Brewer’s yeast 18 g
• Flour Manitoba 450 gr
• Sugar 125gr
• Eggs 3 and a yolk
• Vanilla
• Salt a teaspoon
• butter170 g
• Milk 60 ml plus three spoons

6. Panettone
The cook in the service of Ludovico il Moro was commissioned to
prepare a sumptuous Christmas dinner for many nobles of the
district , but the sweet , forgotten in the oven , almost charred .
Given the desperation of the cook , Toni , a small kitchen boy ,
proposed a solution : " With a bit ' of flour , butter , eggs , zest of
lime and some raisins - this morning I cooked this cake . If you have
nothing else , you can bring it to the table . " The cook agreed and ,
trembling , stood behind a curtain to spy on the reaction of the
guests. All were enthusiastic and to the Duke , who wanted to know
the name of that delicacy , the cook revealed the secret : " L'è 'l pan
del Toni ." Since then it is the “ pane di Toni " , or the " panettone " .

7. Petrali
Cookies typical of Reggio Calabria made ​​of crescent-shaped pastry
stuffed with figs, walnuts, almonds, orange peel and tangerine. The
exterior is usually garnished with a brushed with beaten egg yolk and
small balls of colored sugar, or alternatively can be trimmed with icing
sugar, dark chocolate or white chocolate. These cakes are usually
prepared and eaten during Christmas time.

8. How to do them
• FOR THE PASTRY: On a table make a mound of
flour,in the center add the sugar, eggs, vanilla bag,
lard, baking powder and grated lemon peel. Mix
ingredients slowly, forming a dough too soft, but
still compact and homogeneous. The dough
should not be a lot of work with your hands. We
cover, then, with a damp towel and let it rest for a
half hour.

9. FOR THE FILLING: Chop figs and put them in a
bowl, soften them with hot coffee already
sweetened and cooked wine. Chop walnuts,
almonds, orange peel and that of mandarin. Add
that together with raisins and a pinch of cinnamon.
Mix everything and let rest for at least two days. (It
should stir from time to time and if necessary
possibly add more coffee).

10. TO MAKE PETRALI: floured the work surface, pull with a
rolling pin a very thin sheet from which we will derive some
discs with a diameter of 10 cm. about. We place on half of
each disc, a tablespoon of filling and we cover with the
other half. We put the ornaments in the oven at 180 °, on a
buttered baking sheet.
1
2
3
4

11. We have the petrali on a tray, brush with beaten
egg and put devils colored.
(Petrali can be covered, always just on top, with
icing sugar or chocolate or white chocolate)