This document provides details about Christmas traditions and meals in Italy. It describes how Italians anticipate Christmas food for the whole month of December and how families come together for three special meals - a light seafood meal on Christmas Eve, an important meat-based lunch on Christmas Day that can last for hours, and another festive lunch on December 26 that features leftovers. It then provides recipes for traditional Italian Christmas appetizers, main courses, desserts, and drinks, including veal with tuna sauce, agnolotti pasta, braised beef in Barolo wine sauce, zabaione, and prosecco or spumante.

1. Christmas in italy
natalE in italia

2. introduCtion
Cities sparkle, hearts are full and Italians of all ages spend the
whole month of December anticipating the great Christmas food!
This is the time of year when families reunite from wherever they
are, and it is around the table that Italian families come together.
Each region celebrates three meals
with their own traditional dishes.
Let’s have a look at Italy's rich tradition!

3. italian Christmas
mEals
December 24:
Christmas Eve Dinner
(cena della Vigilia di Natale)
It is traditionally a light meal
with no meat.
It’s a lot of seafood and vegetables.
Bring on the sword fish, tuna fish,
salmon, octopus salad and
the baccalà (salted cod), of course!
Along with fish, Italians celebrate this
meal with simple pasta dishes.

4. italian Christmas
mEals
December 25: Christmas (Natale) Day Lunch
This is the most important of the three meals and can last for
hours.
It is typically meat-based.
First, the Natale lunch begins with a classic antipasto with Italian
cheeses, briny olives, artichokes and more.
The first course is pasta.
Next comes the main event, the meat like: roasted veal, baked
chicken, sausages or braised beef.

5. italian Christmas
mEals
December 26: Santo Stefano’s Lunch
On this day lunch carries on the Natale festivities. For this meal,
more distant relatives and friends are invited. It’s customary to
enjoy leftovers. Santo Stefano's lunch tends to be less elaborate
and much more creative.
Also, on this day, restaurants are very popular, offering a
refreshing change from tiring days in the kitchen.

6. italian typiCal dEssErts
durinG Christmas timE
Sweet breads like PANETTONE and PANDORO are popular across Italy!
PANDORO
This sweet Christmas bread from Verona is
star-shaped and dusted with powdered sugar.
The name pan d’oro means “bread of gold,”
PANETTONE
Hailing from Milan, it is a sweet,
dome-shaped bread loaf studded
with raisins and candied citrus peels.

7. italian Christmas
mEnu
And now let’s take a peek into a typical
Italian Christmas menu!

8. appEtizEr

9. VITELLO TONNATO
(VEAL WITH TUNA SAUCE)
INGREDIENTS
2 lb 12 oz (1.25 kg) thick piece boneless
veal topside
1 small onion
a few cloves
2 bay leaves
2 celery sticks, halved
1 small carrot, peeled
6 black peppercorns
5 fl oz (150 ml) dry white wine

10. VITELLO TONNATO
(VEAL WITH TUNA SAUCE)
•For the sauce:
2 large eggs
10 fl oz (275 ml) oil
2 dessertspoons white wine vinegar
3 oz (75 g) best-quality tuna fish in a tin or jar, drained
2 tinned anchovy fillets, drained
1½ tablespoons salted capers, rinsed and drained
1 tablespoon lemon juice (or more, to taste)
salt and freshly milled black pepper
•To garnish:
a few extra capers

11. VITELLO TONNATO
(VEAL WITH TUNA SAUCE)
DIRECTIONS
Begin by putting the veal in a medium roasting tin. Stud the
onion with the cloves and add this to the tin, along with the bay
leaves, celery, carrot, peppercorns and wine. Then, roast the
veal in the pre-heated oven for 1¼ hours.
For the sauce, you need to start by making a mayonnaise. So,
break the whole eggs straight into the goblet of a blender or
food processor, add 1 teaspoon salt. Then measure the oil into
a jug and switch the machine on. To blend everything
thoroughly, pour the oil in a thin, very steady trickle with the
motor running. When all the oil is in, add the white wine
vinegar and blend.

12. VITELLO TONNATO
(VEAL WITH TUNA SAUCE)
Then add the tuna, anchovy fillets and capers, and whiz again
till smooth. Now do a bit of tasting and season with lemon juice
and pepper.
When the veal is ready, take it out of the oven and leave
everything to get cold.
After that, take the veal out of the tin – you can discard the
vegetables, bay leaves, peppercorns and any remaining wine
now. Slice the meat very thinly and arrange it in a large,
shallow serving dish. Spoon the sauce over the meat. Garnish
with capers.

13. VITELLO TONNATO
(VEAL WITH TUNA SAUCE)

14. MAIN COURSE

15. AGNOLOTTI WITH ROAST
SAUCE
INGREDIENTS
½ kg pork and veal meat
one shoot of rosemary
two garlic cloves
one small cabbage and a bunch of
prickly lettuce
butter
parmesan cheese
4 eggs
salt
pepper
nutmeg
400 gr of wheat flour

16. AGNOLOTTI WITH ROAST
SAUCE
DIRECTIONS
•Cook approximately half a kilogram of pork and veal meat and
roast it well with rosemary and garlic.
•Finely mince the meat and put it into a bowl, add a small cabbage
and a bunch of boiled prickly lettuce that have been cut in small
pieces and browned with butter, a handful of grated parmesan
cheese, the white of four eggs, a dash of salt, pepper and nutmeg.
•Blend all these ingredients with a wooden spoon and then put the
mixture aside.

17. AGNOLOTTI WITH ROAST
SAUCE
DIRECTIONS
•Make the pasta with four egg yolks and 400 grams of flour and
roll the dough in thin layers that must not dry.
•Place small bunches of filling on the layer of pasta at three
centimeters one from another, leaving an empty edge under the
filling in order to fold it over. Press around the filling with your
fingers.
•Then cut it with a jagging wheel obtaining small squares. Leave
the agnolotti to dry on lighly floured tablecloths. Let them cook in
boiling salted water for a few minutes, drain them and pour the
roast sauce on them.

18. AGNOLOTTI WITH ROAST
SAUCE PICTURES

19. SECOND COURSE

20. BRAISED BEEf IN BAROLO
WINE SAUCE
INGREDIENTS
5 pounds rump roast or top round of beef
3 onions, roughly chopped
2 large carrots, roughly chopped
2 celery stalks, roughly chopped
1 bouquet garni
1 ounce butter
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 whole cloves
A few juniper berries, if available
Salt and peppercorns
2/3 bottle Barolo or a full-bodied red wine
2 cups vegetable or beef stock

21. BRAISED BEEf IN BAROLO
WINE SAUCEDIRECTIONS
Preparation for the marinade:
•Place the meat in a large bowl; add all the vegetables along with
the bouquet garni, cloves and juniper berries, a bit of salt and
peppercorns and the Barolo. Let the meat marinate for 12 hours or
more in the refrigerator. Turn the meat often.
Braising:
•Drain wine from meat by allowing it to drip off once taking it
from the bowl. Dry it with a towel and sprinkle with salt.
•In a large, heavy pot, add the olive oil and the butter; when the
pot is very hot, place the meat inside, browning it on all sides to
seal in the juices. Then add the marinade, the vegetables and
stock. Gently bring to a boil with the lid on.
•Simmer on a very low flame. Cook for 3 hours.

22. BRAISED BEEf IN BAROLO
WINE SAUCE
DIRECTIONS
•The meat will reduce in size to about a half and will be very dark
on the exterior. Be sure to cover meat with liquid at all times,
adding water when necessary.
•Before serving, transfer the brasato to a cutting board for a few
minutes, covered with aluminum foil. Discard the bouquet garni
and pass all the sauce through a vegetable mill, which is preferred
over a food processor or an immersion mixer for this. Re-heat the
sauce and let it reduce a bit and adjust with salt, if needed.
•Cut the brasato into thin slices and place on a hot dish; add some
sauce on top.

23. BRAISED BEEf IN BAROLO
WINE SAUCE PICTURES

24. DESSERT

25. zabaione
INGREDIENTS
3 large egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons dry Marsala

26. zabaione
DIRECTIONS
Have ready an instant-read thermometer in a cup of hot water. In
a metal bowl with a whisk or a hand-held electric mixer beat
together all ingredients until combined well. Set bowl over a
saucepan of barely simmering water and beat mixture until tripled
in volume and thermometer registers 140°F, about 5 minutes. To
ensure that eggs are cooked, beat mixture 3 minutes more.
Serve zabaione with Pandoro or Panettone.

27. zabaione PiCTUReS
.

28. DRinKS

29. SPUManTe anD PRoSeCCo
Christmas in Italy means celebrations and the wine for celebrating is
indisputably the sparkling one, the so called bollicine (bubbles)
Prosecco and Spumante

30. anD noW….
WE ALL WISH YOU
A MERRY CHRISTMAS
A HAPPY NEW YEAR
AND
A DELICIOUS CHRISTMAS MENU!!!
SEE YOU IN THE NEW YEAR