BOLZANO. A fish-based New Year’s Eve dinner for four people for 50 euros? Far from impossible with the advice of our chefs and a little imagination. Plus a good dose of elbow grease.
If you also want to add some good wine and one or two bubbles, you could still keep your budget for the party under one hundred euros. By drinking well and eating even better. With small variations, the menu we propose can also be presented in a vegetarian version. Let’s start by saying that to make a good impression, as mentioned, it is not necessarily necessary to spend a fortune, but to follow some original idea, such as characterizing the dish or courses with a chromatic imprint, characterizing the dishes with color and contrasts.
The starters
Let’s start with the appetizers where Oskar Messner, chef and owner of the Slow Food Pitzock tavern in Val di Funes, comes to our aid and offers us his multicolored lentil salad to be integrated with a slice of smoked char instead of the sheep’s ham with glasses which usually uses.
The advice is to steam the lentils separately, perhaps in the oven to respect the different cooking times. A true ark of taste in a bowl. There are red lentils, yellow lentils such as the blonde lentil of Saint-Flour, the lentils of Ustica, the black lentil of the hills of Enna in Sicily.
But even in supermarkets there is no shortage of variety and with 4 or 5 euros you will be served for dinner and after dinner. Once cooled, they should be seasoned with a dressing of oil, lemon, mustard, salt and pepper and then decorated with a slice of smoked char, or marinated swordfish, if you prefer. With a bite of smoked and spiced tofu here is a delicious vegan appetizer. If you don’t want to give up your canapé of caviar or lumpfish roe, here we are served with the magnificent beluga lentils, to be quickly steamed, seasoned with salt and, once cooled, placed on a canapé spread with good salted butter and spring onion. left to marinate in salt and vinegar and decorated with a stalk of chives.
An amazing pleasure.
If you then want the classic shrimp cocktail then we suggest the caught and frozen Argentinian shrimp tails. Instead of the usual egg mayonnaise, we suggest preparing it with lentil water which, emulsified with corn oil, lemon, mustard, salt and pepper, will whip up beautifully. Color with turmeric and a pinch of pepper. Cost: seven euros. With the starter we suggest a South Tyrolean sparkling wine such as the “36” from the Merano winery (26 euros) or a good Trentodoc between 15 and twenty euros. As a bottle of Ferrari classic method.
The first courses
As a first course we suggest choosing a risotto or linguine with squid ink. With 10 euros of cuttlefish and a few cherry tomatoes you will prepare the base of the sauce, to which you will add the cuttlefish ink. A simple and chromatically impactful dish that always works very well without affecting your pockets. For the risotto, proceed with dry toasting (or welding) the rice and then add the onion to brown, then the cuttlefish cut into strips and then blended with dry white wine. Add a good broth, possibly a fish stock. Halfway through cooking, add the squid ink.
Proceed until cooking is complete and decorate each dish with a sprinkle of parsley. Beautiful. Seven hundred grams of cuttlefish are enough for 4 people at a cost of 12 euros.
The second
The proposal for the fish main course is simple, tasty and chromatically attractive. A fillet of salmon trout for each diner to be cooked in the oven with pink pepper berries, slices of orange and orange or yellow cherry tomatoes, to be prepared “confìt” always in the oven with a few potatoes cut into small cubes and blanched, sprinkled with sweet paprika or curry yellow.
For the confit cherry tomatoes, simply cut them in half and place them in a pan with the cut section at the top seasoned with a pinch of salt, a pinch of sugar and oregano for about 20, 25 minutes together with the potatoes and extra virgin olive oil. Cut into small cubes the potatoes.
If you prefer, you can use a slice of fresh salmon instead of the trout fillet.
We suggest pairing this dish with a contrasting Sylvaner from Valle Isarco or a complementary vintage Gewürztraminer. Cost for fish around 15 – 20 euros.
He serves
Finally, dessert is suggested to us by Christian Pircher of the Kirchsteiger restaurant in Foiana, a chef known for his art in preparing foie gras and other great classics of world cuisine such as zabaglione with Moscato d’Asti with which we will dip a slice of the classic panettone ( that of the Coop at 7 euros was recently awarded by Altorconsumo).
For the zabaglione you need 9 egg yolks, 180 g of sugar and 250 ml of Asti sparkling wine (a docg can be found at around 5 euros in the supermarket).
Pour the egg yolks into a saucepan, add the sugar with the heat off using a whisk. Then pour in the Moscato and mix again.
Then proceed to cook for 10-12 minutes in a bain-marie, continuing to mix to incorporate air into the mixture and make it foamy.
The zabaglione should be poured while still hot on the panettone slices warmed in the oven. Accompanying, of course, the open Moscato. Cost 10 euros, 15 with wine.
Also perfect for a toast.
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