What is an authentic Italian Christmas Evening Dinner?

Are you a restaurant or catering planning to serve Christmas Evening, or in Italian La Vigilia di Natale, dinner? Or are you a delicatessen and wish to offer your clients something special? We have prepared a menu for you, hoping you will find some good recipe ideas.

According to an old Catholic tradition, Italians eat mainly fish or seafood on Christmas Eve dinner; although customs vary from north to south of Italy, here are our suggestions. Our menu includes three starters, two mains and two traditional desserts, and of course, don’t forget the Christmas atmosphere with a lovely red table set up and elegant candles.

Let’s start the evening by offering an aperitif, a glass of fresh Prosecco DOC, typical sparkling wine from the Veneto region, and some nibbles or canape’ with various toppings like our truffle sauce

Now it’s time to sit down and let the dinner begin. Our Christmas Evening menu’ will include:

And now our recipes:

Starters

A combination of cold and warm starters easy to prepare is the best to start your Christmas Eve dinner.

Swordfish or Tuna Carpaccio 

As you may know, carpaccio is a thin cut of meat or fish. It is an easy and quick starter to prepare, and the fish’s good quality makes the recipe’s outcome. Our Bernardini Smoked Swordfish or Smoked Tuna are high-quality raw fish selection prepared skilfully, cut by hand, carefully seasoned with spices and herbs, then allowed to age naturally as long as it takes.
Swordfish and Tuna are two popular options: they can be accompanied by citrusy condiment sauce made with salt, oil and lemon or lime and topped with a sprinkle of capers or accompanied with an orange and fennel salad with olive oil and lemon.

Squid Salad

A squid salad has prepared with ‘calamari’; we have many choices, from the already sliced to the cleaned whole squid; we recommend using the raw squid. Once sliced, you can marinate them for about 20 minutes with oil, half a lemon, powered chilly salt some fresh mint. In the meantime, cut the cherry tomato and small carrots. Cook the squid in a hot pan until slightly brown. Pour all ingredients into a serving bowl, adding pitted black olives, olive oil, half a lemon, parsley, mint, and salt. Stir all together and enjoy.

Polenta with Prawns

Here is our third starter to complete the first round of your dinner! Prepare the yellow polenta into the pan, make sure the water is boiling, then continually whisk it while you pour in the polenta in a thin steady stream for about 40 minutes or until it has thickened up. Add flavourings once it’s cooked add a generous knob of butter and a handful of grated Parmesan to make it extra creamy, but the key is plenty of seasoning. To cook the prawns, heat the oil, add some garlic and a bit of wine and cook, occasionally stirring, until the prawns are slightly opaque, about 4 minutes. Stir in butter until melted. Pour the prawns other the polenta.

Main Course

As you know, an authentic Italian dinner has to have pasta , so here we propose two variations of this delicious main.

Ravioli Filled With Lobster

Tortellini or ravioli are a traditional dish. Our lobster ravioli are a delicacy and perfect for Christmas Evening dinner. They can be served with melted butter and sage sauce. If you fancy the pasta-making experience, ZainoFood can provide all ingredients to prepare the fresh pasta. Still, we also have the option to order the delicious fresh lobster ravioli from our ready-made selection of gourmet dishes.

Spaghetti with clams

To make the traditional spaghetti with clams, we can offer our cooked brown clams. Start by heating some oil in a pan with a clove of garlic, drain the clams well, rinse them, and pour them into the pan for a few minutes; cover with a lid until they open up. Collect the juice by draining the clams, and remove the garlic. In the meantime, cook the spaghetti in plenty of water and drain halfway, pour the sauce into a pan, add the spaghetti, and continue cooking using some cooking water. Your pasta will finish cooking in the pan. When cooked, add the clams and chopped parsley.

How to conclude your Christmas Evening dinner at best? Our desserts

Panettone

What is the classic Italian Christmas cake? Panettone indeed! So the traditional way to finish the Christmas Evening meal is a Panettone.
Our favourite way of serving it is slightly warm (tip* warm it up by a radiator or even better for the Christmas atmosphere by the fireplace!) and served with ‘zabaglione’ sauce, mascarpone custard cream or vanilla ice cream.

If you want to add another dessert to make everyone happy, we suggest the Torroncino Semifreddo.

A truly uniquely Italian dessert, made with quality nougat and cream and is a perfect balance of refreshing flavours.
And now, Happy Christmas, and have a lovely dinner!

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