As Anglo-Italians, my family ate lentils for New Year’s Eve. It was never mentioned to me that they are traditionally served to bring wealth and good fortune. On first impressions I cannot imagine anything less bling than a lentil; yet what they evoke in me is a great sense of comfort and wellbeing, which is just what I need now.
At New Year they are supposed to side up to cotechino, a fat sausage that is laced with pork skin and spices and quite delicious. Instead I’ve adapted a southern Italian dish of sausages and lentils. With careful cooking you will understand their status.
There’s also baked whole radicchio with grapes, an exercise in bitter-sweet, best served in its baking dish and eaten with bread at the table.
And for dessert, cartelatte, one of the fried dough sweets common in Puglia at this time of year. They are my firm favourites. While they can keep, my advice is to eat them quickly – I assure you they are so moreish you won’t be able to do anything else.
Sausages, lentils and lemon
It’s your basic soffritto-style start as much as the sausage that imparts the substantial flavour base needed to make this dish special. Tend to it carefully, adding the liquid in small amounts.
Serves 4
celery 2 sticks
carrot 1
fennel ½ bulb
olive oil
salt
unwaxed lemon 1
garlic 3 cloves, chopped finely
bay leaves 5
Italian sausages 800g (preferably 100% pork with no rusk)
brown lentils 300g (Puy at a push)
potatoes 2, medium, peeled and cut into eighths
cinnamon stick ½
tomato passata 4 tbsp
To make a soffritto, dice the celery, carrots and fennel fairly small, almost lentil size. Begin to sweat them over a medium heat in 2 tbsp of olive oil with a pinch of salt
Wash the lemon, quarter and cut the segments into three pieces each. Rinse the lentils in a sieve.
Add garlic to the soffritto, followed by the bay leaves. Squeeze pieces of sausage meat from their skins straight into the pot. Add the lentils, potatoes, lemon, cinnamon and passata and then cover with an inch of cold water. Bring to the boil and then turn down to a simmer.
Cook adding cupfuls of water when needed. In this dish, the lentils should be completely soft, not al dente. This will take about 50 minutes.
Turn the heat off, check the seasoning and add a liberal glug of olive oil.
Whole roast radicchio, grapes and chestnuts
It’s possible to make this look like a still life from the National Gallery.
Serves 4
chestnuts 100g, whole, raw or pre-cooked
radicchio 2 heads
black grapes 150g, small, cut into clusters
garlic 3 cloves, cut in half
sage ½ bunch
olive oil
fennel seeds 1 tsp
grappa 75ml, or brandy
butter a knob
Heat the oven to 190C/gas mark 5.
If preparing your own chestnuts, score with a sharp knife. Roast uncovered in the oven for 10-15 minutes until the shell and skin come away. Don’t worry if they are not yet cooked through. Peel them.
Wash the radicchio, removing any shabby outer leaves and trimming the end of the stalk. Place in a baking dish surrounded by the chestnuts, grapes, garlic, sage and fennel seeds. Drizzle with oil, season well and drench with alcohol and an equal amount of water. Place a knob of butter on top, cover tightly with foil and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour until tender under a knife.
Chard in cream
If you can, get hold of a proper good cream local to you.
Serves 4
Swiss chard 800g
salt and pepper
cream 200ml
garlic ½ clove, peeled and finely sliced
thyme 1 sprig, leaves picked
olive oil or butter
nutmeg
Wash and roughly chop the chard. Boil in plenty of rolling salted water. Drain after 5 minutes, or when tender. Once cool enough, squeeze the excess water out.
Over a medium-low heat, in a small pan, cook the cream with the garlic, thyme leaves and a pinch of salt. Allow it to reduce by at least half. After a few minutes it will be bubbling and thick. Turn the heat off and add 1 tbsp of olive oil or a knob of butter, and a scratch of nutmeg and pepper.
Stir the chard through the cream, returning briefly to the heat, if you think it needs it.
Cartellate with pears
These fried rosettes are a very traditional Italian sweet. I recommend watching online videos of people making these to fully get the gist in case my description of the shaping process and the photograph isn’t enough. And remember, fried dough tastes good in any shape. Usually dipped in vincotto, here they’re served with warmly spiced, winey pears.
Serves 4
For the pears:
pears 2
white wine 375ml
honey 80g
ginger 4cm piece, peeled and chopped in 4
orange ½, rind pared
dried figs 2, chopped
cider or wine vinegar 1 tsp
For the dough:
tipo 00 or pasta flour 200g, plus extra for dusting
olive oil 100ml
white wine 100ml
salt a pinch
sunflower oil for deep frying
Peel the pears and slice into segments. Set in a pot with the wine, honey, ginger, orange peel and figs. Bring to the boil and then lower to a simmer. Turn the pears from time to time and cook until their flesh looks translucent and the liquid is thickened and syrupy. Stir in the vinegar, turn off the heat and set aside.
Mix all the dough ingredients together in a stand mixer with the flat beater, or in a bowl with a spoon. Move to a work surface and knead for 5 minutes until more smooth. Set aside in a bowl and leave the dough to rest for 30 minutes.
Take a piece of dough and roll on a lightly floured surface, dusting with a little flour and turning as you go. Once you have a piece 2-3mm thick – like thick pasta – cut it into ribbons about 4cm wide. These could be cut with a ravioli cutter. (It is common, but unnecessary, to roll these out with a pasta machine, moving down the numbers.)
Take a piece of dough and firmly pinch the top to the bottom, along the long edge, to close one end. Place one thumb just after this closure and use the thumb and forefinger of your other hand to pinch the dough shut around your thumb, so you’ve created a little open cup in the ribbon. Place your thumb again after this pinch and repeat, and so on. Once the whole strip is formed with open cups. Curl it up to make a rose shape, pinching it together at intervals. Repeat with all the dough.
Heat the oil in a high sided pan for deep frying. When an offcut of dough sizzles and begins to colour, the oil is hot enough. Fry the cartellate in batches, open side down first, turning after a minute to check doneness. When they are golden and crisp, move to a plate lined with kitchen paper. Place them upside down to drain excess oil.
Gently reheat the syrup and pears, then lift out the pears. Place the cartellate in the syrup, cup-side down, and have them soak up as much as possible. Transfer to a serving plate and cover them with the pears and remaining syrup.
Joe Trivelli is co-head chef at the River Café
