Winter recipes to warm you up on cold nights

Winter recipes to try

From comforting soups to mouth-watering fondues, there is not better way than food to beat the cold. Here is a selection of 10 winter recipes to warm you up on cold nights.

Beans, cabbage and yellow flour soup

Ingredients

1 onion

1 celery stalk

1 carrot

1 ripe tomato

200 g. black cabbage leaves

300 g. fresh borlotti beans

1.5 l. vegetable stock

150 g. corn flour

Extra-virgin olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Chop together the onion, celery and carrot. Roughly chop the tomato and slice the cabbage. In a saucepan fry the chopped onion, celery and carrot with a few tablespoons of oil. Add the tomato, beans and cabbage. Cover with the broth and let it cook for 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, then pour in the cornflour, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon to prevent lumps. Cook for another 45 minutes and keep stirring; finally, season with salt and pepper. Distribute the soup on plates, drizzle with a little olive oil and serve.

Tortellini in broth

For the pasta dough

3 eggs

300 g. flour

For the filling

300 g. pork loin browned in butter

300 g. Parma ham

300 g. authentic mortadella di Bologna

400 g. Parmigiano Reggiano

3 eggs

1 nutmeg

Make a volcano with the flour and a hole in the center, drop in the eggs and start beating with a fork, gradually incorporating the flour. Knead the dough for about ten minutes and let it rest. Meanwhile, prepare the filling: chop the meat very finely and add the eggs, grated Parmigiano and grated nutmeg, and leave to rest for at least 12 hours in the refrigerator. Roll out the dough on a wooden pasta board with a rolling pin until very thin. Cut squares of about 3 centimeters per side and place a knob of filling on each square. Fold the dough into a triangle by matching the points, and wrap the triangle around your finger. Overlapping the two opposite corners, crimping each tortellino so that the dough sticks firmly.

Risotto with pumpkin and smoked tofu

350 g carnaroli rice

500 g pumpkin

200 g smoked tofu

1 onion

Vegetable broth

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Nutmeg

1 Tbsp. soy sauce

Sage

Clean the pumpkin, peel and remove inner filaments, and slice thinly. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan and sauté the chopped onion. Add the pumpkin, season it with salt, pepper and a little grated nutmeg and let it simmer for a few minutes over high heat. Add a ladleful of broth, cover the pan and cook for about twenty minutes until the pumpkin softens. Meanwhile, cut the smoked tofu into cubes and fry it in a pan with a little olive oil until crisp, together with a splash of soy sauce. Add the rice to the pumpkin casserole and start adding the hot broth until cooked through, stirring frequently. At the end of cooking, stir in a drizzle of olive oil and add the fresh sage leaves. Finally, add the smoked tofu, keeping a small part of it aside. Serve the risotto garnished with the remaining crispy tofu and a grating of black pepper.

Mulled wine

2 l schiava wine

1 unwaxed orange

6 cloves

1 cinnamon stick

150 g sugar

Insert the cloves in the orange peel, add all the ingredients and cook at 70° C for about 5/10 minutes. Warning: never exceed the indicated temperature; the wine should never boil!

Canederli

Ingredients

300 g stale bread [rolls or baguette]

100 g speck, sliced into matchsticks

3,5 dl milk

2 eggs, beaten

1 tbsp. butter

2 tbsp. flour

Chives

1,2 l good quality meat broth

Salt

Before forming all the canederli, it's advisable to cook one first: in case it is too soft or tends to come apart, just mix and additional 1/2 tbsp. of flour into the dough. In addition to broth, canederli can be enjoyed with butter and cheese, or as a side dish for a meat main course. Cube the bread and place it in a bowl. Heat the butter in a pan and gently brown the speck. Pour all the contents of the pan onto the bread, add the eggs with the milk, the finely chopped chives and a little salt [keep in mind that the speck is already salty]. Mix well and let the dough rest for half an hour. Add the sifted flour and knead with a wooden spoon until well mixed. With your wet hands, shape the canederli in balls [approximately the size of an egg, bearing in mind that, with the quantities provided, you will obtain eight canederli]. Cook them in boiling salted water. When the water resumes a rolling boil, lower the heat to low, cover and let the canederli cook for about 15 minutes. Drain, place in a soup tureen and douse with piping hot meat broth. Serve sprinkled with chopped chives.

Soufflé

½ l milk

100 g butter

100 g Gruyère

100 g flour

25 g potato starch

5 eggs

Nutmeg

Salt

White pepper

Heat the milk with a pinch of salt and mix the flour with the potato starch. Let the butter melt in a small pan, then add the flour mix e let it cook for a couple of minutes. Add the warm milk and mix together until boiling. Let the mixture cool, then add the white pepper, some nutmeg and the grated Gruyère cheese. Add the egg yolks and mix all the ingredients together. Whisk the egg whites and add them to the cheese mixture. Put the mixture in a baking dish, slightly buttered. Preheat the oven at 200°C e put the soufflé in. As soon as you put it in the oven, lower the temperature at 160°C and cook for about 40 minutes.

Pear and almond crostata

For the brisée pastry

200 g flour

100 g butter

Salt

For the filling

3 ripe kaiser pears

250 g milk

3 egg yolks

60 g sugar

50 g almond flour

50 g slivered almonds

1  vanilla pod

½ tsp powdered cinnamon

1 bag of baking weights for the crust

Prepare the brisée pastry crust with the indicated ingredients. While the dough rests, heat the milk with the vanilla pod slit down the length. Place the egg yolks in a bowl, add sugar and beat with a whisk for a few minutes then pour in the hot milk and, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, cook the cream over very low heat until thick, never reaching the boil. Remove from the heat, discard the vanilla pod and mix in the almond flour with the cream. Grease and flour a cake pan, arrange the dough on the floured pastry board and roll it out with a rolling pin, making a disk about half a centimetre thick. Wrap the disc of dough around the floured rolling pin and spread it out on the cake pan. Cover the dough with baking paper, letting it overhang and fill the cavity with weights to keep it in shape during baking. Bake in a hot oven at 200°C for 20 minutes. Peel the pears and cut them into thin wedges. Remove the cake from the oven, remove the paper and weights and arrange the pear slices on the bottom of the tart, arranging them to radiate with some overlapping. Pour in the cream, sprinkled with cinnamon and put back in the oven for 10 more minutes. Scatter the almond slivers on the surface and continue baking for 15 minutes.

Swiss fondue

300 g Gruyère

2 glass of white wine

1 garlic clove

1 shot glass of Kirsh

1/3 teaspoon corn flour

1 pinch of baking soda

Nutmeg

Black pepper

Grate the cheese and put it in an earthenware pan rubbed with the garlic clove. Pour the wine and cook the fondue on low heat. As soon as the cheese starts melting, add the corn flour and a bit of nutmeg with the Kirsch. Mix all the ingredients together and add a handful of black pepper with a pinch of baking soda. Serve the fondue pan on the table by putting it on a little stove on low heat.

Passatelli in broth

120 g Grana cheese

140 g stale bread

30 g beef marrow

3 eggs

1 lemon (for the zest)

Nutmeg

Salt

1 carrot

1 celery

1 onion

Cloves

1 potato

½ chicken

1 beef bone

400 g beef muscle

400 g beef meat

Place the meat in a pot with the potato, celery, onion, carrot and cloves, then add a tablespoon of coarse salt, some water and bring to boil. Cook for about 3 hours, then remove the meat and filter the broth. For the passatelli, grate the stale bread, then the Grana cheese. In a bowl, place together the eggs, a bit of nutmeg, the lemon zest and a pinch of salt and mix all the ingredients. Add the bread and the cheese and mix well. Place the mixture in a potato masher and form the passatelli (they should be around 6 centimeters long). Bring the broth to boil, then cook the passatelli for a few minutes. Serve them piping hot with the broth and some grated cheese on top.

Orange pound cake

150 g sugar

200 ml water

200 ml orange juice

100 ml vegetable oil

300 g flour

1 orange zest

16 g baking powder

Mix the sugar with lukewarm water and orange juice, then add the oil and mix again. Add the flour and the orange zest, then the baking powder. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking tin and bake at 170°C for about 40 minutes.

by Michela Becchi