For this Christmas my blog-partner Jennifer and I decided to reinvent a few Italian festive recipes with the intent of making them a little bit lighter and healthier.
This antipasto is part of the Italian festive-yet-healthy dishes we created.
Jennifer Cauli is a friend and a talented food & travel photographer who also comes from Italy. Together we joined forces to create a series of recipes (and pictures) that would use the typical Italian ingredients, but also have a contemporary and healthy twist.
We are very happy of our project and we hope to continue offering you great recipe ideas.
What I have realised during over three decades of dinner parties and, particularly, Christmas parties is that we all often start binging on appetizers and starters —high-calorie foods, made with refined ingredients and almost zero fibre— to find ourselves feeling full before the main meal even arrives on the table. For this reason, I like to inspire my guests with low-calorie vegan or vegetarian starters, and to share with you the recipes I tried.
Polenta is a delicious food, typical from Italy. In my region, Lombardy, there is no party without polenta, but this corn-flour pudding gets generally served as a contorno, together with roasted or stewed meat. Since polenta is very light, gluten-free and has a delicate flavour that works well with pretty much anything, Jenny and I decided to use it as a base for our Christmas starters.
The combination of vegetables we used as topping also has the traditional flavours of Italy. However you could potentially use other veggies if you don’t like mushrooms or cavolo nero.
Once I read that the ancient Romans believed mushrooms were the “food of the Gods” and I think most of us (Italians) still see mushrooms in the same way.
The properties contained in mushrooms are slightly different depending on each variety. For this recipes we used chestnut mushrooms which are rich in vitamin K —an essential nutrient that helps ensure healthy blood and bones—B vitamins and minerals such as copper and selenium. These succulent vegetables are also an amazing source of antioxidants and immune-boosting compounds such as beta-glucans.
Cavolo Nero, also known as Tuscan Kale, is just an Italian variety of kale with dark green-blue leaves —here the adjective “nero” which means black.
Kale belongs to the cruciferous vegetable family, known for its high amounts of phytonutrients which help promoting detoxification and protecting against cell-aging. Like most leafy green vegetable, kale is also high in beta-carotene, vitamin C, vitamin K and minerals, especially manganese.
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 35 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes
Serves 2
POLENTA
200g Instant polenta
800ml water or vegetable stock
1 tsp salt
MUSHROOM SAUCE
200g chestnut mushrooms
1-2 cloves garlic
15g butter
30ml red wine
100g tomato sauce
a few leaves of Cavolo nero (kale)
100ml water
5g butter
1/2 lemon squeezed
TO SERVE
a bunch of parsley
INSTRUCTIONS
For the polenta I recommend using Instant polenta unless
you want to spend hours cooking. For best results follow the
instructions on the package. We used De Cecco polenta for
mine. It just needs about 8 minutes to be ready.
The procedure is more or less the same for every polenta
though, it consists in boiling your water or vegetable stock in a large
pot, add in some salt to your liking.
Then remove the pot from the stove and pour in the polenta
slowly into the water while stirring.
After you poured it all in, bring back the pot on the stove and
cook at low heat stirring continuously for about 8 minutes or
until the water is fully absorbed.
Take a large flat tray and pour in your polenta. It should form a
layer about 1 inch thick. Leave to cool down.
In the meantime we can work at our mushroom sauce.
First thing clean your mushrooms using the tip of the knife to
scrape a tiny bit the stalk and use a kitchen towel to clean the
mushroom top.
Slice your mushroom into small pieces.
In a small pan heat up the butter and when it is melted add in
the garlic cloves. Cook for 2-5 minutes or until they have some
colour. Add in your mushrooms previously cut, add half a glass
of water and cook with the lid on for about 10-15 minutes at
low heat. Your mushrooms are ready when they are soft.
Spoon in your tomato sauce and cook at low heat for another
10 minutes. Season to taste and sprinkle some parsley.
Now we will quickly prep the Cavolo Nero that will form a base for our
mushroom sauce to seat on top of the polenta. Wash the kale,
then on a chopping board shred it into 1 inch wide strips.
Bring to the boil 100ml of water with salt, add in the butter and
lemon juice and cook your kale for about 5 minutes or until
tender. Drain it well and set aside.
Cut your polenta into circles with a cookie cutter.
Heat up a pan and heat-up the polenta for about 2 minutes
per side.
Place the circles on a serving tray. Then place some of the kale
leaves on top of each one and spoon in some your mushroom
sauce.
The polenta cakes are now ready, they are also delicious
served at room temperature.
Cromo Nutrition 