To amaze at the Christmas lunch or Christmas Eve dinner, here are the chefs' dishes to make at home, together with the advice for the best combinations with wine and craft beer.

Christmas is approaching and with it the search for the perfect menu to bring to the table. From the starter to the dessert, here are four <a href="https://www.lofficielitalia.com/food/ricette-invernali-autunnali-fai-da-te-chef" target="_blank">interpretations</a> by chefs Marco Ambrosino , Francesco Mascheroni , Marcello Corrado and Claudio Sadler , each with its own beverage combination.

Cod salad, cauliflower, sour onions and nutmeg

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Marco Ambrosino , chef of 28 seats , to inaugurate the Christmas menu recommends a delicious and really simple recipe to make at home based on cod. To start you need to make the sweet and sour onions. You will need these ingredients:

1 red onion

1 stick of ground queen cinnamon

100 ml of water

250 ml of apple cider vinegar

3 tablespoons of coarse salt

3 tablespoons of sugar

2 fresh bay leaves

Add the salt, sugar, apple cider vinegar, water, cinnamon and bay leaves and bring to a boil. Meanwhile, cut the red onions into not too large wedges and put them in a container. As soon as the brine comes to a boil, pour it over the onions and leave to macerate.

Then continue with the cauliflower, here are the ingredients:

1 cauliflower

250 ml of apple cider vinegar

3 tablespoons of coarse salt

Obtain small clumps of cauliflower and blanch them in salted water for about 2 minutes. Cool them immediately and season with apple cider vinegar and salt.

Then move on to the cod emulsion with:

100g desalted cod

100g sunflower oil

Spice oil

Put the seed oil and cod in a saucepan. Turn on the smaller stove for a few minutes. The cod does not have to fry, but only to cool down. After about 10 minutes, blend the oil and cod and season with nutmeg.

Finally, bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook the desalted cod over low heat for 5 minutes, then drain and dry. At this point, pour a spoonful of cod emulsion into the dish, place the cauliflower sprigs and the peeled cod. Complete with the onions in sour and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

To be combined with Natavota, KBirr

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A beer that speaks Neapolitan, Natavota is part of KBirr&#39;s Neapolitan artisan line. It is a very light and easy to drink blonde lager, tasty thanks to the sweet notes and a moderately bitter finish. Fresh and thirst-quenching, with its roundness it enriches the dish of chef Marco Ambrosino with a pinch of sweetness.

Pumpkin tortelli, fried sage, mustard and Parmigiano Reggiano

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From the Armani Ristorante comes the recipe for the first course of chef Francesco Mascheroni , a stuffed egg pasta with pleasant crunchy notes of sage. For the traditional egg pasta you will need:

500 gr flour

165 gr semolina

2 whole eggs

300 gr yolks

Salt to taste

For the filling of the tortelli you need:

1.5 kg pumpkin

1 stick of lemongrass

1 cinnamon stick

1 organic lemon

30 gr brown sugar

1 yolk

1 egg

50 gr butter

6 sage leaves

125 gr cream

30 gr Parmigiano Reggiano

salt up to taste

pepper as needed

First, peel and cut the pumpkin into wedges, remove the seeds and place it in a foil with the lemon peel, cinnamon, lemongrass, sugar and a pinch of salt. Close well and bake for 2 hours and 30 minutes in the oven at 165 &deg;. Remove and let cool. Meanwhile, fry the sage in butter, once you have crispy leaves, remove them from the pan and continue cooking the butter until it becomes nutty. Remove from heat and separately reduce the cream by 1/3. Put the cooked pumpkin in foil in a food processor and blend adding the eggs, reduced cream, hazelnut butter, fried sage, Parmesan, salt and pepper. The dough must be smooth. Allow to cool, put in a piping bag.

Complete by melting a knob of butter in a pan, insert the sage and fry it, once crunchy remove it and put it on absorbent paper. Add 3 tablespoons of hot salted water to the butter to create the emulsion. Cook the tortelli in water, and once they are ready, put them in the pan with the butter and over moderate heat, move gently creating the emulsion with the butter. Put on the plate and finish with some pieces of pumpkin mustard, grated Parmesan cheese and fried sage.

To be combined with Nerd di Ferro13

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Nero d&#39;Avola Sicilia Doc unique of its kind, is obtained from pre-macerated grapes, which give delicacy and fragrance to the wine. Soft in appearance, Nerd is decisive on the palate, with pleasant spicy notes of anise and cinnamon, ideal for enhancing the crunchy textures and the pumpkin mustard of chef Francesco Mascheroni &#39;s dish.

Pheasant breast in crepinette with winter vegetables in different cooking methods and textures

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From Tuscany, more precisely from Rocca d&#39;Orcia, comes the recipe for the main course for the Christmas menu. This is the Pheasant Breast in crepinette by chef Marcello Corrado of Osteria Perill&agrave; . To make it you need:

4 pheasant breasts

1 celeriac

4 ratte potatoes

2 parsnip roots

2 spring onions

2 carrots

2 Jerusalem artichokes

500ml of milk

Maldon salt, pepper, oil, raspberry vinegar, thyme, rosemary. to taste

First, wrap the previously skinned, salted and peppered pheasant breasts. Place the breasts thus obtained in a vacuum bag with the herbs and a drizzle of oil. Cook at 62 &deg; for 15 minutes. If necessary, sear over high heat until the crepinette becomes golden and crunchy.

Blanch the carrots and spring onion separately, cut the celeriac into 1 cm cubes and cook them. With the scraps make a cream. Steam the Jerusalem artichoke and make a cream from its pulp, while the parsnip is placed inside an aluminum foil and baked in the oven at 160 &deg; for 30 minutes. Finally, cook the ratte potatoes in water, milk and rosemary.

Quickly roast the breasts, let the meat rest and scallop it. Arrange all the cooked vegetables and the cream harmoniously next to the meat. Season with Maldon salt, oil and a few drops of raspberry vinegar.

To be paired with Santa Sofia Amarone della Valpolicella Riserva 2012

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Ideal with game dishes, such as the pheasant breast of chef Marcello Corrado, the Amarone della Valpolicella Riserva 2012 by Santa Sofia has an intense cherry red color. Ripe red fruit and raspberry stand out on the nose, with pleasant spicy and coffee notes. Its important structure is extremely balanced and harmonious on the palate, with a pleasant persistence on the finish. Intense and elegant, the Santa Sofia 2012 Riserva is thus the ideal label to accompany the main course of the Christmas menu.

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Traditional Christmas cake with three leavenings, pandoro is loved by many thanks to its soft dough. According to chef Claudio Sadler, who this year signs his own Pandoro , its composition, rich in fresh butter and eggs, makes it a complete product in itself, good to be enjoyed in purity and even more so if accompanied with special sauces capable to enhance its natural goodness. Here is Claudio Sadler&#39;s ginger cream, pistachio mousse and Grand Marnier cream.

Ginger cream

250 g milk

4 egg yolks

70 g sugar

Grated zest of 1 lemon

100 g Muscat

30 g fresh ginger

150 g whipped cream

In a saucepan, put half the sugar with the grated ginger, add the muscatel and simmer for 5 minutes, thickening. Separately, beat the egg yolks with the remaining sugar. Boil the milk and pour it into the egg yolks, return the saucepan to the heat and reach the pink point (95 &deg; C). Incorporate the ginger syrup that has thickened in the meantime, let it cool and then add the cream. Transfer the cream into a container and place in the refrigerator to harden.

Pistachio foam

100 g pistachio cream

200 g liquid cream

30 g powdered sugar

In a bowl, dissolve the pistachio cream with the cream, add the icing sugar and then pass the cream through a sieve. Pour the resulting product into a siphon, load it and store it in the refrigerator until ready for use.

Grand Marnier cream

250g milk

5 egg yolks

60 g tablespoons of sugar

30 g of grand marnier

Orange zest to taste

Boil the milk with the grated orange peel, separately beat the egg yolks with the sugar until a frothy mixture is obtained. Once the milk has boiled, pour it into the mixture of egg yolks and sugar, dissolve well with the help of a whisk and bring everything to 85 &deg; while continuing to mix. At this point the mixture will thicken becoming a cream. Pass the cream through a sieve and let it cool, add the Grand Marnier and serve together with Claudio Sadler&#39;s Pandoro .

To be combined with Blanc de Blancs 2012 by Bruno Paillard

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The Christmas menu ends with Bruno Paillard&#39;s Blanc de Blancs 2012 and the refined label illustrated by the Japanese artist Takehiko Sugawara. Produced exclusively with the first pressing of the Chardonnay Grand Crus of the C&ocirc;te des Blancs: Oger and Mesnil-sur-Oger, after 8 years of aging in the cellar and at least 18 months of rest from disgorgement, it shows a bright golden color and a perlage fine and lively.

Christmas menu: chefs' recipes

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