Tuesday 20 December 2011

A Traditional Abruzzo Christmas Delight:Recipe from Life in Abruzzo Blog!

Following recipes has never been my forte, but seeing one for the traditional Abbruzzo Christmas "Calgionetti", in Life in Abruzzo blog, spurred me to have a go, and the results are truly delicious!! These special treats were made by my mother every Christmas time, and she used to make hundreds of them for us to eat, and also to share with friends and family. Sadly I wasn't at all interested in cooking in my youth, so I did not pay attention to how these were made. Imagine my delight when I came across the recipe! Without hesitating, I knew I had to make them and hopefully you will be inspired to make them, too.

Please note that this recipe contains quite a few nuts, so will not be to everyone's taste.

I noted today that homemade calgionetti were on sale in the special Christmas food section of SISA, the local supermarket. They were selling them for 18.50 Euros a kilo, which makes them quite a delicacy!!

Here is a link to the post"Caggionetti, Calggionetti, Cagiunitt" where you too can make your own Abruzzo special Christmas treats, if you follow the instructions carefully!

The ingredients required for "calgionetti" can be found in the Wordle below!

Below you can see images I took of some of the stages.

Boiling the chestnuts, an important part of the process!

Rolling out the dough made from flour, olive oil and wine! A copy of the Life in Abruzzo recipe which I used can be seen next to the rolling pin and dough.

The pastries waiting to be fried!

Angel Delight
The angel you can see in the photos certainly helped me to create these yummy sweets which are a traditional part of the Christmas festivities! She was able to oversee the delicate process while I made two batches.

The finished pastries, sprinkled with icing sugar, waiting to be devoured!

To make these Calgionetti, please read and follow the recipe instructions in Life in Abruzzo.

I have just submitted an article for the series on "A Few of My Favourite Abruzzo Things", so please watch this space for further details coming soon!

2 comments:

sammy said...

How I would love to be the angel sitting above those drinking in their rum & chocolate aroma! They look gorgeous Janet,thank you so much for the very kind mention of our recipe

Janet Bianchini said...

Hi Sammy

It's my pleasure to mention your fabulous recipe, as otherwise there would have been no calgionetti this year! Thank you so much for your kind comment.

We had friends around this morning for calgionetti with Marsala, and I have to say, these special pastries really went down a treat!!

Buon Natale :-)))