Italian food and cooking courses
Fish menu:
Antipasto (starters): Insalata di mare (cold rice with seafood) and baccalà mantecato
(minced)
Primo piatto (first course): Spaghetti con le vongole (clams)
Secondo piatto (second course): Scampi or filetti di pesce (fish fillet) ai sapori del
mediterraneo
Contorno (vegetables): Insalata (salad)
Dessert: Lemon sorbetto (sherbert) or strawberry made with fragolino wine |
Insalata (salad)
Baccalà mantecato (Codfish)
Spaghetti alle vongole (clams)
Scampi
Sorbetto (sherbert) |
Vicenza is known for its baccalà, a poor man's food which today is highly valued. Baccalà is a
richly flavored dish which requires a good deal of preparation and is served with polenta. We
propose a simpler style of cooking it but which is equally rich and flavorful.
We begin our fish dinner with a seafood salad made with squid, calamari, octopus and shrimp
boiled and dressed with citronette (lime) and flavoured with garlic and parsley.
Alternatively, a typical Venetian and Veneto dish - baccalà mantecato, a stockfish which has
had all bones removed and is beaten repeatedly to a pulp, boiled and prepared with oil and
milk until it becomes a cream to be served with grilled polenta.
Spaghetti and clams (in Venice they especially value "caparozzoli" clams) is a classic seafood
dish where the aroma of garlic and parsley blends perfectly with tasty tomatoes and clams.
Scampi alla busara is a light and tasty treat which is much appreciated in the northern
Adriatic region of Italy.
This wonderful dish is easily prepared with simple ingredients like garlic, onions and
tomatoes but it is the rich taste of scampi which makes it so tasty.
For those who prefer fish to crustaceans we propose a simple way of cooking fish using local
products: in the oven, wrapped in aluminum foil, dressed with olives, capers, cherry tomatoes
and aromatic herbs and spices. These genuine flavours really bring out the best in fish.
Vegetables mix well with seafood flavors, so we suggest a good mixed salad fresh from the
garden (novella, soncino, radicchietto) dressed with
extra virgin olive oil to accompany the
above proposals.
We top off our fish dinner with fresh fruit taste like lemon sherbert from lemons growing
along the banks of Lake Garda or the sweet taste of strawberry and fragolino wine from
fermented juice rather than wine to give it a real kick.
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