Saint Valentine’s Day Menu

An evening where the food is dedicated to a loved one – it’s Saint Valentine ’s Day, for sure, but why can’t it be a dinner with good friends? – we have asked our chef Ferdinando Martinotti to teach us three essential recipes which are easy to produce and yet capable of striking the palate with aromatic, sensual notes.
The ingredients below are for four people.

Antipasto
Lightly spiced scampi with cinnamon, early fennel and Sardinian artichokes
Peel 12 scampi and dust with a little powdered cinnamon. Prepare a small salad with 4 baby fennel and 2 Sardinian artichokes, season with salt, extra-virgin olive oil and a little lemon juice. Briefly fry the scampi in a frying-pan with a drop of oil, a garlic clove, a shallot and a small sprig of thyme. Serve the small salad and decorate the plate with a sprig of fresh chervil.

First course
Soft potato and leek cream with a crunchy scallop garnish
Clean and chop 100g of the white of a leek into small disks. Peel and slice 500 g of Ratte potatoes. In a large casserole pan, soften the leek with 70g of extra-virgin olive oil and 50g of butter, add the potatoes, add the 800g of chicken stock and cook it over a moderate heat until the potatoes are very tender. Mash the potatoes and add 300ml of fresh cream; adjust the flavour with salt and white pepper.
Clean 4 scallops and remove the coral; quickly fry them on both sides in a pan with 80g of butter, for 1 or 2 minutes maximum. Serve the potato-cream warm, with a scallop in the centre, a few pinches of Maldon sea-salt flakes, a tuft of leeks (green part) cut into julienne slices and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.

Second course
Crunchy fillet soles with semi-matured Asiago foam
Finely crush 200g of bread-sticks. Dip 12 fillets of sole in a little flour, then in a lightly beaten and salted egg and then in the crushed bread-sticks. Briefly cook the fillets in 60g of butter and 60g of oil until they are golden on both sides, then let them dry off on a piece of absorbent kitchen paper. Melt 50g of semi-matured Asiago cheese cut into cubes in 200g of hot fish stock. When the cream is smooth add 50g of fresh cream and whisk the creamy mixture with 30g of cold butter using a hand-blender. Serve the hot fillets immediately with the Asiago foam.

details "Sauvignon Peck 2006" >>

details "Asiago DOP" >>