13 Ingredients
Celery
1
stalk
|
Pecorino cheese
200
gr
|
Grana Padano cheese
200
gr
|
Sunflower seeds
5
tablespoons
|
Garlic (fresh)
2
cloves
|
Pumpkin
1
kg
|
Cane sugar
500
gr
|
Rosemary
1
sprig
|
Ginger root
5-6
cm
|
Aged Vezzena cheese
|
Extra virgin olive oil
|
Salt
|
Black pepper
|
Here are two kinds of cicchetti, the Venetian bar snacks: delicious with an aperitivo and easy to make.
Crostini with celery leaf and pecorino pesto
This recipe uses up celery leaves, which usually get thrown away unless they go into a stock.
Ingredients:
the leaves of one head of celery
200 g Pecorino Romano
200 g Grana Padano
5 tablespoons sunflower seeds
2 garlic cloves
extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper
Method:
Blend all the ingredients, adding oil to bring everything together, but keep aside a couple of tablespoons of sunflower seeds and 50 g of pecorino.
Spread the pesto on crostini and decorate with the sunflower seeds and thin shavings of the pecorino you set aside.
It is also very good on pasta, as an alternative to classic basil pesto.
Crostini with pumpkin jam, aged Vezzena cheese and toasted pumpkin seeds
Ingredients:
1 pumpkin weighing 1 kg
500 g cane sugar
1 sprig of rosemary
a 5-6 cm piece of fresh ginger root
Method:
Clean the pumpkin, cut it into chunks and put it in a pot with the sugar, the chopped ginger and the rosemary sprig.
Add two glasses of water and bring to the boil. Cook for about 2 hours, until the pumpkin has turned into a smooth cream.
While it is still boiling hot, transfer it to jars suitable for vacuum sealing, close them and turn them upside down: this way the jam keeps outside the fridge too.
Use the jam for crostini with an aged cheese such as Vezzena stravecchio, topped with toasted pumpkin seeds.
