A serving dish or that in any case goes to reinforce family lunches, especially during the Christmas period. At least in Naples. We present today, with our partner “I love Italian food” the video recipe of the reinforcement salad. But don't be fooled by the name. Because even if it is a salad, it is still rich in many ingredients that make it a typical dish of the tradition. Loved not only in Central - Southern Italy but also in other regions. In fact, it includes many typical products of the gastronomy of our peninsula. So are you ready to prepare it? Before we reveal the secrets of an excellent reinforcement salad, let's give you some curiosities about this specialty.
Reinforcement salad, the origins of this dish
Tradition has it that the reinforcement salad was made especially in Campania and Naples during the Christmas period. In fact it was once served during the Christmas Eve dinner. Even if the other dishes were based on fish, families prepared these special salads to "reinforce" the dinner. The reinforcement salad also called burdiglione has boiled cauliflower as its main ingredient. To it after cleaning and cooking other local specialties are added, such as onions, green olives, gherkins. And again, to enhance the taste, the giardiniera, sweet or spicy pickled peppers and salted anchovies.
There are also many variations that leave room for the imagination of those who prepare them. What is certain is that it is a dish, served as a side dish or as an appetizer, full of colors, thanks to the ingredients it is made of. A tip: if the reinforcement salad is prepared a few hours in advance, it allows the flavors to blend. And the result is truly excellent. What then is the original recipe? Here are our suggestions.
The recipe for this dish
The procedure: boil the cauliflower in plenty of hot water, drain it and place it in a salad bowl. Add endive, mixed pickles, capers, green and black olives, papacelle in oil (it is a type of pepper used in the Neapolitan area), anchovies in oil. Season the salad, then, with extra virgin olive oil, white vinegar, salt, pepper. Mix well and serve. The ingredients for the salad: a cauliflower, an endive, 100 grams of mixed pickles, 100 grams of green olives and 100 grams of drinking olives, 100 grams of capers, 100 grams of papacelle in oil. Finally add 6-8 anchovies in oil, oil, vinegar, salt and pepper as required.
The video recipe of “I love Italian food” is promoted with chef Andrea Ruisi and created by Giacomo Galluzzi. This is the original salad as it was once made. And it still finds space in Neapolitan Christmas dinners. But there are many variations: there are even those who add leftovers from previous days to the boiled cauliflower base every day. So you can enjoy this dish even on New Year's Eve. Loved and celebrated by many Neapolitan authors and also at the theater, we also suggest you enjoy it with a good one wine that knows how to enrich the taste of every single ingredient even more.
