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Easter is a great time to bring together family and friends for a feast or several and if you’ve been tasked with doing the cooking, you’ll want easy and tasty recipes to satiate all (until the chocolate onslaught).
So, we reached out to our chef friends to find out what they like to cook at home over Easter for their loved ones.
Here we have four great chef’s recipes that are easily achievable by the home cook and certified delicious.
So if you want to cook like a pro at home this Easter and wow your guests, get cracking with these recipes from four brilliant chefs.
Vine leaf (yaprak aşı) by Kemal Demirasal, chef-founder of The Counter, London
Photo: Sam Harris
“The traditional stuffed vine leaf is a brilliant yet delicate dish, with a couple of elements that are hard to work with,” says Demirasal. “This recipe is a version of it that can be made in one pot, without any need for intricate rolling and stuffing – making it a great option for a family gathering, adding a homely and hearty dish to the mix.”
Serves
4
Ingredients
250g/9oz vine leaves, drained and washed until the salt brine taste is gone
250g/9oz bulgur
1 tbsp pepper paste
1 tsp sumac
100g/3.5oz pomegranate molasses
1 whole white onion (diced)
3 garlic cloves (finely chopped)
1/2 bunch of fresh dill
Salt and pepper to taste
100g/3.5oz olive oil
Pomegranates to garnish
Yoghurt to garnish
Method
Add some olive oil to a pot and place over medium heat before sautéing the onions.
As your onions begin to sweat, add a pinch of salt and pepper, followed by your garlic and sauté for another two minutes.
Next, add the pepper paste and continue to cook on medium heat for another three minutes before adding your bulgur and vine leaves.
Sauté all the ingredients for another two minutes before adding hot water (enough to cover the bulgur) and simmer until the bulgur is cooked (when the water evaporates at approx. 10-12 minutes).
Take your pot off the heat and add the sumac, molasses and finely chopped dill before mixing to combine all the elements.
Let this cool until room temperature, before serving on each plate with a spoon of yogurt, 8-10 pomegranate seeds and a sprinkle of sumac.
If you like you can add some more olive oil to finish, and a drizzle of molasses.
Minestra maritata (wedding soup) by Rosanna Marziale, chef of Le Colonne Marziale, Caserta, Italy
“It's not Easter without minestra maritata: for me, it's an everlasting memory, shared with those who are there and those who are no longer,” says Marziale. “It’s a bit like pastiera, the typical Easter cake: everyone in Campania has their own recipe. It can vary by a few ingredients and, in some cases, even a few are added. For me, it is the dish par excellence for both Christmas and Easter: it is the combination of at least seven different types of leafy vegetables, which are 'marinated' together with pieces of meat. The result is something incredible, nutritious and satisfying.”
Serves
20
Ingredients
800g/1.8lbs beef (tougher cut suitable for braising)
600g/1.3lbs pork ribs
2 pig's feet
1kg/2.2lbs fresh sausage
200g/7oz pork rind
200g/7oz strained bacon
3kg/6.5lbs mixed vegetables (escarole, borage, chicory, chard, torzelle, black broccoli, Savoy cabbage)
To taste: carrot, red onion, celery stalk, Parmesan and Pecorino cheeses, olive oil, chilli pepper, white wine, salt, pepper
Method
Blanch the different types of vegetables individually and set aside, saving some of the cooking water.
In a large saucepan, put carrots and celery with plenty of water and cook the meat, taking care to skim well while cooking.
To assemble everything, fry the red onion and bacon in a pan with extra virgin olive oil, then add the blanched and diced meat, deglaze with white wine and add the vegetables a little at a time.
Then add the meat and vegetable stock (obtained from cooking) and simmer.
Finally, add Pecorino and Parmesan cheese, a pinch of chilli pepper and pepper.
The variations of this recipe are endless: you can add a leg of ham, or Parmesan cheese rind, or chicken broth (in this version, the soup can is called 'minestra signorina').
Stuffed turkey by Enrico Cerea, chef of Da Vittorio, Brusaporto, Italy
"Stuffed turkey is an institution in our family, because it is always prepared for all the family members by Mamma Bruna, who inherited the recipe from Papa Vittorio," says Cerea, chef of the three-Michelin-starred restaurant Da Vittorio in the province of Bergamo. "It is a typical custom in the Bergamo countryside to prepare this dish for festivities and the filling may vary depending on the time of year and the seasonality of the ingredients, but ours is the most mouth-watering and heady ever!”
Serves
4
Ingredients
1 turkey
100g/3.5oz salami paste
100g/3.5oz pork
100g/3.5oz veal
50g/1.75oz amaretti biscuits
50g/1.75oz grated cheese
50g/1.75oz breadcrumbs
2 eggs
½ glass of white wine
1 onion, chopped
To taste: salt, pepper, parsley, nutmeg
For cooking
2 carrots
1 onion
2 celery stalks
1 cup of stock
1 glass of white wine
To taste: sage, rosemary, oil, salt, potatoes, cipolline onions
Method
Pass the pork, veal and salami paste through a meat grinder or roughly chop.
Fry the chopped onion in the oil, add the meat, fry it, add the white wine and let it evaporate.
Then add the amaretti, chopped parsley and a cup of stock and cook for about 10 minutes until dry.
Remove from the heat, add the breadcrumbs, cheese, eggs and nutmeg.
Stuff the turkey, sew it up and bake it in the oven at 180°C/356°F for about an hour.
Bread cake by chef Davide Marzullo of Trattoria Contemporanea Lomazzo, Lomazzo, Italy
An example of a traditional Italian bread cake. Photo: iStock
“At Easter time, my mother always prepared bread cake,” says Marzullo, a global finalist at the last edition of S.Pellegrino Young Chef Academy Competition. “She collected leftover bread from the whole week, which was always a waste ingredient, but in this recipe it becomes a valuable resource to prepare a cake that for me has all the scents and flavours of childhood linked to the Easter holiday. As a child I did not understand this recipe because my mother included sultanas, candied fruit and stale bread among the ingredients, flavours were not among my favourites. So, my mother would add chocolate chips for me and my sister in a separate cake on the side. I would watch my mother in the kitchen preparing two cakes, one with only candied and dried fruit for the grown-ups, and the other with the addition of chocolate for us little ones. The smell of the bread in the cake is imprinted in my memory, and to celebrate this beautiful memory linked to Easter, I have included my version of bread cake 2.0 on the menu at Trattoria Contemporanea.”
Ingredients
300g/10.6oz stale bread
150g/5.3 fl oz fresh milk
2 eggs
50g/1.75oz flour
100g/3.5oz dark chocolate
100g/3.5oz sultanas
100g/3.5oz candied orange and lemon
50g/1.75oz amaretti biscuits
Method
The night before, roughly break up the bread and place it in a large bowl. Add the milk and cover. Let it rest in the fridge overnight.
The next day add the eggs and flour and mix well. You can do this with a large spoon, but also with a planetary mixer. Also add sultanas (previously soaked in water), candied fruit, crushed amaretti and the chocolate chips. Mix again.
Grease and flour a 24-cm cake tin and pour the mixture into it. Level with a spoon or spatula and bake at 180°C for 25 minutes.
This is a low cake without yeast and may look very compact to the eye, but the result on the palate is amazing because the bread, soaked in milk overnight, makes it soft and enveloping.
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