Ideas for a mediterranean-style Easter menu

We Italians love special occasions and Easter is one of our favorite times of year, a chance to get together with friends and family and raise our glasses to the start of the summer.

Easter bunnies and chicks, floral arrangements, and decorated and chocolate eggs of all sizes dominate our tables along with pastel-colored Easter-inspired tableware. But although table decorations have their place, it is more important that home chefs have everything under control when it comes to their Easter Sunday and Easter Monday menus.

There are many culinary traditions connected with Easter Monday lunch but at this time of year it is important to prioritize seasonal products: from asparagus and artichokes to broad beans, without forgetting fresh salads and the first strawberries of the year.

Easter Monday lunch menu from A to Z

Struggling to come up with ideas for your Easter Monday lunch? Don’t worry, today we bring you a series of tasty and easy to make Mediterranean-inspired recipes so you can organize your Monday of the Angel lunch from Antipasto right through to dessert, or rather, Zabaione.

Easter Monday appetizers

We begin our Easter Monday lunch with that most symbolic of spring vegetables: asparagus. With its unmistakable flavor and excellent nutritional properties, in this dish they are fried. Having removed the woody part with a potato peeler, boil them in lightly salted water for 5 minutes and drain. Cut each asparagus in half then line them up parallel and pierce with two toothpicks. Dip them in egg and bread them with flour and breadcrumbs. Cook them in a pan over low heat with a drizzle of oil, then serve accompanied with some of the dips you can also find in our tasty appetizers... you won’t be able to resist temptation!

Classic Easter Monday appetizers also include the typically Ligurian Torta Pasqualina pie made of eggs and artichokes, but to really amaze the most demanding palates we propose a very special dish that expands the list of possible pairings with our Taggiasca Olive Spread.

We are talking about a savory Colomba filled, as mentioned, with olive spread. To make it you will need the following ingredients: 9 oz 00 flour, 9 oz Manitoba flour, 2 eggs, 7 fl oz milk, 3 fl oz of Carli Pure Olive Oil, 1 teaspoon sugar, 0.7 oz brewer's yeast, and, of course, Carli Taggiasca Olive Spread. Start by putting the room temperature milk and the brewer's yeast in a large bowl with a teaspoon of sugar. Add in the eggs, the 00 flour, the Manitoba flour and the our Pure Olive Oil. Knead the mixture, adding salt as you go, until you have a smooth dough. Cover in plastic wrap and leave to proof for at least three hours. At this point roll out the dough on a lightly floured work surface and divide into two equal parts: roll out one part in the shape of a rectangle, fill with the olive pate and roll up to form a loaf (i.e. the body of the ‘dove’); roll out the other part and fill in the same way but then divide it into two parts to form the wings. After the second proofing, brush with beaten egg and decorate as desired with seeds. Bake in a preheated conventional oven at 350F for 40 minutes or until golden brown and serve with our Vegetables in Oil.

First courses for Easter Monday

Another smart dish for Easter Monday lunch is baked pasta frittata, an easy and very tasty recipe that can also be served as a main course. For this dish you will need spaghetti, eggs, Parmesan cheese and scamorza cheese, but it is also an excellent way of using leftover pasta from the day before. A generous drizzle of Carli Pure Olive Oil and you're good to go.

To finish, our Easter Monday sweets

We can also use our recycling skills for dessert too. Having been served at the end of lunch on Easter Sunday, our Extra Virgin Olive Oil Easter Cake can be reused as part of our Easter Monday menu but in another guise, in this case together with strawberry zabaione. It is a good idea to start preparing this recipe the night before so you can relax on Easter Monday. To make the cream whip 4 egg yolks and 2 oz of sugar with a whisk. Then pour in half a glass of Carli Marsala. Cook the zabaione in a bain marie for 4-5 minutes, whisking all the time. Cool in a bowl of water and ice. Puree 5-6 strawberries with 2-3 tablespoons of Carli Marsala in a blender. Drizzle the strawberry sauce over the zabaione to form a spiral pattern and then use to garnish slices of the cake.

If the weather enables you to organize a traditional Easter Monday barbecue, don't forget to accompany your grilled meat with our Rossese di Dolceacqua D.O.C. and to put one of our appetizers with piadina in your hamper to add a touch of class to your rustic picnic. Follow our tips and your Easter Monday menu is sure to surprise and delight your guests in equal measure.

If the weather enables you to organize a traditional Easter Monday barbecue, don't forget to accompany your grilled meat with our Rossese di Dolceacqua D.O.C. and to put one of our appetizers with piadina in your hamper to add a touch of class to your rustic picnic. Follow our tips and your Easter Monday menu is sure to surprise and delight your guests in equal measure.