Christmas salads
Christmas salads
Which salad should you make for Christmas lunch? In and around Naples you are spoiled for choice. We start with the reinforcement salad then the rocket and ‘purcchiacchielli’ salad and end with the salad with garden oranges. Here are some cooking and eating suggestions.
Reinforcement salad
A recipe that dates back to the 18th century and is today much loved by gourmets. While the cabbage was originally boiled and seasoned only with herbs and onions, it was later ‘reinforced’ with papaccelle, olives, anchovies and other delicacies.
In fact, the cauliflower once boiled can be seasoned with pickled peppers, onions, gherkins, green beans, baby carrots, celery, olives, all amalgamated with extra virgin olive oil and vinegar.
Rocket salad and ‘purcchiacchielli’
This set of herbs is also ancient. Portulaca Oleracea or ‘purcchiacchiella’ is a spontaneous herb but also a weed which is, however, rich in vitamins A, B, C and Omega 3 and therefore widely used in the past in the kitchen, when food was also medicine. The almost porcelain light color of the turgid leaves gave life to the name which in Neapolitan has been transformed into a very amusing and unusual term. In fact, according to experts of the Neapolitan language, porcelain is called ‘purcchiacca’ in dialect. Rocket goes well with Portulaca Oleracea and they can both be dressed with oil, salt, pepper and lemon or vinegar. Both are good for digestion.
Garden oranges salad
This is the simplest and can be brought to the table at the end of the Christmas banquet. After having cleaned the garden oranges and cut them into pieces, they can be seasoned with oil and salt.
