Antipasto platter, Umbria style
( Antipasto Umbro )

How to prepare an assorted antipasto platter, Umbria-style

Preparation and cooking

• - Look at the photo, please. My husband and I wanted to highlight some essential ingredients in this antipasto platter but you don't see any cheese that, on the contrary, you may add depending on your personal taste. Normally you may add seasoned sheep's milk cheese, truffle and chili-flavored cheese, seasoned ricotta. Remember to serve them with honey. It's cool in Italy!
• - Typical Umbrian cold cuts are prosciutto that in central Italy is cut by hand, capocollo, cured pancetta, variety of salami and then there are other specialties such as "coglioni del mulo ", "palle del nonno", corallina from Norcia (more details in the link below). Not to mention all the sausages and salami made ​​with wild boar and deer. Besides the list of salami flavored with black truffles, another typical product of the area, is long. You see the choice is very wide.
  Nowadays you can find easily these specialties on food stores via Internet. To get an idea start with websites we suggest below.
• - To serve the classic Umbrian starter, do not forget some toasted bread slices with seasonal ingredients on top (crostini) and a frittata (omelette) slice. The most popular frittata ingredients are truffles and asparagus (in spring).
  To prepare frittata that serves 4 use 4 eggs, 3 tablespoons olive oil and 30g (1 ounce) black truffles. You can make this kind of frittata with thin slices of black truffles as you can see in this photo or with grated truffles. Choose the way you prefer. The link to recipe directions below.
  What kind of crostini can you prepare? There is a wide choice. We chose crostini with mushrooms in oil for the platter on the photo. But, simplier, you can choose to spread a truffle paté or truffle-and mushroom-paté on the toasted bread. Other typical crostini, made with chicken livers, are very common in Tuscany and all the central part of Italy, Umbria included. Another tasty idea is crostini from Spoleto with black truffles on the top.
• - An important ingredient of this antipasto platter is black truffle, a typical ingredient in Umbria. In fact there are a lot of truffle-flavored cheeses and salami in Umbria.

Note

Tips

• - This Umbrian antipasto platter is quick-to-do and very tasty.
• - Serve this Umbrian antipasto platter accompanied with loaf slices, Tuscan salt-free bread should be the perfect choice!
• - In general, we prefer not to put together cheeses and cold cuts. People intolerant to cheese are many more than you can imagine. Prepare more plates. One for cold cuts, crostini and frittatas and possibly a second for various cheeses accompanied by honey.

Menu planning

• - If you start your menu, Italian style, with this antipasto platter, you could choose the other courses according Umbrian cuisine. read more on the page dedicated to Umbria. Scroll down the page for its link.

Useful links for this recipe

• - More details on Umbrian cold cuts on this page.
• - You could be interested in buying Umbrian food via internet. Here are some websites: igourmet.com, alibaba.com. Choose only Italian suppliers ;)
• - Here is the recipe for frittata with black truffle.
  And this is the link to consult our directory about crostini recipes, to look for your favorite one.
• - If you want to know more details about black truffle, read the page we dedicated to this typical Italian food.

Healthy eating

• - As you can see reading its nutrition facts, this is a real meal. Even more. Of course, if you follow a healthy and balanced diet a plate of this kind should be consumed rarely.
• - To reduce calories, protein and fat the only remedy is to eat less amount of cold cuts.

What's the right wine for " Antipasto platter, Umbria style "?

My husband Carlo and I usually match a red wine such as Orvieto or Torgiano (both red wines of Umbria)

Are you interested in Umbria? we dedicated a page to this region with recipes, some wine cards and reviews of the restaurants where we ate. Follow the link!