Christmas tigelle with tuna, with homemade Russian salad, a simple, quick, and no-cook appetizer perfect for completing your Christmas table.
Easy and economical idea even for those less experienced in the kitchen.
In this recipe, you can replace tigelle with milk buns or mini flatbreads, the latter after preheating them for a few moments.
What are tigelle?
Tigelle, also known as crescenta or crescentina, is a characteristic bread from the Apennines of Modena, made from a dough of type 0 and 00 flour, milk, lard or, alternatively, oil and salt, resembling small flatbreads in shape.
Below I’ll leave you the recipe for making homemade flatbreads if you want to replace tigelle, even in a vegan version.
- Difficulty: Very Easy
- Cost: Very Economical
- Rest time: 20 Minutes
- Preparation time: 20 Minutes
- Portions: 6 pieces
- Cooking methods: No Cooking
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Christmas
Ingredients
- 6 tigelle (or mini flatbreads)
- 5.3 oz Russian salad (follow the linked recipe to make it at home)
- 3.5 oz tuna in oil (drained, approximately)
Steps
To make the Christmas tigelle with tuna, first, we can prepare the Russian salad with a few simple steps, following my recipe summarized below.
Ingredients
1.8 oz carrots (julienned, net weight)
1.8 oz celeriac (already cleaned weight)
1 tbsp mustard
lemon juice
1.8 oz cooked ham
1.8 oz Gruyere cheese (or Emmental)
for the egg-free mayonnaise
6.8 fl oz sunflower oil (cold from the fridge)
3.4 fl oz milk (as preferred, dairy or soy-based cold from the fridge)
1 pinch fine salt
1 tbsp vinegarFirst, clean the celeriac by removing the outer part and cutting it first into thin slices and then into julienne strips.
To prevent it from browning, place it in a bowl covered with water and lemon juice.
Peel the carrot and proceed to cut it first into thin slices and then also into julienne strips.
To speed up the process, you can use pre-julienned carrots.Then cut the cheese and ham into cubes and keep them aside, covered, in a bowl in the refrigerator.
Prepare the egg-free mayonnaise
In the blender jug, pour the sunflower oil cold from the fridge, the tablespoon of vinegar, salt, and then the milk.
Mix intermittently to avoid overheating the blades and curdling the mayonnaise, until you get a solid yet creamy mixture.Now let’s assemble the Russian salad
Add the tablespoon of mustard to the mayonnaise.
Mix again with the blender for a few moments quickly and transfer the mixture to a bowl or large jar.
Add the drained and towel-dried celeriac and carrot, the cheese, and the cooked ham to the mixture and mix well.
Now let’s fill the tigelle.
Cut them in half with a knife and fill the base with Russian salad.
Using tongs, take the tuna and drain it gently.
Place it on the Russian salad base and cover with another layer of sauce.
Close with the top part of the tigella and proceed to fill the others.
If we want to prepare them in advance, we can wrap them in plastic wrap and store them in the fridge for 4-6 hours.
