The Cooking and Cuisine of Sicily

[deensiebat]

Speaking of classics, I made pasta con sarde last night, and it was crazy delicious.  I was a little short of sardines (underestimated the number I'd need to buy) and so pimped up the recipe with some tinned anchovies.  Wow.  It was like... you know how Randy Rhoads died?  In a plane that crashed head-first into a tour bus?  This was like that.  Only for "plane" read "my tongue" and for "tour bus" read "umami".  AND I LIKED IT.

The downside-- and if a career in heavy metal has taught me anything, it's that there's always a downside-- is that working with fresh sardines is a little gross.  I'm cool with cleaning fish, but sardines are tough to work with.  There's something about the size of a sardine (plump, yet fits neatly in your fist) and texture (firm yet quivering) that makes me flinch a little when I rip its guts out and cut its head off.  I plan to discuss this issue with my therapist, but in the meantime, maybe I'll use tinned next time.

Also, I noticed that Batali's recipe called for caramelizing the fennel, then adding it to the sauce.  That's a nice touch, except that next time I'll reserve a few sticks of fennel to add at the last moment, for texture's sake.

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hey andrew!

my significant other made that for me last valentine's day -- here's the archival pic:

i think he freestyled based on several recipes -- melted fennel and onions, fresh sardines and anchovies (which he also complained about prepping), pine nuts, raisins, etc. i'm normally somewhat squicked out by the mixing of sweet and savory items, but this was excellent.

[Andrew Fenton]

my significant other made that for me last valentine's day...

Gotta be true love. Anybody who makes a sardine and anchovy and onion-loaded dish on Valentine's day has to be pretty secure in their relationship...

[Kevin72]

I am absolutely shocked that my wife loves this dish as much as I do. But you can't argue with it.

When I made it one time with fresh sardines, I was a little queased out with it as well . . . the innards were all pretty stubborn to get out and I really had to, urgh, dig in there to lodge them out.

[mrbigjas]

the last thing i made with fresh sardines was, i think, when you were doing sicily last year, kevin, and i made sarde a beccafico. i don't remember them being especially nasty to clean, but then again i don't have a ton of experience gutting fish--is it that other fish are easier? or is it just a textural thing?

[Andrew Fenton]

cf. this record of my experience in May.  One reason I bought a can this time around.  Nothing quite as satisfying as denial or hypocrisy.

When I made it one time with fresh sardines, I was a little queased out with it as well . . . the innards were all pretty stubborn to get out and I really had to, urgh, dig in there to lodge them out.

Fortunately for me, the innards came out pretty easily; and a nice thing about sardines is that they practically scale themselves. And like Pontormo, I found them to be pretty stanky; glad it wasn't just mine.

Pontormo, I admit that I've never watched La Terra Trema.  I'll also admit that I'm a little intimidated by it; two and a half hours of neorealist Sicilian fishermen...  Well, it's a classic, and no doubt for a reason.  I'll go rent it before the end of the month.

I expect grim, but figure I can stop the DVD to go wash the dishes. We should all know the source of our food and have some respect for the reasons so many Sicilians emigrated to North America and influenced how we eat.

Absolutely; I'll watch it, but need to get myself psyched up first. Another movie (mentioned earlier in this thread) that shows the darker side of Sicily is Salvatore Giuliano, about the famous bandit and mafioso. Not much food (though a memorable scene of a non-Sicilian reporter buying granita), but it's exciting and engrossing, as well as a window into a fascinating period of Sicilian history. (Giulano lobbied Harry Truman to have Sicily made a US state. Weird.)

Also, Excellent Cadavers is playing for a few more days at Film Forum in NYC. This is a documentary (based on the eponymous book by Alexander Stille) about the murders of Falcone and Borsellino by the Mafia. I hope that the movie gets a wider release; it's a story that is very important for all of us who care about Sicily to know about.

[Andrew Fenton]

the last thing i made with fresh sardines was, i think, when you were doing sicily last year, kevin, and i made sarde a beccafico.  i don't remember them being especially nasty to clean, but then again i don't have a ton of experience gutting fish--is it that other fish are easier?  or is it just a textural thing?

For me, it was mainly the texture. And it didn't help that they're kinda cute. It's hard to anthropomorphize them, especially when those l'il severed heads are lying there in the sink, looking at me reproachfully.

[Raoul Duke]

After our dinner party, we dropped by the Mistral kitchen to hang out for a bit, and we mentioned to the pastry chef that we didn't fry cannoli because we didn't have the metal tubes. Turns out she has some metal tubes so maybe we can borrow them and I'll give it a try on Thursday or Friday when I'm back down in Seattle. 

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At the risk of sounding cheap, here's what I did when in a pinch for cannoli tubes. Search all over the small island (Maui) for tubes to no avail, when driving home I noted a discarded beach chair. Tubular constructiion of just the right diameter and the price was right. Cut sections with a small pipe cutter that tapered the ends inward, eliminating the possible sharp edges, washed, bioled in water for insurance and viola! cannoli tubes.

Raoul

[hathor]

You guys are a bunch of WEINIES!!! Oh, the sardines are cute, but gushy, oh I hate feeling around for the innards...oh, pull your socks up! Wearing a pair of laytex gloves helps reduce the stinky hands syndrome, but really now, once you get going you can do a few kilo pretty quickly. I've got some marinated anchovies that are ready and waiting for dinner tonight...yum!

(Oh, and you should have been here around lunchtime when I was wacking off the head and feet of a guinea fowl, and ripping out its insides which made great, sucking sounds...) I did make some crostini with the liver, but didn't have the desire to munch on cockscomb. Wasteful, I know.

Franci, those 'ravioli' veal-chocolate things look wonderful. What a strange name for them, do you have any idea where it came from?

I was thinking of you last night, as I made "spaghetti alla siracusa" from my "Specialita` d'Italia" cook book. I had no idea if this was a primi course, or maybe a dolce! Basically you partially cook some capellini, then coat it in beaten egg, then breadcrumbs. You then fry the capellini in strutto, and dress it with a sauce of honey and orange juice. It was such a wild combination of flavors, textures and techniques that I had to try it. It reminded me of a Cantonese dessert noodle dish, where the noodles are pan fried and then served with sugar and red vinegar, which happens to be truly delicious. Let's put it this way, we ate the whole plate, but kept thinking of different ways to adjust it: add pine nuts, maybe some pepperoncino, etc. Has anyone else come across a recipe like this?

(Note: no sardines were slaughtered to make this dish....) Now, I can't get the photo to load...it must be the gods punishing me for teasing you guys!

Tonight's granita experiment: watermelon-ginger.

[Andrew Fenton]

You guys are a bunch of WEINIES!!! Oh, the sardines are cute, but gushy, oh I hate feeling around for the innards...oh, pull your socks up!        Wearing a pair of laytex gloves helps reduce the stinky hands syndrome, but really now, once you get going you can do a few kilo pretty quickly.  I've got some marinated anchovies that are ready and waiting for dinner tonight...yum!

Waaaaah! Hathor, will you come over and clean my sardines for me? Pretty please? (And as long as you're at it, bring along some of those alici, 'kay?)

Thanx.

[Pan]

[...]Let me know if you are interested in the recipe and I will post it here in the recipes.

I whish I could post more stuff because in gennarino there are very knowledgeble Sicilians and there are very nice recipes around but I think would be contrary to the policy of egullet.

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Post the ingredients and amounts and paraphrase the directions, and you'll be alright.

[Pontormo]

You guys are a bunch of WEINIES!!!

Vee arrrr da VIEnies hu VhEIne!!!

I'll have you know that I caught and skinned sand sharks on a little island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean where the only other things we had to eat were grits and Cheese Wiz. I gutted an enormous striped sea bass and ripped the backbone out while my cooking companion read Marcella outloud. I type this with a shiny scarlet stigmata-like wound on the top of my foot with nearly a 1-inch diameter where the oil leapt to escape the frying pan, turned into a blister and got rubbed under the bandage and the sandal as I walked. All in the name of cooking Sicilian food .

I was thinking of you last night, as I made "spaghetti alla siracusa" from my "Specialita` d'Italia" cook book.  I had no idea if this was a primi course, or maybe a dolce!  Basically you partially cook some capellini, then coat it in beaten egg, then breadcrumbs.  You then fry the capellini in strutto, and dress it with a sauce of honey and orange juice...Has anyone else come across a recipe like this?

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Yes, I am sure Clifford Wright and maybe some others have similar recipes listed as dolci. I'll get back to you on this...and more later, after the new 15-pound watermelon goes under the knife.

Franci, thank you so very much for the demonstration (which I see is standard on the web site you linked). I also noticed that the dish comes from a part of Sicily known for its cows AND chocolate.

I will have more to say and ask later today after sleep....if not, tomorrow.

[hathor]

Dear Scholars: I need some help. I was trying to translate an article that talks about the "Opulent Cuisine" of the monasteries and convents of Sicily in the late 1800's, and I came across this reference from Frederico De robertos's "I Vicere'": "Fare l'arte de Michelasso: Mangiare, bere e andare a spasso."

Who is this Michelasso? Is he only ficitional? Is it still possible to join this nunnery?

When I google him, I just find a lot of references for some computer guy, or else, just this quote.

Thanks!

[hathor]

Hathor, will you come over and clean my sardines for me? Pretty please? (And as long as you're at it, bring along some of those alici, 'kay?)

Thanx.

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Oh my god! Do you know how long I've been waiting to hear those words whispered in my ear???

p.s. the alici were good, and now they are just a memory....

Edited July 22, 2006 by hathor (log)

[Pontormo]

Hathor

1) In fact, Clifford Wright's book says that your dessert is a kind of zirriddu, a confectionary pasta made with honey. Sicilian words for orange water(nanfia) and orange blossoms (zagara) are close to Arabic nafhah and zahar. His recipe is Pasta a vento barba di San Benedetto and includes saffron, pistachios & candied orange peel in addition to the two forementioned ingredients. This is made with an egg pasta as per his instructions. There are also the nidi di scuma I also mentioned some time back due to evocative name. Again, the flavor's orange with some cinnamon. Capellini nests (like the ones De Cecchio manufactures) are deed-fried. Mimmetta Lo Monte simply calls them capellini fritti al miele, also fries them in olive oil and sprinkles them with pistachios.

2)Maybe Franci could pose your question on her Sicilian forum.

BTW I just picked up *Pomp & Sustenance* for a dollar at my public library, so it's got to show up at second-hand stores and other booksales for a lot less than what is asked on Amazon.com.

Franci: Your dolce made with chocolate and ground veal reminds me of a Neapolitan dish I would like to try later: a chocolate filled eggplant timbale that is slathered with chocolate once unmolded. Do you know if this is due to cultural exchanges between the southern coastal city and the island, or....?

It also reminds me of the British mincemeat pie as an almost medieval combination of sweet and savory ingredients. As far as Sicily is concerned, there's also a crostata called pasticcio di maiale (also in M lo Monte's book), calling for 1 3/4 pounds of ground pork loin, 2 cups of cocoa, almonds, and a conserva di zucca. I'd be happy to send the recipe to someone braver than I.

FYI: For others using watermelon for granita, etc., I noticed that at least one cookbook recommends using the rind to approximate the type of long, tapered Sicilian squash that the conserva (zuccata?) requires.

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It's not worth a long write-up since others have photographed and made the following, however I tried the Batali recipe for involtini that Shaya enjoyed. I broiled the beef and liked the simple fillng, rosemary spears & lack of a coating that strikes me as more suited for fragile fish. I also had my first arancini, made with a leftover tomato risotto (cf. Dinner thread) with pancetta. I mixed in fresh shredded basil and filled them with peas and several cheeses. Instead of deep-frying, I simply sauteed them in olive oil, using a combination of fresh breadcrumbs and the last of a bag of Panko as the coating. Henry, if you're still reading this thread, this closely, I now understand your craving. Risotto fritters are wonderful, but these are even better.

[Ling]

Henry, if you're still reading this thread, this closely, I now understand your craving.  Risotto fritters are wonderful, but these are even better.

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Of course he's reading...he's always reading over my shoulder.

Thanks for the tip about the beach chair cannoli tubes!

All the food looks great...we didn't have time to do the cannoli this week, but I'll do them at home sometime in the next week.

[Pontormo]

Since Hathor added a useful link to the Ligurian thread from the NYT, I'd like to mention a terrific article on zucchini that Russ Parsons wrote for the LATimes in this week's food section.

It includes a recipe for zucchini in agradolce. Just in case the article does not appear with this link, it's called "The Bloom is still on" and dated July 19, 2006.

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For escapism, okay men and the serious-minded, laugh, but here's some relevant recent Chick Lit:

La Cucina: A Novel of Rapture

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Finally: this relates to Franci's veal dolce: Modican Chocolate.

[Andrew Fenton]

Last night I hosted a fairly large dinner party (nine people), featuring Sicilian dishes. Here's the rundown.

Hors d'oeuvre. "The Tunisian-Sicilian War" (mechouia, egg, Sicilian tuna on grilled Italian bread). I spent a couple of weeks in Tunisia this summer and was struck by just how large a place canned tuna occupies in Tunisian cooking. Fortunately, I love canned tuna...

Antipasto. Prosciutto and melon. Not Sicilian, but so good, especially if you can get a good melon (this one was pretty good, not exceptional) and good prosciutto (this was very good Parma ham).

Pasta. Pasta 'ncasciata. This is the dish that obsessed me the most and gave me the most worry: the macaroni pie I'd been thinking about ever since posting that passage from The Leopard. As you can see from the photo, it has a filling of rigatoni, tomato sauce, eggs, prosciutto cotto (the same gran biscotto mrbigjas used for his braciolone), sausage (left over from a meal earlier this week), eggplant, and some caciocavallo.

Here's the dish before cooking. It was big. Really big. That dish holds five liters. (Anybody want to come over for leftovers?):

After coming out of the oven. Another problem with having such a large dish was that it needed a really long time to cook; a smaller version would have gotten browner, I think. Still, I carried it to the dining room and did the whole dramatic unveiling thing.

And here's a view of the inside, after it'd been about half eaten. I don't think we got through more than two thirds of it. Funny how it is collapsing under its own weight:

Most of the recipes I found for 'ncasciata are just for a baked pasta dish, but I wanted something more impressive. Gosetti has a recipe for a stand-alone dish, so I used a modified version of that, trying to aim for something close to the dish in the book. I made some changes: first, a rice covering instead of pastry (pastry would be more dramatic, but harder to deal with. I'll go for pastry next time). Next, I left out the chicken livers (some of my guests wouldn't eat them) and truffles (I am not a millionaire). And I skipped the sugar and cinnamon, as I just don't like the combination of sweet and meat. But on the whole, I'm pretty happy how it turned out.

Pesce. Zuppa di pesce alla Catanese. From Clifford Wright, this has a more robust base than the Syracusan version I made earlier in the month. There's tomato paste, capers, basil and olives in there to fill out the flavors. I used shrimp, tuna and grouper. Tried to persuade the guy at the fish market to give me about a third of a pound of several fish, but he wouldn't. Bummer.

Carne. Involtini di pollo. Everybody seems to be doing this, so why not me? Anyway, a satisfying dish, and as one of my guests remarked, the chicken's most noble calling in life is as a thigh-delivery system. This one has some good prosciutto, as well as a pretty standard breadcrumb-pecorino-herbs n' spices filling. I pan-fried them in advance and served them with a pan sauce: this let me avoid time in the kitchen... and by this point I'd had a few glasses of wine, so it was just as well! I served it with a contorno of capunatina di melanzane-- this one with no sugar, which I prefer to the sweet and sour version I'd made earlier in the month.

(Yeek! The chicken in that second photo looks undercooked- that's an artifact of the photo-editing software, not the dish itself, I promise...)

Dolci. A granita triumvirate (peach, watermelon and lemon), along with store-bought cookies (from DiBruno's here in Philly). And we opened up the limoncello that I'd started making at the end of June. At this point, a few other bottles of liquor started to make their way into the dining room as well...

Wines. I wanted to focus on Sicilian wines, but inevitably colored outside the lines. Let's see; started with a very nice Frascati, moved on to a good insolia/grecanico (brought by mrbigjas), a bottle of 2004 "Archimede" nero d'avola, and then a negroamaro from Puglia: 2003 Castel di Salve Santi Medici.

All in all, a lot of fun. And I have a ton of leftovers...

Edited July 22, 2006 by Andrew Fenton (log)

[FoodMan]

I've not contributed as much as I wanted to to this thread since I have been a little pre-occupied lately.

BTW, Andrew those Tunisian-Sicilian crostadas look great. As for that rice pasta pie...well Atkins is rolling in his grave. This means that I love it!

Here is my latest Sicilian meal from yesterday

Started off by snacking on these fried breads I saw Mario make recently on one of his Sicily shows. It's basic yeasted dough with olive oil, cut and fried. I served it like he did topped with Locatelli Romano and a caramalized-onion-tomato-anchovy topping. Very very good stuff

Penne alla Norma. If you are wondering why my "Ricotta Salata" looks a little wierd, well becasue it is homemade. I figured I make my own ricotta, so why not salt it and dry it. I think it needed more drying . It was still a lovely dish in any case.

From "Many Beautiful Things" I made the almond crusted sweet and sour veal meatballs. I served them warm even though according to the recipe, these needs to be chilled. I like them either way.

Dolci: homemade from scratch cannoli, tubes, ricotta (using homemade ricotta of course) filling and all. The recipe I followed was from Mario's first book "Simple Italian Food". I had absolutly no problem frying and removing the fried tubes from the metal molds. The only thing I will change next time around is make the dough rounds a little thinner to get them a tad more flaky/crispy.

Check out my authentic cannoli round maker, aka a Mexican tortilla-maker . Works like a charm and I do not have to worry about rolling and cutting. I formed the dough into a log, cut into 12 equal disks and pressed in the tortilla press. What do Sicilians use to make the rounds? Maybe I can export some tortilla makers to Sicily?

More pictures

We had this wine with dinner. Pretty good and affordable but then again I am no expert.

BTW, cannoli make a GREAT breakfast. Just fill them right before you eat them.

[mrbigjas]

BTW, Andrew those Tunisian-Sicilian crostadas look great. As for that rice pasta pie...well Atkins is rolling in his grave. This means that I love it!

they WERE great. those crostadas were mysteriously spicy. and deeelicious. andrew did a fantastic job--a truly great evening.

[hathor]

Pontormo: great article about zucchini...only I'm dead sick of zucchini at this point. You can't walk down the street without someone shoving a zucchini in your hand!! I was offered some zucchini blossoms, great! They came with the zucchini's attached...! I did a good agrodolce the other day, but it may be next summer before I can mess with these guys again!

Beautiful dinner Andrew!! Bravo!!

Elie: can you share sweet-sour veal meatball recipe? They look excellent.

I'm midway thru making some canoli, as in the shells are done, and I'll stuff them and bring them to a party this evening. But, its so blasting hot here...I'm afraid they are going to melt.

Elie, are you making cow or sheep ricotta? Where do you get the milk?

Gotta run...we've got a band from Bergamo playing in the piazza and marching around in the heat. Maybe I should throw water ballons on them from the window??

[Adam Balic]

OK, this pie is more of a dish from the 'Second' Sicily, then Sicily proper, but I guess it fits in as part of the spectrum of festive pasta pies from the region. No particular recipe, I made some veal meat balls, made a very rich pork ragu (used lard, not olive oil), boiled some eggs and grated/chopped uop some cheese. Really easy, I put it together in the afternoon, put in into the fridge and when and drank rum punch with my friends in the local park. Came back home half an hour before them an put it into the oven.

There is a reason why this type of pie is served from the top, scooping the filling out, rather then cutting in slices.

[Kevin72]

Amazing stuff as always, everyone!

Foodman, I'm both glad and jealous your cannoli turned out so well.

Andrew, both of those stuffed pasta pie dishes look incredible . . . I can't believe you did a fish AND a meat course afterwards! Your poor, lucky guests!

[Andrew Fenton]

Magnificent! I like the serving tray, too; is it Sicilian?

[Andrew Fenton]

Penne alla Norma. If you are wondering why my "Ricotta Salata" looks a little wierd, well becasue it is homemade. I figured I make my own ricotta, so why not salt it and dry it. I think it needed more drying  . It was still a lovely dish in any case.

Yum. You know, I think pasta alla Norma is just about my favorite pasta dish, and this looks great.

I'm impressed by anybody who makes their own ricotta; that's hard-core. How long did you dry this cheese? You should totally keep drying some, to try to get a real grating texture.

(And you should start trying to source some buffalo milk, so that whenever we do Campania, you can make ricotta di bufala. One of the greatest things I've ever tasted.)

[Pontormo]

My jaw drops & I throw my hands up in the air :palms forward, fingers spread, both sides of head about level with ears:.

Andrew, you must have a great air-conditioning system to prepare and eat a feast worthy of a Sicilian aristocrat with growing leftist tendencies and fluffy sideburns. The rice coating of the timbale looks like a great idea.

Adam, as always, stellar presentation. The pastry is beautifully decorated.

And Elie, I am also intrigued by the ricotta salata you made and would like to know more when you have the chance. If others here have the April edition of Gourmet, there were instructions for making ricotta. However, I think readers were advised to use it up within 2-3 days since it spoils quickly.

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"City ladies do not like octopus."--Evil merchant to exploited Sicilian fisherman in La Terra Trema

"Fish are born to be caught by the fisherman. Man is born to be caught by woman."--Visconti as narrator, paraphrased.

Nothing quite so lavish to report since I've been making stock, baking and cooking French. (So far I simply have not come across references to sorrel in Italian sources, though I still have a little of this very tart puree left for a frittata that I might serve with something sweet.)

I finally did get around to preparing perciatelli con sarde. Excellent with a salad Hathor mentioned: oranges with red chili flakes, slivers of red onion and some chopped cured olives and fresh mint. I notice that photographs of the wild fennel used in Sicily bear small, flat bulbs, resembling the type found in the farmers markets more than the ones in the supermarket.

It's interesting to have a variety of sources to consult this time around to learn more about a dish that Elizabeth David apparently documented with prejudice, adding tomatoes and noting it was unheard of outside Sicily or Naples, and according to the writer who scolds her for lacking first-hand experience, implying that there are qualitative reasons why the regional dish never gained broader popularity. Wright says tomato paste might be used, but it's optional along with almonds which Peter Robb shuns as untraditional in Midnight in Sicily, an Australian journalist's account of a year on the island, title lifted from a song by the Everly Brothers. Nonetheless, almonds appear in several versions outside of Palermo. One version, as many of you already know, is basically vegetables with the "sardines still at sea" according to its Sicilian name. All are baked during final minutes, a step that is sometimes prolonged in a layered casserole, if the resulting "torta" lacks an outer layer of rice or pastry. Mary Taylor Simeti says there's nothing better except perhaps leftovers cold. I'm about to investigate her claim.