HIGH DAYS AND......

Cicara Caffeteria's tiramisù                           Strawberry tiramisù                                 Katia Amore's tiramisù

There are high days, there are holidays and then there are "take me high" or tiramisù days.

Now this most beloved of Italian desserts is to officially get its own day and, just in case you need an excuse to make or buy and eat it, that day is 21st March.  It will be celebrated in 34 locations around the world and is the initiative of Eataly and Clara and Gigi Padovani, who have written a book about the dessert and its history, including the hotly disputed topic of which region of Italy can claim to have invented it. 

I've made traditional tiramisù, have followed Katia Amore's recipe for ricotta tiramisù and Matthew Fort's for a strawberry version, which I in turn adapted into an apricot one.

I'm not brave enough to join in the argument about the origins of the dish - I'm just going to continue to enjoy it!

PALERMO RICE SALAD

I owe the inspiration for this recipe to my friend Katia Amore and you can see her Red and Black Rice Salad here.  

My version uses pineapple and grilled red peppers, so I've called it "Palermo Rice Salad" because yellow and red are associated with that city.  I couldn't find the Arlecchino rice that Katia used but I did find some red Thai rice in the supermarket - something, I would add, that I would not have found here when I arrived seven years ago.

This is what I did:

Cook 500 gr red or black rice as directed on the packet then drain it and rinse several times in cold water.  Put it into a serving dish.  Chop 2 sticks celery very finely [Sicilian celery has quite a delicate taste] and add to the rice, along with a cubed, fresh pineapple and about 2 tablesp of its juice.  Drain 2 large, grilled red peppers from a jar and chop them roughly. Add to the dish.  Now chop a handful each of fresh parsley and mint and add.  In another, smaller bowl, mix 6 tablesp olive oil, 1 tablsp white wine vinegar, 1 tablesp honey and salt and pepper to taste.  Pour the dressing over the other ingredients and mix well. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave it in the fridge for at least a couple of hours.  Add some sprigs of mint to serve.

A TASTE OF THE EAST

As my friend Katia Amore of loveSicily says, Sicilian cookery owes much to the flavours of the Middle East and North Africa so it is right for today's Sicilian cooks to explore the fusion possibilities open to them by looking further afield.  Therefore I was delighted to be invited by Katia to participate in a La Prova del Cuoco cookery lesson entitled I Profumi dell'Oriente at the loveSicily cookery school on Saturday evening.

La Prova del Cuoco is a lunchtime TV programme which takes its format from the BBC's Ready Steady Cook and it is immensely popular in Italy.  Our lesson was conducted by the director of the La Prova del Cuoco Schools, Palma D'Onofrio.

First, participants got to know each other whilst chatting and taking refreshments on Katia's balcony, which affords stunning views of Baroque Modica:

Then, to get us in the mood, we were offered breaded prawns flavoured with lime and served with a sweet soya sauce:

Next, Katia [left] and Palma got down to business:

Palma cooked:

beef fillet with peppers and lemongrass

fried chicken with ginger, pink grapefruit and Marsala

stir-fried vegetables using the best of Sicily's beans 

and flavoured with a Balsamic vinegar sauce

and Cantonese rice with eggs, ham and peas.

After the lesson, we all repaired to the balcony again to enjoy more tastes and a feast prepared by Katia

whilst basking in the Modican twilight:

I've even got a La Prova del Cuoco certificate!

Grazie per la lezione e la bella serata, Palma e Katia.

LASAGNE WITH CHICKEN & MODICAN CHOCOLATE

I've mentioned this pretty pasta, made by CioMod, before. The sheets are made from the hard wheat flour of Puglia and the colours are worked by our Modican chocolate maker using cocoa, spinach, beetroot, paprika and turmeric.  I've used them for lasagne before but this time I decided to add some chocolate to the sauce.  After all, there was cocoa in the pasta sheets so surely a little chocolate would compliment it?

You may be thinking that chocolate does not really do that much for savoury sauces and a few years ago I would have agreed with you but if there's one thing I have learned from my friend Katia Amore, it is that if you are going to add chocolate, you have to use the real McCoy - pure chocolate with no other ingredient than cocoa, as made by the Bonajuto chocolate makers of Modica.

Inspired by Katia's chicken with prosecco and chocolate recipe, I also wanted to use chicken so I looked up chicken lasagne recipes by several Italian chefs and they all used leek in the sauce rather than onion.  Well, it is St David's Day on Thursday so I was happy to incorporate this symbol of Wales into my creation!

Here's what I did:

The day before you want to make the dish, marinate 500 gr minced chicken meat - in Italy you may have to get polpa and mince it yourself in a food processor - in white wine to cover.  Grate just one square of pure chocolate over it and leave overnight.

The next day, chop the white part of a leek finely and soften it in 3 tablesp olive oil in a wide pan.  Add the drained chicken mixture and cook it on all sides, breaking it up as much as you can as you stir it.  Then add 250 gr sliced mushrooms, a little chopped parsley, a sprinking of fresh thyme and some dried oregano. Stir everything well and add the contents of a 680 gr bottle of passata.  Season well and cook over low heat for about 40 mins. Meanwhile, soften the lasagne sheets in hot tap water in a large bowl.  Gently heat 400 gr ready-made béchamel sauce in a small saucepan and smear a little over the base of a lasagne dish.  Now add layers of pasta, chicken sauce and grated parmesan, grana or ragusano stagionato cheese - I like to use the latter - finishing with a layer of pasta.  Pour over the rest of the béchamel, sprinkle the top with a little more grated cheese and dot little knobs of butter all over.  Bake at 180 C for about 30 mins.

Trust me - that tiny amount of chocolate will give the sauce quite a kick!

SALAME INGLESE

When I mentioned that I had had salame inglese for dessert in a restaurant last week, two commenters asked what it was so I decided to post about it.

Salame inglese or salame di cioccolato which, as we shall see, has several other names, is a mixture of biscuit crumbs, chocolate, butter, nuts and other ingredients which are rolled together into the shape of a roll of salame. It is then refrigerated and, after a few hours, cut into slices and served as a dessert.  It is made all over Italy with regional variations, as you would expect.

No one knows why this dessert is sometimes known as salame inglese but I would imagine that, as with zuppa inglese [a kind of trifle] this was originally a reference to the rich ingredients used.  It probably earned the name salame del Papa [the Pope's salame] for the same reason.  It was dubbed salame turco rather unkindly, because it was said to be the colour of Moorish complexions and it became salame vichingo [Viking salame] when a recipe for it was published in the children's recipe collection La Manuale di Nonna Papera in 1970.

I have found one of the most reliable recipes for this dessert to be the one published by Ursula Ferrigno in Ursula's Italian Cakes and Desserts.  My friend Katia Amore uses Modican chocolate in her excellent version and I made two white chocolate versions last year.

If you have never made salame inglese, I suggest you have a go:  it is not difficult to prepare and I am all for desserts you can make well in advance and forget about till you need them!

ITALY MAGAZINE ROUND-UP - 18

Here is my pick of last week's Italy Magazine articles:

We'll start with the news stories tonight:  The issue of the burqa made headlines again as Italy clarified its proposed new law which would ban the face veil.  The children of  Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman who has been condemned to death for adultery and the alleged murder of her husband, turned to Italy first to ask for asylum when they felt themselves to be under threat. I understand that they are now under arrest in Iran. This was also the week in which Italian surgeons gave a teenager a permanent artificial heart and what may be the world's smallest apartment went on sale in Rome.  The organisers of the 2011 Sanremo Song Festival look set to abandon the tradition of the blonde female presenter or co-presenter and the Milanese argued over this statue.

Our blog of the week was The Artichoke Blog and, as I always make a terrible mess when preparing these vegetables, I was relieved when Michael told me that this is OK!  Staying with food, for my travel article I wrote about some of the best chestnut festivals in Italy at this time of year.  And last but definitely not least, I very much enjoyed interviewing Katia Amore of the loveSicily Cookery School and blog for my Patti Chiari column.  Do take a look to find out why Modicans began cooking with chocolate and what Katia thinks about the future of Sicilian cooking.

Happy reading.

KATIA AMORE'S ORANGE PORK LOIN

I was lucky enough to taste this dish of Katia's when the Italy Magazine team gathered for a Christmas meal and it was delicious. Now Katia has published the recipe here so last night I decided to make it myself. My version isn't as neat as Katia's as I am a bit of a slapdash cook but I can tell you this is easy to prepare, unusual in its blend of flavours and a success. Grazie per la ricetta, Katia.

"LOVE SICILY" COOKERY CLASS - 3

Cookery teacher Katia [right] and me at loveSicily.

On Thursday morning your galloping gourmet blogger galloped down to Modica Bassa for the last cookery class with Katia of loveSicily. Katia had phoned me beforehand to suggest that I meet her with Lois and Amanda at Bonajuto's Chocolate Factory and Shop, and as time spent in Bonajuto's is time spent in "chocolate heaven", I was very happy to do so.



This is the oldest chocolate making establishment in Sicily and the chocolate is carefully made by traditional methods.

Here Pierpaolo of the Bonajuto family makes sure the display is perfect. Now we can sample some of the many flavours of chocolate. [I always go for the chilli one myself!]



Visitors can see the workroom at the back of the shop:





You will notice that the chocolate in the right-hand tin is smoother. The bubbles disappear when the moulds are shaken by hand:



The items in these cupboards tell the story of chocolate-making:





Chocolate to taste and chocolate to buy:



'Mpanatigghi to sample. You would never think that these delicate, sweet pastries contained beef. [When British people remark that it's weird I ask them how they think mince pies got their name!]



If you are a lover of chocolate - and who isn't? - you must come to Modica at least once in your life!

Lois and Amanda had acquired substantial parcels of chocolate to take home to their lucky friends and relatives so we had a leisurely walk back to the Cookery School, where Katia explained that we were first going to make salame al cioccolato [chocolate salame] for Friday's end-of-course dinner and then calamari for lunch. Don't worry - there's no salame in the chocolate dish! Let's get right to it:

Katia used 100 gr of cinnamon-flavoured chocolate but you could use a different flavour. Katia says that it is possible to use cocoa powder instead, in which case you will need to add some sugar. She crushed the chocolate, then bashed roughly 250 gr biscuits made with a short pastry:





Fork up 100 gr slightly softened unsalted butter and separate 2 eggs. Whisk the whites to the soft peak stage. Now mix the yolks with the butter and chocolate, crushing the chocolate further as you mix:



Next, add the egg whites and mix:



Add the biscuits and mix well:



Keep stirring till the texture changes and you have a nicely amalgamated mixture:



Dollop it all onto a length of baking parchment, roll the paper over the mixture and press with your hands until you have a plump sausage shape. Tie the ends of the paper and refrigerate. [You can freeze this for up to a week.]





Slice when ready to serve. You can see the sliced "salame" towards the end of this post.

Although I am allergic to all types of fish I was interested to learn how to prepare the calamari.

First of all Katia cleaned the squid well:




Then we peeled and chopped 6 tomatoes. Katia runs the blunt side of a blade over the skin, which then comes away more easily:




Peel 4 garlic cloves and chop some parsley and capers. Mix the parsley and capers with the tomatoes.

Chop up the tentacles:



Brown the garlic cloves in oil, then take them out. Add the tomato mixture and tentacles and cook:



Add some fresh breadcrumbs [about 12 dessertsp] to soak up the juices:



Add 3 dessertsp grated ragusano cheese:



Then use the mixture to stuff the squid:



Secure with a skewer:



I had to leave at this point but couldn't have tasted the fish anyway. I asked Katia how she finishes the dish and she told me that she sautés the stuffed squid in olive oil, then adds a splash of wine. She smears some left-over stuffing on the top of the calamari and simmers them for 30 minutes.

UPDATE: 4.10.09. See the finished dish and read Katia's instructions and a story about her grandmother here.

And so to last night's end-of-course dinner. A beautifully set table in a room with a view:



Pasta with pancetta, cream, chanterelles and pistacchi:



Tender and delicious beef fillet steaks which Katia had cooked in a salt crust and flavoured with Bonajuto's salt chocolate:



And the chocolate salame. Don't you like Katia's simple but elegant decoration of cocoa in the top corner of the plate?



Here is Katia



and here we all are, [left to right]: Katia, Amanda, Luisa, me, Lois, Ronald [Katia's husband] and Angelo. Luisa and Angelo work with Ronald and Katia.



Thank you for your company, Lois and Amanda. I hope you are both having safe and pleasant journeys home. Don't eat all that chocolate on the way! And thank you Katia, Ronald, Angelo and Louise for a wonderful week during which I learnt a lot, made new friends and discovered some fabulous new tastes. I recommend loveSicily.