A HAPPY NEW YEAR (I THINK)

In Catania at the end of November

Every now and then, in this seemingly never-ending Covid situation, I get stopped in my tracks with fear and that is what happened in December when Omicron blared out its presence to the world. We were so near, we thought, so very near, to having a "normal" Christmas and to living in a way that resembled pre-Covid times. But it was not to be and, although triple-vaccinated, I'm still scared, especially with positive test results rising exponentially in Sicily and elsewhere in Italy - 947 in my town of 53,000 inhabitants today. Although we are not locked down or restricted as we were a year ago, masks are compulsory outside as well as inside again, we are supposed to be social distancing wherever possible, unnecessary mixing is discouraged and school reopening has been postponed from today until at least Thursday. It is not yet known whether teaching will be via distance learning or on school premises. In addition to these measures, you will have read about the Italian government's decision to bring in what amounts to compulsory vaccinations for the over 50s. We watch, we try to be careful and we hope, like the rest of the world.

At Christmas, I am glad to say, we were not required to fill in the hated self-certification documents in order to go anywhere at all or prevented from seeing friends and family and I spent a lovely Christmas Day with three friends who love books and dogs. Yes, I did consider staying at home but we are all vaccinated and at nearly 72 and with the virus raging, I wondered, and still wonder, if I will see another Christmas and whether we will at some point be barred from even small household mixing again, although the Italian government is doing everything it can to avoid having to take such a measure and Prime Minister Draghi has assured the nation this evening that he is not intending to take the country into lockdowns again. 

Having decided to accept the kind invitation, however, things did not exactly go to plan in the run-up and on Christmas Eve I nearly went into full hysterical mode as I was in the middle of making a cake to take to my friends' house when a domestic disaster struck. The recipe was for the wonderful Dame Mary Berry's Chocolate Cappuccino Tart, a cake I have made many times before and which has always been a success here. (I don't use instant coffee granules, though, because I don't buy them; I make myself an espresso and use a teaspoon of it in the cake and I use mascarpone in the filling.) If you look at the recipe, you will see that you have to make the base first, then refrigerate it while you make the filling. Well, I had just popped the base in the fridge and had the chocolate and coffee in a bowl ready to put over the saucepan of simmering water when I happened to look at the floor and beheld disaster in the form of a flood. The water, I ascertained, was coming from under the sink and at 1pm on Christmas Eve I estimated my chances of finding a plumber willing to come out as nil. While controlling my breathing, I did summon enough common sense to switch the hob off and then I went downstairs to warn the neighbour in the flat below. Luckily - phew! - her son was there and informed me that he was a plumber and would come. (I'd had no idea, either that he was home from the North or that he was a plumber.)  He fixed it but it took a while, not least because we had to wait a few hours for the shops to reopen for parts. Thank you, thank you, whoever is up there and to the kind man who happened to be down there!

I finished making the cake at midnight but didn't think the filling looked as smooth or as inviting as it had before (probably because I'd had to put that in the fridge too - I didn't have enough chocolate left to start again) but decided there was nothing I could do till it was set and I could inspect it in daylight. In the morning I came to the same conclusion though, and wondered whether to give up on it and just take some shortbread biscuits I had bought a couple of weeks before in Catania for Burns Night (the first time I had been there or anywhere outside Modica since my birthday in February 2020 - no need to tell you why!) I discussed it on the phone with a friend and his opinion was "cake, cake, every time" but I decided I had to check the taste. If it was OK, I would take the cake and just explain why a small slice was missing and that is what I did, but not before decorating it with some grated chocolate. Then later, at my friends' house, I added some candied orange peel to the top. Now, chef Carlo Cracco of Masterchef Italia fame says you should never garnish a dish with an ingredient it doesn't contain and I'm sorry, chef, but what else could I do? My friends thought it was all rather comical, by the way - which they wouldn't have if they'd seen the kitchen floor - and they enjoyed the cake.

On New Year's Eve I did stay at home, as I have for many years, because I like being at home with Bertie and because I would not risk leaving her on a night when there will almost certainly be fireworks outside. There were not many but when Italians decide they are going to have them they do not hold back! It didn't go on for long after midnight, to be fair, and there was only one episode that I heard of fireworks being let off in the street earlier. On New Year's Eve in Italy you are supposed to eat lentils, which it is believed will bring you money and my philosophy is why take chances and not do it? For years, to honour the Italian tradition while in Britain, I made a lamb dish with lentils, then lentil loaf, and here I have made Mary Berry's Cottage Pie with Lentils  (minus the swede, which I dislike and can't get here anyway and I only ever mash potatoes with butter) and lately Nigella's Bulgur Wheat and Lentil Salad, all of which I can recommend. But this time I wanted to make something different, so I prepared Claudia Roden's Rice, Lentil and Date Salad from her new book Med and I will certainly be making it again. To go with it, I made chicken escalopes with Parma ham and sage (from a very old Sunday Times cookbook I have) and for dessert a mini-semifreddo with candied orange peel. Well, to be honest I made the full quantity - I just put it in mini-tins! I don't believe in not spoiling yourself on special days just because you are on your own.

Then came Twelfth Night last week and Italy's good witch the befana brought treats to good children (that's all of them on that night!) On Thursday I carried out the sad task of taking the decorations down. Sad, for me at least, because I love that period of sitting at home with a book and reading it by the flickering lights of a Christmas tree and because we do not know what will happen in another year. (And it's just as well we didn't on New Year's Eve 2019-20!)  

Speriamo bene - "Let's hope all will be well", as Italians say and Bertie and I wish you all a belated but very Happy New Year. 

Buon anno a tutti!

FEASTING WITH AN OLD FRIEND

My friend Carol King, who has recently returned to Sicily, and I decided to celebrate Ferragosto a day late this year, so I kind of cooked her a little meal:

The antipasti included olives, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh datterini tomatoes, mini sausages, bresaola and Parma ham topped with Grana cheese shavings, marinated mushrooms and - I must tell you about this - watermelon with salted cucumber. My original intention was to chuck the cucumber - peeled, deseeded, chopped, salted, left then rinsed, drained and chilled - into the salad but at the last minute I thought it would be a nice addition to the dish of watermelon. Turns out I was right!  The seemingly small apples around the antipasti dishes are actually azzaroli or Neapolitan medlars, which are related to hawthorn. There are mini-pears as well and they are a fine partner for the cheese.

The main course was grilled chicken salad with grilled nectarines. (Yes, I have a thing for grilled nectarines!)   I marinated the chicken in culinary rosewater before grilling and seasoned it with sumac afterwards. I used the dressing I invented for this recipe. The other ingredients were grilled peppers and rocket leaves.

For dessert, I made strawberry tiramisù and Carol brought along the delicious sweet treats on the right.

Everything on this menu can be made in advance and all you have to do is make the antipasti look pretty and assemble the salad.

CHICKEN AND CHERRY SALAD

Regular readers will know that, at this time of year, I love experimenting with salads and a few years ago I invented a tagliata and cherry version. This week, I decided I wanted something lighter still and I came up with a chicken and cherry salad.  I wanted to use my favourite spice, sumac, and took the wonderful Nadiya Hussain's advice about sprinkling it on the meat after cooking to keep the red colour. Then I added to the red by playing with pink peppercorns. It all turned out rather well but here is my usual warning to Sicilian purists: I never said it was Sicilian; it's just what I do with the ingredients and cuts of meat available to me here and I like including the Middle Eastern ingredients I learnt to use in Britain.  And yes, the dish contains meat and fruit and I'm not apologising!

Chicken and cherry salad

1 chicken breast, cut into escalopes  (That's two chicken breasts, as sold in Britain, where they are sold in halves, and one as sold in Italy. An Italian butcher will auomatically cut them very thin. In Britain you may need to pound them.)
about 30 fat, dark cherries, stoned
half a large cucumber or 1 small one
500 gr bag rocket leaves
5 tablesp culinary rosewater
olive oil
1 tablesp runny honey
Himalayan pink seasalt
1 dessertsp pink peppercorns, crushed
1 teasp ground ginger
1 teasp ground sumac
1 teasp dried herbes de Provence

First, marinate the chicken pieces for 2 hours in 3 tablesp of the rosewater (or marinate overnight).

Peel the cucumber, deseed and chop it as small as you can. Sprinkle with (ordinary] fine seasalt and leave at least 30 mins. (This is a trick I learned from an early Jennifer Paterson book and I always prepare my salad cucumbers like this.) After 30 mins, rinse, drain and let dry on kitchen paper.

Drain the chicken pieces and pat dry with kitchen paper. Cook them over low heat on a lightly oiled ridged griddle pan - about 2 mins per side. Put them on kitchen paper and let them cool.

In a small bowl, mix well with a fork 6 tablesp olive oil, 2 tablesp rosewater, the honey, ground ginger, pink salt if you have it, half the pink peppercorns and the herbes de Provence. Leave in the fridge.

When the chicken has cooled, cut it into bite-sized pieces - I do this with a kitchen scissors - and place them in a bowl.  Sprinkle the sumac over it and add the cucumber, cherries  and rocket. (At this stage you can leave the salad in the fridge till serving time.] When you are ready, add the dressing and toss well.  Finally, sprinkle the rest of the peppercorns over the salad.

Serves four.

Buon appetito

Note:  Sumac does, in theory, grow in Sicily but I have yet to meet anyone who has heard of it here!

POLLO ALLO ZA'ATAR

Well, here we are, more than half way through 2017 and I find I have not posted a single recipe this year! So, although other matters, such as health and keeping up with Brexit developments (which will affect me very directly, as they will all expats), mean that I am not currently blogging as often as I'd like, let's at least put the culinary matter to rights.

My pollo allo za'atar is my take on a recipe in the June edition of the Italian magazine Vero cucina. This recipe is for bone-in chicken thighs cooked in very litle oil with lemon slices, then sprinkled with a sauce of lemon juice, garlic and mint. I tried it and found it excellent, but this week I decided I wanted to spice it up a little. There is very little za'atar in my version, actually, but I was so delighted to find some in Catania a few weeks ago that I decided it had to feature in the name of my dish.  Here we go:

Heat the oven to 180° C (fan).

Lightly oil a roasting tin and put in 6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs.

Cut 1 lemon into wedges and add these to the pan.

Add 3 grilled peppers, preferably yellow, orange and red, cut up. (In Italy we can buy fresh, ready-grilled peppers in supermarkets but you could use well-drained grilled peppers in oil or, of course, grill them yourself.)

Sprinkle over some coarse seasalt, black pepper, a little sumac and some fresh lemon thyme leaves and drizzle over a little more olive oil.

Cook for 30 mins.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl mix 2 tablesp Chinese plum sauce,  juice of 1 lemon, 1 teasp sumac and half teasp za'atar.

Check the chicken and if necessary give it 10 mins more in the oven. When you take it out, pour the sauce over it and serve.  Garnish with more lemon thyme leaves if you wish.

SICILY SCENE'S REVIEW OF 2016

The year which drew to a close yesterday was the one in which it became clear to me that the world has learnt nothing from the tragedies and disasters of the last century. Here, a little late, is my review of it:

Ups

Most unexpectedly, falling in love again.

Spending Christmas in Norwich with the sister I have known for only two years and walking through a bauble in that fair city!

Downs

The down side of falling in love - being dumped. It is a much worse experience, I have discovered, than it was when I was young, for there are now so many places to be dumped from, such as social media.

Brexit - even more devastating.

Continuing to hear of needless migration tragedies as the world looks on and does nothing.


Recipe of the year

Of those I have invented myself, this is the one I like best.

Chicken with cedri and Prosecco

Books of the year

The two best books I read in Italian during 2016 were Pesce d'aprile and Lacrime di Sale, Dr Pietro Bartolo's account of migrant tragedies as they affect Lampedusa. I'll shortly be reviewing Lacrime di Sale on Sicily Scene.

The most interesting book I read in English in 2016 was Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Besides telling a gripping story, the book explained to me a conflict which took place during my lifetime but which I knew next to nothing about.

Film of the year

This is related to my second book choice above. It is Fuocoammare.


Italian logic prize

This goes to Rai and the Italian government for this scheme and their strange definition of the term rata [installment].  Predictably, after July consumers were required to pay not one "installment" for the TV licence fee but the remaining six in one go!


Hopes for 2017

Once again, I hope the world wakes up to the fact that we are all migrants and I want to see safe corridors for today's migrants and an end to migration tragedies. I want to hear more from the voices of peace and less from those of belligerance.

I wish you all peace, health and love, wherever you are.

Happy New Year and thank you for reading Sicily Scene!

Buon Anno e grazie di aver letto la Sicily Scene!

You can find links to all my migration posts here and to my adoption posts here.

CHICKEN IN PROSECCO WITH CEDRO

Leafing through an old recipe book the other day, I was reminded of Moroccan preserved lemons. I used to be able to get these in the UK and, indeed, had sometimes made them myself. However, being short of both time and patience, I started to think that, in this land of citrus fruit, there ought to be a quicker way of approaching the taste. Then I started to wonder if I could get anywhere near it if I used cedri [citrons], which Sicilians like to just slice and eat with coarse seasalt. I decided to try and the result was better than I'd expected!  Here's what I did:

Chicken in Prosecco with Grilled Cedro

First, slice one cedro into rounds as you would a lemon. [Sicilian cedri are enormous!]  Halve the slices, put them on a plate and sprinkle with coarse seasalt and about ten grinds of cinnamon from a cinnamon mill.  Leave them for at least an hour, then heat 2 tablesp olive oil on a ridged griddle pan and grill the slices over medium heat for about 1 min. each side.  Stand well back when you put the slices on the griddle and when you turn them.  Put them onto kitchen paper on a plate.

Marinate 6 - 8 chicken drumsticks [skin on ] for about 2 hours in 200 ml Prosecco, 2 tblesp olive oil, 1 tablesp honey, 0.5 tablesp Chinese plum sauce [which I have recently been able to get my hands on again and have missed], about 0.5 tablesp dried herbes de Provence, some sprigs of fresh thyme [lemon thyme if you can get it] and some freshly ground seasalt and black pepper. 

Heat the oven to 180°C.

Lift the chicken out of the marinade with a slotted spoon but keep the marinade. Lay the chicken on a rack in a foil-lined roasting dish and cook for about 45 mins., checking now and then.  When you think it is nearly ready, put the marinade into a pan with the cedro slices and about 20 preserved green olives, drained but still with the accompanying small vegetables that have been used to flavour them. [In Sicily olives are always preserved with slices of sweet Sicilian carrot.]   Heat until the marinade comes to the boil.

Place the chicken on a platter , surround with the cedro slices and olives [removed from the marianade with a slotted spoon] and garnish with some chopped, flat-leaved parsley and some more sprigs of thyme.  Put the marinade in a sauce boat for those who would like some.

Serve with garlic-roasted small potatoes or these from Nigella .

Serves 4.

Buon appetito

SICILY SCENE REVISITED - THE COOKERY POSTS [1]

I had always cooked international recipes, and particularly Italian ones, in the UK so it was a bit of a surprise when I first came to Sicily to discover that some of these recipes wouldn't work here because the cuts of meat are different. The second surprise was the lack of spices for, apart from cinnamon, chilli pepper and a mixture known as "curry" [which I leave well alone] for the more adventurous, few are used.  Cumin seeds and ginger are stocked in most supermarkets and you can find harissa, but that's about it.  It is interesting that, despite Arab settlement, Sicily never absorbed the use of spices in the way that other European areas with a Mediterranean coast did.

Yes, I'm well aware that I'm in the country that arguably has the best home cooking in the world and a region within it which is particularly renowned for its culinary traditions, so why would I want to cook dishes outside that repertoire?  Because I'm a Brit and both new and old recipes excite me, I suppose.

I soon worked out ways of adapting the recipes I'd always cooked to what was available here and when I went to Catania and bought unusual spices or my British friends sent me some, I used them to create my own "fusion cooking" as I made friends with my butcher and got to grips with the fine cuts of meat he, and others like him, provide.

Here are three favourites from previously posted  recipes that I have invented myself.

First of all, this is the most read recipe ever on Sicily Scene:

Bistecca alla pizzaiola - 24th August 2008

Bistecca alla pizzaiola: a classic of Neapolitan cuisine, yet these days it is hard to find a recipe for it, among all the rubbish featuring complicated dishes that gets published under the clasification, "Italian cookery". What so many of these authors and their publishers forget is that the primary characteristic of most Italian cookery is that it is simple.

The doyenne of cookery writers, Elizabeth David, of course gives us a pizzaiola recipe, in Italian Food, the volume that, famously, woke the British up to the fact that good food still existed in the postwar era. Valentina Harris [a cook whose earlier books I prefer to her later tomes] also has one, in Italian Regional Cookery. I have mixed the two recipes and added some "Welshcakes" touches!

Here we can buy a pizzaiola cut of beef steak, but if you can't, you need to ask for the widest, thinnest cut possible. Yesterday I was lucky enough to get 4 enormous pieces [which would probably serve 6] for 5.68 euros and they really were so big that I had to cut them in half again!

When I make a pizzaiola, I like to deal with the sauce first: if you want to be a purist, you may use skinned and deseeded tomatoes or your own passata, but for this I find a couple of cans of cherry tomatoes, with their juice, much less trouble and perfectly adequate. Chuck these in a saucepan along with about a tablespoon of olive oil, 2 cloves sliced garlic, some seasalt and ground black pepper and a good handful each of not too finely chopped basil and parsley. You can add some dried oregano too, if you like [and I do!] plus some olives [my touch]. Swirl all this around while it cooks for a few minutes, then take it off the heat.

Now season the meat and cook it in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a wide pan or griddle. [I like to griddle mine.] Whatever you do, do not overcook it. I throw the pieces into the sauce as they are done but authentic recipes will tell you to serve up the meat, then add the sauce. Most Italian cooks would probably let it all cool a little at this point but I serve the dish immediately.

Serves 4 - 6.

Buon appetito!

This is one of the simplest recipes I have come up with and I still make it often:

Militello chicken - 17th October 2010

I invented this dish last night and have decided to call it "Militello Chicken" in honour of the mandarin honey I found in that town last week:

Marinate 8 or so chicken breast escalopes - an Italian butcher will cut these very thinly for you but in the UK you may have to pound them thin - in the juice of 2 clementines, 2 tablesp olive oil and a half teasp saffron powder [or the contents of 2 envelopes of saffron powder in Italy].

After about 2 hours, lift the escalopes out and let them dry a bit on kitchen paper. Heat 2 tablesp olive oil in a ridged griddle pan and cook the escalopes on both sides. [Stand well back as you put them in.] Lift them out onto a plate. They will be a nice, golden colour like this:

Make a dressing with 2 tablesp olive oil, 1 tablesp mandarin honey [or orange blossom honey or, failing this, ordinary honey with some orange juice] seasalt and black pepper. Toss the dressing with salad leaves to which you have added some clementine segments and serve with the chicken.

Serves 4.

Buon appetito.

Summer is coming so here is my favourite main course salad recipe:

Tagliata with cherries - 6th June 2014

The cherry harvest continues and the other day, I decided I wanted to experiment by using some with a tagliata [the sirloin cut]. I know all you Italians will be horrified again at such a mixture of sweet and savoury ingredients, which you claim you never use together, so please, look away now! 

There are also days when I long for some of the Middle Eastern flavours I used in my cooking in Britain and that is why I came up with the idea of using rosewater in the dressing.

The dish turned out well so, for the brave among you. this is what I did:

Ask the butcher for a 600 gr piece of tagliata [if you are in Italy] or sirloin if you are elsewhere.  A few hours before you want to serve the salad, lightly oil the tagliata on both sides, place it on a heated, ridged griddle pan and cook it on both sides to your liking. [I like mine medium rare for a salad.]  Take it out of the pan and leave it to cool on a cutting board. When it has cooled sufficiently, slice it diagonally into fairly wide strips and put in the fridge.

Destalk 500 gr  ready-washed spinach leaves. Tear them if they are very large and put them in the fridge. 

Cook 8 slices frozen, grilled aubergine as directed on the pack and put in the fridge when cool. [You can, of course, grill your own if you have time but let them dry on kitchen paper if you do.]

Wash, stone and halve about 20 cherries and chill these, too.

Now make the dressing:  In a small bowl, mix the following ingredients well with a fork:  5 tablesp olive oil, 3 teasp culinary rosewater, seasalt and black pepper to taste and a few chilli flakes.  Leave the dressing to chill in the fridge.

When you are ready to assemble the salad, put the spinach on a large serving platter, then add the aubergine slices and, on top of these, the tagliata slices, some torn fresh basil leaves and the cherries. Give the dressing a final, robust stir with a fork, then drizzle it over the salad and serve.

Serves 4.

Buon appetito

I hope you've enjoyed this selection from my recipe archives.  More coming soon!

A VISITOR FROM DOWN UNDER

My Welsh-Australian second cousin, John, stopped off in Modica on Sunday and it was lovely to see him again after eight years.

Given constraints of time and temperature, I had prepared a little feast of antipasti followed by chicken filled with pistacchi, pepper, thyme and lemon and served with a tomato and red onion salsa and rosemary and garlic potatoes. [Only the potatoes were served hot.] Afterwards there was a semifreddo from Delizie D'Autore and of course, there had to be some Modican biscuits!

Come again soon, John.

CHICKEN WITH COTOGNATA AND MODICAN CHOCOLATE

I started making chicken with cotognata [quince paste] some years ago and this autumn, I decided the dish needed an update.  After some thought, I came up with the idea of adding chocolate but not any old chocolate, you understand, for if there is one thing I have learnt since being in Modica it is that if you are going to add chocolate to a savoury dish it will only work if you use chocolate made to the Aztec method [no dairy fats] - Modican chocolate! You can either use pure chocolate or, for the kick I wanted, chilli-pepper-flavoured Modican chocolate.  Here's what I did:

Chicken with cotognata and Modican chocolate

To serve four people generously, you need one skinned and boned chicken breast if you are in Italy, where the two halves of the breast are sold as one or two breasts if you are in the UK, where each half is sold as one breast. Ask the butcher to cut the breast [s] into 8 pieces. You could add a couple of drumsticks, skin off, too, if you like. 

Marinate the chicken in 0.25 litre of white wine, adding some seasoning and a few fresh sage leaves, for about 2 hours.

Meanwhile, chop one square from a bar of chilli-flavoured Modican chocolate as finely as you can and cut one "cake" of quince paste - about 100 gr - into small cubes. [When I was in the UK, you used to be able to buy Spanish quince paste from delicatessens. This is not as thick as cotognata but would do, as it has to melt anyway.] 

When you are ready to cook the chicken, drain it, pat dry with kitchen paper and discard the marinade but keep a few of the sage leaves.  Slice a large white onion and soften this in 4 tablsp olive oil in a large, wide pan but do not brown it. When the onion is soft, add the chicken pieces with any sage leaves still clinging to them and brown them all over.  

Peel, core and slice 3 quinces or 4 pears and when the chicken is brown on all sides, add the fruit slices to the pan with the cotognata and chocolate.  Add 600 ml water, some more seasoning and a sprinkling of ground cloves.

Cover and cook over a low heat for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

You won't be able to taste the chocolate, which is as it should be, but the chilli will give this sweet and sour dish a kick! Serve with garlic-roasted potatoes with rosemary or with some lovely mashed potato to soak up the juices.

Buon appetito!

CHICKEN INVOLTINI WITH GOJI BERRY RISOTTO

As soon as I saw dried goji berries in the supermarket here, I knew I wanted to use them with chicken and this is what I came up with:

12 chicken escalopes, pounded very thinly. [In Italy just tell the butcher you want breast slices for involtini.]
12 thin slices pancetta
400 gr risotto rice
juice and rind of 1 lemon
0.25 litre white wine
1 white onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
50 gr dried goji berries
100 gr pinenuts
basil leaves
cinnamon, preferably freshly ground from a cinnamon mill
seasalt and black pepper

First, make the risotto: Heat 3 tablesp olive oil in a wide pan, add the onion and garlic and cook, strirring, over a low flame until soft but not brown. Pour the white wine and lemon juice into a measuring jug and make up to 1 litre with water. Add about 100 gr of the rice to the pan and stir around, then add the rest of the rice and about a quarter of the liquid, stirring. When the rice has absorbed it, add another quarter and repeat the process, until you have all the liquid in the pan. Add the berries, pinenuts, 3 - 4 twists of cinnamon from a mill or 1 teasp powdered cinnamon, the lemon rind, seasoning and a few torn basil leaves.  Turn the heat down and let the risotto cook for about 15 mins., stiriring occasionally. When it tastes right, take it off the heat and let it cool for up to 1 hour.

Heat the oven to 180 C.

Lay the pancetta slices on a chopping board or a couple of large plates and put a chicken slice on top of each one. Spread some of the risotto - about a dessertspoon for each one -  along the slices, then roll them up in the pancetta.  You won't need to secure them with anything - they will hold. Lightly oil a large, Pyrex-style roasting dish and place the involtini in it. Cook in the oven for 30 mins.

I served these with roasted datterini tomatoes which I had sprinkled with herbs, seasoning, balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

You can freeze any leftover risotto mixture for the next time!

Serves 6.

Buon appetito.

A PEACEFUL LUNCH

A lovely, relaxing lunch with friends in peaceful surroundings on Sunday:

Crostini with foie gras -  ages since I'd had the latter!

And more with gorgonzola and caponata.

Iced sweet pepper soup

followed by herbed chicken served with asparagus, cime di rapa and potatoes.

A British friend had made lemon drizzle cake

and I'd made lemon semifreddo [again].

It wasn't warm enough, by Sicilian standards, to eat outside but it was warm enough to have the doors wide open and enjoy this oasis of peace.

Grazie a tutti gli amici!

FUSION POACHED CHICKEN WITH RICE SALAD

I don't hear the term "fusion cooking" much any more but then, I do live in a place where most people just do not want to try food from other lands! I, however,  still sometimes hanker after strong spices and, on those occasions,  a smidgin of cinnamon or red chilli pepper will not do.

A few weeks ago, I made up this recipe for poached chicken - a neglected way of cooking one, I feel. It is a popular way of cooking chicken breasts but you can also cook a whole chicken by this method.  The Sicilian ingredients are cinnamon and red chilli pepper in decent amounts and the lemon. If you add carrots, they could be sweet, Sicilian ones.

OK, now the size of the chicken you use will depend on the size of the largest pot you've got with a lid. Because I have a couple of large but not enormous pots, I only poach a whole chicken when I can get a small one, which is difficult in Sicily, though not in the UK. You need a pot that will take your chicken, plus a few vegetables and spices, comfortably and in which there is room to cover the chicken with liquid plus one inch.

Having selected your pot and got your chicken, season the inside of the chicken with coarse seasalt and a few twists of mixed peppercorns. Add half a lemon., half a red onion, 1 unpeeled garlic clove, 2 fresh bay leaves, a little dried oregano and knob of peeled, fresh ginger. Close the opening with a wooden skewer or some cocktail sticks.

Put the chicken in the pot and cover with water and 125 ml white wine. Season the liquid and add 2 more knobs peeled, fresh ginger, 2 dried chilli peppers, 1 unpeeled garlic clove, the other halves of the lemon and red onion, 1 large cinnamon stick [we get whackingly fat cinnamon sticks here] and a few fresh sage leaves. You can add a few unpeeled, sliced potatoes if you like - in my case it was a matter of how many I could cram in - and some sliced carrots if you wish. [I forgot these this time.]

Put the pot on the heat, bring to the boil, then put the lid on and lower the heat.  Simmer for 50 mins., then turn the heat off and just leave everything for 10 mins.

The chicken will be so tender that it will be falling off the bone.

Last night I invented a rather jolly rice salad to go with this dish. Sicilians would be really puzzled by this as they seem to have difficulty in imagining a rice salad that does not contain tuna. [I can't eat fish and in restaurants, even when I ask if it's possible to have a rice salad without it, they will say, "Yes" but still bring me a portion with tuna, as if it's not fish at all. I've given up.]  For this rice salad, apart from the pineapple, an ingredient which I had planned, I used what I happened to have and it was much more successful than I expected:

Cook 500 gr rice suitable for salads according to the instructions on the pack. Drain and rinse several times in cold water. Transfer to a large serving bowl. Add the slices of a whole, fresh pineaapple, a chopped red onion, a few chopped aubergines that have been preserved in oil, some fresh basil leaves and some sundried cherry tomatoes over which you have sprinkled a little oil.  Put the mixture in the fridge until you are ready to serve.

Make up a dressing of 6 tablesp olive oil, 1 tablesp red wine vinegar, 1 tablesp honey, a little dried oregano and a seasoning of a couple of twists of mixed peppercorns and fine seasalt. Mix all together and put the bowl in the fridge till you are ready to serve the salad. Then chuck the dressing over and toss with a spoon and fork.

You can either serve the carved chicken - it won't need much carving! - with the potatoes and some of the cooking liquid and serve the rice salad separately or you can serve the slices of chicken on the salad with the potatoes around them.  I prefer to do the latter.

I've also seved this with this black rice salad  [and I remembered the carrots that time!] but I think I prefer yesterday's white rice version.

POLLO AI FICHI D'INDIA

It's that time of year again and here come the prickly pears!  In their honour, I invented this recipe at the weekend. The idea of using fruit in a savoury dish has shocked some of my Italian friends again but the recipe worked really well. It's not for those of you who are sensitive to seeds, though.

Pollo ai fichi d'India - Chicken with prickly pears

If you're in Italy, ask your butcher to cut half a chicken breast a fettine. If you're in the UK, ask him to slice a boned, skinless chicken breast thinly. 

Peel three prickly pears in the way that a Sicilian taught me:  put the fruit on a plate or board and hold it steady on its side with a fork. Top and tail it. Still holding it steady with the fork, cut a lengthwise slit in the skin with a knife and then cut round the fruit.  You have to be careful not to touch the skins with your hands as you can still get a nasty prickle even if you buy the fruit dethorned.  Keep holding it with the fork to slice it.

Heat 4 tablesp olive oil in a wide pan and brown the chicken fillet slices lightly. Add 350 gr button mushrooms or sliced mushrooms and 250 ml white wine.  Stir everything and then add the drained contents of a 190 gr jar of small artichokes in oil. Set aside three or four of your tidiest prickly pear slices for a garnish later and add the rest of the slices to the pan. Season the mixture with seasalt to taste and a few twists from a peppermill of mixed peppercorns. Cover the pan and cook for about 50 mins over a low heat.

Just before the end of cooking, take the pan off the heat and add 200 ml panna di cucina [Italian cooking cream, which is thinner than British single cream].  Stir it in well and put the pan back on the heat for a couple of minutes, still stirring.

Garnish the dish with the reserved prickly pear slices.

Buon appetito.

SPEZZATINO DI FINE ESTATE

I wouldn't say there's exactly an autumn chill in the air, but it is a little cooler, Sicilians are beginning to return to the city and I am starting to want spezzatini. Last night I decided I wanted a spicy spezzatino, too, so I invented this chicken one:

Spezzatino di pollo di fine estate

Serves 4 generously

2 oz butter and 2 tablesp olive oil
1 large white onion, sliced
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast [if you are in Italy] or 2 if you are in the UK [where each half is sold as "one breast"], cut into bite-sized pieces. [In Italy, just ask the butcher to cut it for spezzatino.]
1 dried red chilli pepper [or 2 very small ones]
4 plum tomatoes, skinned, deseeded and chopped
1 tablesp 'strattu or tomato concentrate
570 ml [1 pint] water
250 gr peeled aubergines in oil, drained. [People make a preserve of these here but we can buy them, too.]
3 peppers of different colours, sliced
500 gr potatoes [no need to peel unless you want to] sliced
seasalt and black pepper
2 teasp sugar

In a wide, high-sided pan, soften the onion in the butter and oil.  Add the chicken pieces and dried chilli pepper and cook, stirring, till the chicken is lightly browned on all sides. Add the tomatoes, aubergines, 'strattu, some seasoning and the water, stir everything and continue to cook for about 10 mins. Now add the peppers and potatoes, give everything a good stir, turn the heat down and continue to cook, with the lid on, for 45 mins. 

Heat the oven to 180C and, at the end of the 45 mins, take the chilli pepper out and transfer the mixture to a Pyrex-type roasting dish. Sprinkle the sugar over the top and put the dish in the oven for 20 mins. [Keep an eye on it during this time.]

Serve with a green salad.

Buon appetito.

CHICKEN, ZUCCHINI AND MELON SALAD

This is an updated version of the "Sunday salad" I created last year:  This time, I used a packet of frozen, grilled courgettes [blanched for a couple of minutes in water to which I added the juice of a lemon] instead of the grilled aubergines. I left out the mint because I didn't have any and really I'd used it last year only because it is the traditional herb for aubergines here. I used cubes of pecorino and grana cheese instead of mozzarella. I also added balls of canteloupe melon. I prefer this year's version!

A PEA-SUPER SALAD!

"I eat my peas with honey,

I've done it all my life,

It makes the peas taste funny

but it keeps them on the knife!"

- Anon.

Well, I do eat my peas with honey when I put them in salads, and that's just what I did the other day when I felt like inventing a new chicken salad for the Sicilian summer:

Pea-super* salad

2 tablesp balsamic vinegar

8 chicken breast escalopes, pounded very thin by your butcher

300 gr fresh or frozen peas plus mint sprig

a goodly chunk of Sicilian peppered Pecorino, cubed

6 - 8 plums, sliced

100 gr pack rocket leaves

a handful of other salad leaves of your choice

a handful of basil leaves, torn

about 8 mint leaves, torn

2 tablesp olive oil

Dressing:

2 tablesp olive oil

1 tablesp honey

1 tablesp balsamic vinegar

seasalt and black pepper

Marinate the chicken escalopes in the balsamic vinegar for at least 2 hours, then lift the chicken pieces out and leave them on kitchen paper. 

Cook the peas in salted water with a sprig of mint until they are just tender, then rinse them in cold water.

Drain the peas and put them into a large salad bowl with the Pecorino, plums, salad  leaves and herbs. Put the bowl in the fridge.

Make the dressing by simply mixing all the ingredients together well and put this in the fridge, too.

Heat the oil on a ridged griddle pan and cook the chicken escalopes on it - about 1 minute per side. As they are cooked, lift them onto a plate and leave to cool.  When you can handle them, cut them into small pieces with a kitchen scissors and add to the salad bowl. Just before serving, give the dressing a final whisk with a fork, pour it over the salad ingredients and toss well.

Buon appetito.

*A pea-souper was a thick, London fog which was so polluted that it was said to look like yellow pea soup. I never saw one, as they were largely a product of an age of heavy industry and coal fires. However, when I was a child I heard my parents talking about them and  I thought the fog had got its name because it was so cold and miserable outside that it made you crave a warming pea soup!

CREAMY LEMON CHICKEN

I don't often get food cravings, except for ice cream, but the other day I decided I just have to have chicken with cream and lemons.  I rarely use cream in my savoury cooking as cooked cream upsets my stomach but Italian panna di cucina is lighter than British single cream and does not cause me any problems. 

Get the butcher to cut one skinned and boned chicken breast [that is, two breasts as they are sold in the UK and one as sold in Italy] crosswise into not too thin medallion shapes.  Soften a chopped, medium white onion in 4 tablesp olive oil in a wide, fairly deep pan. Don't let the onion brown. Turn the chicken pieces in about 2 tablesp flour and add them to the pan.  Seal them on both sides.  Add 300 ml white wine, the grated zest and juice of 1 Sicilian or unwaxed lemon and stir well. Add 250 gr chopped mushrooms, a little chopped fresh thyme and parsley and a little dried oregano.  Stir well and season.  Simmer for 45 mins, then add 200 ml panna di cucina or other thin cream and stir. Simmer for another 15 mins, then serve with orange salad and enjoy!

Serves 4.

OF EATING AND BEING MERRY

Christmas really began for me on the evening of the 21st, when the Modican "foreign legion" held their annual multilingual carol service.  We were a little quieter than usual, having lost a dear member, but we did our best to sing out for her.

Chiara had decided that it was more important than ever to spend pleasant times together, so another gathering took place at her house on Saturday morning.  This is where the serious eating began!  Christmas just isn't Christmas without hot mince pies, and there were plenty of those:

I had made a batch of Welshcakes with cranberries:

Chiara had made a lovely Christmas cake

and Roberta had made these yummy, nut-flavoured "thins":

 There was homemade shortbread, too

and it wouldn't have been a Sicilian "tea" if someone hadn't brought along some ice cream!

Later on Saturday, we held a little Christmas party for students over at English Matters.  Our clever secretary, Martina, made these exquisite chocolates

and this was my go at making Nigella's chocolate Christmas cake:

 These delightful creations came from a Modican pasticceria:

Then suddenly it was Christmas Eve, which I again spent with Linda, Chiara and  family.

As I don't eat fish, I had to pass on these salmon appetisers but I'm sure they were delicious:

Don't you love the way these little appetisers are cut?

There was calabrese salad

 and it is traditional to serve several kinds of focaccia:

I hadn't made pumpkin bread for a while, so prepared some of that to take along:

I had to pass on the salmon with beignets too, but I loved the presentation:

Then there was one of my favourite Christmas Eve dishes, roasted artichokes:

Chiara had made another Christmas cake and it was scrumptious:

And finally, there was warm panettone:

"See you later this morning", we called as we parted and within a few hours we all met at Grazia's for Christmas lunch.

There was pasta, of course:

Linda provided the British elements and very good they were:

I had to pass again on these:

Here comes Grazia's pollo ripieno, with a garnish to gladden this blogger's heart:

And where there is Grazia, there will be excellent homemade pane condito:

I had made my standby semifreddo di marrons glacés. This time I added a little more cocoa powder for the colour and a few drops of cinnamon liqueur.  [The recipe for this is in Il Cucchiaio d'Argento.]

One of my young friends had made this pretty lemon cake and served it with justifiable pride:

The parents of Grazia's youngest guests had hoped that this chocolate crib, made and sold by a charitable organisation, would be opened and consumed on New Year's Eve.  Needless to say, it wasn't to be:

Then there was more warm panettone:

We all felt very lucky to have been able to celebrate Christmas together this year.