BUONA PASQUA 2023

 

Above: cassatelle di ricotta and traditional lamb
pies, made by a friend's mother

Let's not forget it's doggy Easter too, so Bertie is enjoying partaking of these treats little by little. The "Canombella" is a word play on cane (dog), Colomba (the traditional dove-shaped Easter cake) and ciambella (a ring-shaped cake or bun) and the "Canova" on cane and uova (egg). Don't worry - the egg-shaped treat does not contain chocolate.

Buona Pasqua

BUONA PASQUETTA - HAPPY EASTER MONDAY

This Easter traditional processions are back and Modicans, yesterday, were able to enjoy their beloved Madonna Vasa Vasa, the Easter Sunday procession in which statues of Mary and of the Risen Christ are carried around the town until, eventually, they meet. Other towns have also been able to celebrate in their traditional ways, although there was much polemic about this at first. In the end, I think, it was conceded that people cannot live under Covid restrictions forever and at some point they have to be trusted to be as careful as they can while attending such events. Let us hope that all will be well.

I did not attend, preferring to spend the day here with my dog and perhaps have a day of reflection but I certainly did not lack for food! A kind friend brought me lamb impanate (pies) and cassate (also known as cassatelle or cassateddi) di Pasqua. These last are very different from the iced cassate beloved of tourist magazines and are pastries filled with ricotta and honey. They are a particular speciality of south-eastern Sicily. I made for myself my spezzatino di Pasqua of lamb, onions, artichoke hearts, yellow pepper and potatoes spiced with sumac and flavoured with rosemary and sage. (Lamb cuts are smaller in Italy than in the UK, hence the seemingly vast quantity. I will freeze some.)  The last photo shows two slices of a superb colomba (dove-shaped cake) which was also a gift and it is flavoured with Modican chocolate and amarena (black cherry) icing. Can I make colomba?  I have never tried because there are professional bakers who do it far better than I ever could and have space and equipment for the long, natural rising required, as with panettone.

Happy Easter Monday, everyone!

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!

HOT AND SPICY EASTER STEW

It's the time of year when Sicilians go in for lamb so here's a hot and spicy spezzatino I've invented, mainly becaiuse I wanted to use the tiny, round chilli peppers I found in the greengrocer's the other day:

In a wok or other deep, wide pan with a lid, heat 5 tablesp olive oil.  Add 1 kg lamb pieces [for spezzatino in Italy, otherwise a bit bigger than the usual cubes sold for casseroles in Britain, preferably bone-in]. When the pieces are browned on all sides, add 1 sliced white onion and a chopped garlic clove.  Continue cooking, stirring, until the onion is soft. Then add a small, sliced aubergine and the contents of 2 tins [400 gr each] of pomodorini [cherry tomatoes in their juice.].  You can use tins of chopped tomatoes if you can't get these, Add some chopped sage and sprigs of rosemary, seasalt, black pepper, 6 - 8 tiny chilli peppers or some chilli pepper flakes, 2 teasp of my favourite spice sumac and 200 ml water.  Add 2 - 3 large potatoes, sliced but not peeled, some cinnamon ground from a  cinnamon mill and just a few cumin seeds.  Put the lid on and simmer for 1 hour.

If you were able to get the tiny chillis, use a few more to garnish.

SPEZZATINO DI PASQUA

Lamb, artichokes and asparagus: those are the savoury foods most associated with Easter in Sicily. I've been wanting to cook artichokes plus a lamb dish for days, but with limited time, I decided to combine them. I added the sumac, one of my favourite spices, to give it some punch. It's not Sicilian but it should grow here. [I've read that it does but have never found any.] Here's what I did:

Spezzatino di Pasqua

6 tablesp olive oil

1 kg lamb pieces for stew: in Italy, ask for the spezzatino cut. The pieces will be very small, with quite a lot of bone on them, but this does add to the flavour.

6 small onions, chopped [I like cipolle borettane, from Emilia-Romagna.]

2 garlic cloves, chopped

300 gr frozen artichoke hearts, thawed

1 large yellow pepper, cut into not-too-thin strips

1 Sicilian or unwaxed lemon, quartered 

4 - 6 potatoes, unpeeled and cubed

2 teasp sumac

coarse seasalt and black pepper

0.25 litre white wine

sprigs of rosemary and about 6 fresh sage leaves

Heat oil in a deep, wide pan or wok and add the onions and garlic. Cook until golden. Add the lamb and brown on all sides. Then add the artichoke hearts, lemon, yellow pepper, seasoning, sumac and herbs and continue to cook for about 10 mins., stirring well.  Add the white wine and potatoes, stir well and bring to simmer. Simmer for about 1 hour with the lid on, stirring occasionally. Do not be tempted to add more liquid as the vegetables will produce their own.

Serve with a green salad to which you have added some mint.

Buon appetito.

FROM ANOTHER ISLAND....

I've never been to Sardinia but would like to and the other day I thought I'd take an imaginary journey there by trying one of its famous dishes.  Cutturiddi is a lamb stew which is also made, with slight variations,  in Puglia and Basilicata.  The lamb is cooked slowly in oil with fresh red chilli pepper, onion [I used a red one], celery and fresh tomatoes. I didn't peel the tomatoes but probably would have if I had been cooking for guests. The vegetables provide plenty of liquid and no extra is added apart from a ladeful of water. 

Now I have to make a confession so if any Sardinians are reading, look away now!  It is that I am still British enough to have an obsession with the "marriage" of lamb and mint and, as I had some, I added a few fresh mint leaves. I think it worked!

For those of you in Italy, I found the recipe in the Bolliti, Brasati e Spezzatini volume of the La Cucina Italiana series that comes with La Gazzetta dello Sport [which I don't read.] As I'm sure the result would be just as delicious without the mint I want to go to Sardinia more than ever now!

LAMB WITH LEMONS

This is a variation on the "Finger-Burner" Lamb Chops recipe in the lovely Tuscan Sun Cookbook by Frances and Edward Mayes:

I used Frances and Edward's idea for the marinade, namely a mixture of a little olive oil, red wine, fresh thyme and seasoning, then added some dried oregano as well. I used 1 kg of chops but bear in mind that the lamb chops available down here are very small and have little meat on them.  If you can get meatier, or what I call "normal" lamb chops, you may just want to use, say, two per person.  Anyway, having left the chops in their marinade in the fridge overnight, I didn't grill or pan-roast them but put them in a foil-lined roasting dish with some slices of lemon - we are in the green lemon season here - and a few sliced vine tomatoes.  [You can seed the tomatoes if you want but I didn't.] I sprinkled just a dash more oil and coarse seasalt over the tomatoes and cooked the dish in the oven at 180 C for 50 minutes.

The result, I thought, was excellent and I'll definitely be making this again.

IL TEMPO VOLA

"Tempus fugit", for here we are at the end of Easter week and I haven't yet shown you the culinary delights offered at Linda and Chiara's Easter Day feast, so I will put that right immediately.

Grazia not only made the stunning bread dough centrepiece, but this dish of tagliatelle:

Then there was roast lamb with potatoes and even mint sauce!

 Sunday isn't Sunday in Sicily without chicken cotolette:

There was chicken that had been slowly cooked in wine too:

And there were bacon rolls:

Time flies, as do doves and of course there was an Easter colomba:

I'd made some of my chocolate thingies, as everyone seems to like them. [It's getting difficult to find Amarena Fabbri down here so I used German black cherries in syrup from the blessed Lidl.]

Linda and Chiara had made this tart of frutti di bosco and pears:

And later a friend brought round these home-made Sicilian cassate, without which Easter cannot be complete:

While time sets about flying, waist lines take to widening, so next week we diet!

MIDDLE EASTERN SICILIAN LAMB

The sumac bush grows in Sicily but I have never, to my knowledge, seen one and I do not know if it is the culinary kind that is grown.  [I'm pretty useless at plants so unless it grew labelled, I wouldn't recognise it!]  Anyway, I have never found the spice here and miss cooking with it but sometimes friends are kind enough to send some from the UK.  Armed with a fresh supply and with a nod to the Sicilian tradition of combining lamb with artichokes, here is the dish I've invented for this Easter:

Middle Eastern Sicilian Lamb


4 tablesp olive oil
2 sticks celery, chopped
1 medium white onion, chopped
a little flour
2 heaped teasp powdered sumac
1 kg lamb in large pieces, bone in
8 artichoke hearts [I used the frozen ones that are sold here as it saves a lot of trouble and swearing]
300 ml dry white wine
125 gr dried apricots, chopped [best done with a scissors]
seasoning to taste
a handful of fresh herbs such as rosemary, sage and thyme

Heat the olive oil in a wide pan and soften the onion and celery in it.  Spread a good handful of flour on a plate, mix in the sumac and dip the lamb pieces in the mixture.  Immediately drop the lamb into the pan and brown on all sides.  Add the white wine, 300 ml water, the artichokes [not defrosted] and any remaining flour.  Stir well and season, taking care not to add too much pepper because of the sumac.  Add the apricots and, last but not least, a handful of fresh herbs - I used rosemary as I think it's a must with lamb, sage and thyme.  Cover the pan and simmer the dish for 50 mins.

Serves four.

Buon appetito e buona Pasqua.

GARLICKY LAMB WITH SUNDRIED TOMATOES

Yes, another lamb dish for you tonight.  This is because I had frozen some of the chop-like lamb pieces I found in the supermarket the other week and, as the weather is getting colder, I cooked them last night.  I was in need of comfort and that means potatoes!   One of my favourite ways of cooking potatoes is in the oven with lots of garlic and rosemary but last night, being out of pazienza,  I decided to see if I could get a similar effect by adding the potatoes to the dish on the hob.  The answer turned out to be "Yes" but obviously they were softer.  I got the idea of adding sundried tomatoes from a recipe in the October edition of Alice Cucina but otherwise, the recipe is my own:

Heat 4 tablsp olive oil in a fairly deep pan and add 8 unpeeled garlic cloves or, if the cloves are small as mine were, 12. When they are golden add about 1 kilo of large lamb pieces and cook until browned all over.  Then add 3 - 4 unpeeled potatoes, cut into chunks.  Stir everything, then add c. 200 gr sundried tomatoes which have been preserved in oil, drained. [Sundried tomatoes are cheap in markets here and I put them in oil myself, with some basil leaves.]  Season with coarse seasalt and black pepper and add some sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme.  Add 300 ml red wine, stir everything again, put the lid on the pan and simmer for 1 hour.  Serve the dish with a green salad.

LAMB WITH OLIVE PÂTÉ

As I've mentioned before, it is not always possible to find lamb cuts here and even rarer to find any that resemble a British lamb chop.  However, the costate available in the supermarket last weekend were pretty near so I decided to buy some to try out a recipe idea I had:

Long ago, when, back in Britain, I cooked my way through Valentina Harris's Southern Italian Cooking, I learnt that lamb and olives are a good combination and for a while now, I've been wondering if I could use black olive pâté, which we can buy cheaply in tubes here, in a lamb dish.  This is what I did:

Heat 3 tablesp olive oil in a fairly deep pan and cook the lamb chops on all sides.  [I used 6 for 2 people as there tends to be less meat on the cuts available here.]  When the lamb is brown, add a roughly chopped red onion with 2 chopped red peppers and continue cooking until these soften.  Then add 1 tablesp black olive pâté plus 1 tablesp 'strattu [tomato paste, not purée] and stir everything around until both are dissolved.  Now add 5 ml white wine, two or three large, unpeeled potatoes, cut into cubes, and season to taste.  For me any dish containing lamb and potatoes also has to contain rosemary so I added a few sprigs and some fresh thyme while I was at it.  Put the lid on the pan and simmer for 1 hour, stirring now and then and adding a little water if necessary.

Serve with a green salad to which you have added fresh mint.

LAMB PIECES WITH CHERRY TOMATOES & MUSHROOMS

When you finally receive the supermarket points pan that you have been waiting for since February and, on the same day, your butcher has some lamb pieces which he has marinated with pink peppercorns, seasalt,  rosemary and garlic, it is a sign that you should use the lamb to inaugurate the pan, no?  Lamb is not often found here outside the Easter season, although it is beginning to be sold more often than it was when I arrived six years ago. 

Anyway, here is the recipe that I invented last night and I am calling it Better-Late-than-Never-Pan Lamb:

Heat 3 tablesp olive oil in a pan and add 500 gr fairly large, bone-in, lamb pieces which have been marinated as described above.  Cook, turning, for about 10 mins and then add 2 sliced shallots.  Continue cooking for 5 mins. Then add about 300 ml white wine and, when it has reduced a bit, the contents of a can of cherry tomatoes in their liquid.  [If you can't get this where you live you could use fresh cherry tomatoes and a small box of passata.] Mix it all well and add about 250 gr mushrooms, cut into chunks if large.  Mix again, put the lid on and cook over a low heat for 50 mins.  Serve with salad.

Buon appetito.

MADONIE LAMB WITH PEPPERS AND DRIED PORCINI

This recipe from the Madonie mountains around Palermo turned out to be one of the best lamb dishes I've made here.  It consists of layers of lamb, onions, garlic, dried porcini, peppers and herbs, all marinated in olive oil and lemon juice and then cooked slowly in the oven.  It's another recipe from my "birthday cookbook":

NATALE DA GINA

I was lucky enough to be invited to spend the main celebration, late on Christmas Eve,  and Christmas Day lunch, with my friend Gina and her family.  As regular readers will know, Gina is a wonderful cook and when her mother-in-law is there too, the feasting never ends!  So without further ado, here is what we all ate over Christmas:

Christmas Eve began with a choice of red pasta

or white pasta with mushrooms but of course, we all had both!

Then there was fried baccalà [salt cod].  [I can't eat this because I am allergic to fish.]

Whenever Gina's mother-in-law presides, there is a wonderful polpettone

and Gina had made this steak pie:

There were condimenti of dressed peppers

and patate al forno cooked with rosemary:

There were fennel and green salads too [not shown] and then there was fresh fruit to clear the palate

before we embarked upon Gina's homemade torrone

and her mother-in-law's delicious almond biscuits:

Finally there was panettone [not shown] and then it was midnight and time to open the presents.

A good night's sleep and suddenly it was time for Christmas Day lunch, beginning with this delightful antipasti arrangement:

Then there was pasta al forno

 followed by special sausages

and this dish of meltingly tender lamb with potatoes.

After the salads, there was gel al limone

 and of course there was a tray of Sicilian pastries

followed by panettone which could be cut into star shapes:

If you're wondering if I can still stand up after that lot, the answer is just about!  Thank you, Gina and family for a wonderful Christmas.

LAMB WITH HARISSA AND COUSCOUS SALAD

This is my take on a pair of recipes in this month's Good Housekeeping.  The recipes are for "harissa lamb with bulgur wheat" but, as you cannot get anything resembling a British lamb chop here and I've never been able to find bulgur wheat, I changed them quite a bit.

Instead of bulger wheat, I used couscous, as I do when making tabbouleh, and I decided that I wanted to serve the salad cold.  Here's what I did:

Cover 8 oz couscous with cold water. let it absorb, then repeat the process.  Then let the couscous chill in a serving bowl in the fridge.  Meanwhile, chop a couple of tomatoes - you can skin and deseed them if you like, but I didn't.  Add them to the couscous.  Chop two or three fresh apricots - again, you can skin them if you want - and add these, too.  In a processor chop a good handful of mint leaves, a red pepper and a small onion and add these to the couscous mixture.  Now mix everything well, season the salad and add 6 tablesp olive oil, the juice of a lemon and a little dried oregano.  Mix again and put the salad back in the fridge to chill for at least an hour.

I asked the butcher to cut a kilo of  bone-in lamb as thickly as he could.  I rubbed the lamb on both sides with some harissa, which is available here.  I'm not telling you how much to use as that depends on how hot you like your spicy food.  I like mine good and hot!  Then I heated 4 tablesp olive oil in a pan, chucked in some cumin seeds and then cooked the lamb in the oil for about 12 minutes, turning often. 

As soon as the lamb was ready, I served it with the salad, a combination which worked well.

These quantities would serve 4.

EASTER SUNDAY FEAST

What a feast we all enjoyed with Linda, Gino and Chiara yesterday.  I have to admit that I was too contendedly full to write last night!

Before the antipasti, there were slices of these - not big lemons, but cedri, which you eat with the skin on and they are not in the least bitter:

Then there were dressed peppers, caponata and sun-dried tomatoes and all the produce was home-grown:

Of course, there was pasta

then a spezzatino of pork with carrots and just a hint of marjoram:

Then there was a splendid dish of lamb stuffed with a mixture whose main ingredient was aita [chard]. Yes, there was chicken, too,  for those who had room!

Afterwards there was fruit, including the last of the season's vanilla-flavoured oranges,

then this mouthwatering crostata:

I made my "chocolate thingies" again, since they are a breeze to prepare, pretty and portable:

And Chiara, who always thinks of a wonderful new way to decorate a celebration cake and who should write a book on how to make deliciously light sponge cakes, served this fabulous lemon curd one:

Finally, just look at the Easter present that Chiara got from an aunt [the lady who made the spezzatino]:

Don't you all want one, ladies?  Don't worry, we didn't eat it!