A BASKET OF GOODNESS

This is the hottest summer I can remember in Sicily and it seems to be wearing us all down because the extreme heat started early, in May, and I believe it has only rained for about ten minutes since. There are, of course, compensations, such as granita, anguria (watermelon) and myriad ice cream flavours and I certainly perked up when a friend brought me this traditional Sicilian basket of goodies from his garden on Friday. 

There are aubergines, datterini (tiny, date-shaped tomatoes), salad tomatoes, tomatoes for sauce and occhi di bue (bull's-eye) tomatoes, long peppers and a kind of pepper that I had never seen before.These are called friggitelli (from friggere - to fry) and, although they are related to chilli peppers, they are not hot. (I understand they are known in the US.) My friend told me to fry them in olive oil and garlic until browned and to add coarse salt only at the end of cooking. That is exactly what I did and wow, they were good!

BRIT-SICILIAN-INDIAN SHEPHERD'S PIE

Long ago, I used to make the great Madhur Jaffrey's "A Kind of Shepherd's Pie" from her 1994 Madhur Jaffrey's Cookbook - Food for Family and Friends. However, due to the difficulty of obtaining minced lamb here and despite having tried the recipe a couple of times with minced beef, in the end I stopped making it. 

But in colder weather comfort food calls so a few weeks ago I decided to revive the recipe using the ingredients I can easily get here, so it's become a bit British, a bit Sicilian and a bit Indian.  I've kept Madhur's idea of a grilled aubergine base and I think this makes it quite Sicilian too. You can use frozen grilled aubergines, reconstituted as directed on the pack, or just slice an aubergine lengthwise and cook the slices on a tray lined with baking parchment in the oven for 10 minutes. The latter is a tip I picked up from Antonella Clerici and I find that the cooked slices freeze well. The other Sicilian touches are the use of sweet Sicilian carrots, green [French] beans and passata. The Indian part is, of course, the use of spices, though there's another nod to Sicily with the use of cinnamon.

Here's the recipe:

Brit-Sicilian-Indian Shepherd's Pie

1 aubergine, sliced and cooked as above [or use frozen grilled aubergine slices]
100 gr green beans, cooked in boiling water until tender, then drained and cut into small pieces
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
300 gr mushrooms, sliced
1 white onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
500 gr mixed minced meat [a mixture of beef and pork if you are in Italy but you can use all beef or lamb]
2 goodly-sized knobs ginger, peeled and finely chopped
cinnamon
1 kg potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
c. 125 gr butter, softened plus a little extra
200 gr passata, made up to 300 gr with water
4 tablesp olive oil
1 tablesp flour
Handful fresh sage leaves, chopped

Arrange the aubergine slices in a large, fairly deep Pyrex or ceramic roasting dish.

Cook the onion and garlic in the oil until softened, then add the carrot slices and soften these too. Add the meat and cook, stirring, until browned.

Add the beans, mushrooms, half the ginger, a little cinnamon and most of the chopped sage and stir for a couple of minutes.

Add the passata mixture and flour, season and stir well.

Turn the heat down and let the mixture simmer for 20 mins.

Meanwhile, cook the potatoes in boiling water till soft but not disintegrating.

Mix the butter with the rest of the sage leaves, a little more cinnamon and the rest of the ginger. Use this to mash the potatoes.

Now pour the mixture in the pan on top of the aubergines and spoon the mash over. Smooth the top with a palette knife. Add a few small knobs of butter and a final sprinkling of cinnamon.

Cook in the oven at 180° C for 15 mins.

Garnish with some whole sage leaves if you wish.

Buon appetito.

NOSEY MELANZANA

DEFINITELY SICILIAN!

Here is proof, if it were needed, that Bertie-Pierrine is Sicilian:  yes, she has stolen an aubergine!

If she was a Cockney, perhaps her name would be "Tea Leaf"....

IL ROSPO NEL BUCO

A former student of mine, a military man, had been asking me to make him "toad in the hole" since it was mentioned in an article we read in class.  I must admit I'd been avoiding it as it's not one of my favourite dishes and I hadn't made it for years but how can you refuse a fighting man? So when he came home to Sicily for a visit last weekend, I relented and made it.

First, though, I served antipasti, including the aubergine polpette I mentioned here [I decided to keep the sauce], Asiago cheese with cherries, olives and datterini tomatoes and salame tartlets, a Jill Dupleix  idea. I'm always afraid of not serving enough, so there had to be a bowl of crisps!

Then the rospo nel buco, using Italian sausages and to which I added some sage and chopped rosemary. I must say, the nerve-wracking thing did puff up nicely:

And finally, as this was, mostly, a British evening, a summer pudding:

You'll be glad to know, and I was very relieved, that it was all a success!

ANTIPASTO

I'm always on the lookout for new antipasto recipes so I was pleased when I found one for aubergine polpette in a local newspaper, especially as they are cooked in the oven rather than fried. They also contain garlic, Parmesan, pinenuts, pangrattato [ready-prepared breadcrumbs] and rosemary. They should contain parsley as well but, as I didn't have any, I used mint, which is traditionally used in many aubergine recipes here. I made a roasted tomato sauce to go with them as per the recipe, but next time, if I'm serving the polpette as finger food, I think I'll leave the sauce out. 

MAY DAY PIZZA

I am calling this my "May Day Pizza" because I invented it on this day but you can call it "Red onion and aubergine pizza" if you like!

First of all, make your pizza base: I guess we all have a favourite pizza base recipe and mine is in Claudia Roden's Mediterranean Cookery. I only use half the quantity, though.

While the dough is rising, slice 2 large red onions thinly and soak the slices in cold water for about 15 mins. Drain the slices well and pat them dry with kitchen paper. Then you need to cook them very slowly, in a heavy pan with the lid on, with 85 gr unsalted butter and some seasoning. This will also take about 15 mins. Stir them from time to time.

Rinse 6 - 8 slices aubergine preserved in oil, rinse them and drain again. Pat dry with kitchen paper.

When the pizza base has risen - after about 1 hour - roll it out into a rectangular shape on a floured board. Pull it a bit with your hands to get it the right shape for a baking tray. Put it on a lightly oiled baking tray and spread the contents of a 400 gr tin tomato pulp on it. [You could use a thick passata if you cannot get this.] Put the aubergine slices on top of this, then 200 gr mozzarella. [In Italy we can buy it already chopped up for pizza.] Lift the onions out of the saucepan with a slotted spoon and spread them over the top. Finally, add a few sprigs of fresh rosemary.

Cook the pizza at 180 - 200 C for 25 mins.  Add a few more fresh rosemary sprigs to serve.

Buon appetito.

Incidentally, I have read that Claudia Roden's The Food of Italy has been updated and republished to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Congratulations to one of my favourite cookery writers!

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.

OPERATIC PIZZA

Pasta alla Norma is one of my favourite Sicilian dishes and I was thinking of it as I walked home past my local pizzeria last night. The aroma was just too much for me, so I went in and emerged, fifteen minutes later, with this delicious pizza alla Norma.

The pizza was of course enjoyed to strains of Bellini!

SUNDAY SALAD

The temperature in Sicily is soaring yet again, so cool food is called for.  I invented this salad thi morning:

Sunday Salad

You will need one chicken breast as they are sold in Italy or two as they are sold in the UK, cut into bocconcini or bite-sized pieces. [The butcher did this for me.]  Put the contents of a jar of red pesto - here we can get fiery red pesto containing red chilli pepper - into a bowl and about 250 gr pane grattugiato or fresh, fine breadcrumbs into another.  Dip the pieces of chicken first into the pesto, then roll them in the breadcrumbs.  Put them on a plate.  

Now put 4 tablesp olive oil in a wok or deep pan with as many of the chicken pieces as will fit comfortably in one layer. Put the pan on the hob at medium heat and cook the chicken pieces, turning occasionally, until coloured on all sides. [The object is not to deep-fry them, just to cook them nicely.] Some of the breadcrumbs will fall off but it doesn't matter.  Lift the pieces out with a slotted spoon as they are done and put them on kitchen paper on a plate.  You will probably have to add a little more oil to do the rest - I found I needed to do it in three batches, adding another 2 tablesp oil for both the second and third batches.  When they are all done, leave them to cool and refrigerate them as soon as they are cool enough.

When you are ready to assemble the salad, put the following ingredients in a large bowl:  the chicken pieces, some bocconcini of mozzarella [halved if large] several grilled aubergines  [I made life easy for myself and used frozen ones, thawed and cut in half ] 20 - 30 datterini tomatoes or the smallest cherry tomatoes you can find and some torn leaves of fresh basil and mint.  

Make a dressing by mixing 4 tablesp olive oil, 1 tablesp honey, 1 tablesp balsamic vinegar and salt & pepper to taste.

Toss the salad in the dressing and serve.

AUBERGINE & PEPPER POTATO CAKE

For those of you who are in Italy, the inspiration for this recipe came from some potato cakes featured in the September edition of Alice Cucina.  However,  I did my own thing with it, as follows:

Boil 500 gr  peeled,  sliced potatoes in salted water until soft enough to mash.  Meanwhile, slice an aubergine as thinly as you can and cut the slices into strips.  Cook these in olive oil until soft and drain the slices on kitchen paper. Chop half a red pepper and slice 150 gr provolone cheese thinly.  Drain the potatoes and mash with as much butter as it takes to get a dreamily soft mash. [After many fights with a potato ricer, I now use my hand mixer for this.]  Add 150 gr grated ragusano, parmesan or grana cheese to the mash and mix well.  Now oil a not too shallow flan dish or ovenproof mould - I must say I have become a fan of the bendy silicone ones - and sprinkle pangrattato or breadcrumbs over the base. Spread about half the mash over, then arrange the aubergine slices on top and season them.  Now add the cheese slices and sprinkle the chopped pepper on top of these.  Cut up a couple of slices of cooked ham and add these, together with a few torn basil leaves and then spread the rest of the potato mixture over.  Level it with a palette knife.  Pour 2 tablesp olive oil over the top and cook at 180 C for about 45 mins.  Remove from the oven and leave for about half an hour, then unmould the cake:  the only way is to take a deep breath, quickly dump it top-down onto a plate and then put another plate on the base, pray and flip it back over.  It may not come out perfectly but you can shove any runny bits from the side back in with a fish slice.

Serve with salad and enjoy.  [It's good cold, too.]

INVOLTINI DI MELANZANE

A TV presenter and personality I like very much is Antonella Clerici, as I find her unpretentious, down to earth and close to the Italian people, so I was delighted to receive her cookery book as a Christmas present.

I've tried her involtini di melanzane [which we might loosely translate as "aubergine rolls"] a couple of times now and they are very good.  I must admit that I found the instruction to lay the rolls, of aubergine slices which you first grill and then fill with cooked ham, basil and scamorza cheese, on squashed tinned tomato a strange one, but it works!  I am not a fan of scamorza, so used buffalo mozzarella instead.

My rolls are not perfectly formed and I do wonder whether you would get better shapes if you used the grilled aubergines in oil that you can buy here sometimes, but, in the absence of these, my imperfect shapes will have to do.

Here they are on the tray with the tomatoes 

and, cocktail sticks removed, ready to serve:

MERRY MELANZANA

BILL AND ERIC DAY

It is several months since I received an email entitled, "Avid blog reader wants to meet you in Modica" and made the online acquaintance of Bill, the writer of the mail and his partner Eric.  Through further emails, I also got to know Toby, Bill and Eric's cute Yorkshire terrier and of course, they all got to know Simi.  From Bill I also learnt about the autumn beauty of his home state of Vermont and more about Bill the man by reading the poetry on his blog. 

Bill and Eric invited me to lunch in Modica and today I met them for real at the Osteria dei Sapori Perduti.  We had a long, leisurely meal and discussed a wide range of topics including, of course, Sicilian food!  Without further ado I'll get on with showing you some of that:

You absolutely cannot visit the Sapori Perduti without partaking of their magnificent antipasti, so we happily tucked into these dishes:

Then Eric ordered two primi, cavatieddi with aubergine sauce and pasta with maccu, a kind of broad bean paste

while Bill had fastola, a bean soup

and I had my favourite sweet ravioli with a pork sauce:

While Eric finished his primi, Bill had coniglio stemperato [the traditional Modican dish of rabbit cooked in wine vinegar] while I had grilled veal:

Finally Bill had gel alla mandorla [almond gel] while Eric and I had gel al limone:

And here we all are:

Afterwards, Bill and Eric came home with me to meet Simi, as Toby, I'm told, is expecting a full report:

It was great to meet you, Bill and Eric.  Enjoy the rest of your Sicilian trip!

A SUMMER FEAST

What a feast my friend Gina prepared for her friends on Friday evening!  We spent a lovely, convivial evening on her terrace by the sea and, after the feast, the women listened to the men discussing traditional jam-making methods!  Without further ado, I'll let you enjoy the food pictures:

There were antipasti of prawn salad, bresaola salad, anchovy salad [I can't touch the fish dishes because of an allergy but I'm sure they were delicious] and an elegant cold omelette filled with mayonnaise and ham:

Then there were sausages wrapped in pancetta, a baccalà [salt-cod] flan [ a recipe which Gina had invented and it did look good] and baked, stuffed onions:

There were contorni of beans, peppers and aubergines:

For dessert, Gina had made gel al limone,

Chiara and her mother, who always make perfect sponges, had created this one, filled with marmalade

and I took along semifreddo di limone, otherwise known as Jennifer Paterson's "Suffolk Lemon Pudding" from her book, Seasonal Receipts:

To go with the semifreddo, I had made Liz's pineapple shortbread, which was a great success with my Sicilian friends.  Thanks for the recipe , Liz.

E grazie per la bella cena, Gina.

THANKS, KATHY!

Besides creating recipes, I love adapting recipes and making them "my own". I love it even more when I hear that someone has adapted a recipe of mine! My friend Kathy of The Garden Cat Cottage has done just that with my chicken and aubergine recipe and she is so clever that she has made this video of the process:



I think it's a great idea to make this in a crock pot [slow cooker] and I'm going to add zucchini next time I make it. Aren't Kathy's dogs cute, too?

CHICKEN WITH AUBERGINE

I adapted this recipe from a magazine:

4 drumsticks and 4 chicken thighs, bone in
2 aubergines
olive oil
4 slices pancetta, rind removed and cut into small pieces
2 cloves garlic, chopped
about 5 fl oz white wine
a bottle of passata or homemade tomato sauce
1 tablesp 'strattu [tomato paste]
2 tablesp chopped parsley
coarse seasalt, freshly ground black pepper

Cut the aubergines into fairly thick chunks, then fry them in oil in a deep pan or wok. [Don't bother salting them first as they will be more difficult to fry.] Drain them with a slotted spoon and place on kitchen paper on a plate. Now in a clean, wide pan or wok, fry the chopped garlic and pancetta in about 3 tablesp olive oil. Throw in the chicken joints and brown them on all sides. Chuck the wine over them and let it evaporate. Add the passata, 'strattu, aubergines and seasoning. Stir well, cover the pan and leave to simmer for about 50 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add a little water if necessary. Add the parsley and cook for another 10 minutes.

Buon appetito.

LAMB RATATOUILLE

The lamb available here does not have a lot of meat on it so is best enjoyed in spezzatini or in dishes such as this one. To serve 6 people generously you need:

About a kilo of lamb pieces or very small chops
3 tablesp olive oil
2 red onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 red pepper & 1 yellow pepper, chopped
4 courgettes, thinly sliced
1 aubergine, thinly sliced
250 gr sliced mushrooms
500 gr tomatoes, sliced [peeled and deseeded if you like]
3 - 4 medium potatoes, scrubbed but not peeled, thinly sliced
a handful of chopped parsley
coarse seasalt & freshly ground black pepper

In a wok or very large pan heat the olive oil and brown the lamb. Then take it out and put it on kitchen paper on a plate. Add all the vegetables to the pan and stir well. You want them all to become tender at the same time and the only way you are going to get the potatoes to behave is to slice them as thinly as the courgettes and aubergine - best done in a food processor. The tomatoes will go mushy anyway, so it doesn't matter so much and I don't peel and deseed them if I'm not entertaining. Give everything a good stir, season to taste, then stir again. Put the lid on and cook over a low flame for about half an hour. Then add the lamb, mixing it in well. Cook for another half an hour, then stir in the parsley.

AND LUNCH IS BY ROSA

I am about to partake of a lunch which Rosa brought me this morning. It is an Italo-Albanian dish of stuffed aubergine. Rosa says she chooses round aubergines, cuts them in two and digs out the pulp, which she chops. Then she cooks this with some chopped onion, garlic, tomatoes, oregano and minced veal in olive oil until the onions are softened and the meat has taken on some colour. She fills the aubergine shells with this mixture and puts them in an oven dish. She adds a little water to the dish and cooks the filled aubergines in the oven [I'm guessing at about 200 C] until the water has evaporated. Delicious!

SATURDAY VEGETABLE TORTE

I adapted these from a recipe in a July Corriere della Sera supplement:

For the courgette tart, I more or less did what it said, which was: Line a baking tray with baking parchment and on this put a ready-rolled sheet of bought puff pastry [pasta sfoglia if you are in Italy]. With a sharp knife, mark a 1 cm border all around, taking care not to cut right through the pastry. [How much is a centimetre? I don't know. I can do metric weights but not measures! Go for half an inch if you're not sure.] Now, this is my addition: I remembered from one of the wonderful Nigella's pie recipes that she said that sprinkling some breadcrumbs on the pastry helps stop it getting soggy under the filling, so I threw on a handful of pane grattuggiato. You can use fresh breadcrumbs if you can't get this. Next slice 4 courgettes as thinly as possible [I used the processor slicer] then put them in a bowl with the grated rind of a lemon, 2 tablesp olive oil plus seasalt and black pepper. Mix them well and then arrange on the pastry. Use a pastry brush to brush the borders well with beaten egg. Put the tray in an oven heated to 180 C for 25 mins. Have ready some nice, crumbly feta cheese and some fresh mint leaves and sprinkle both over the torta when you take it out of the oven. Serve immediately. [It will be too fragile to be removed from the baking tray so cut into slices and serve from that.]



Well, that turned out all right so I got adventurous:

Prepare the baking tray and pastry as before. Don't forget the breadcrumbs! Heat 2 tablesp olive oil in a wide pan and add a very thinly sliced aubergine. Stir this around and leave to soften and take on some colour. [No, I didn't salt the aubergine first.] Be prepared to add more oil as aubergines are devils for soaking the stuff up! Prepare 2 courgettes as before, using only 1 tablesp oil, and add 2 sliced tomatoes to them in the bowl. When the aubergines are ready, arrange them with the tomatoes and courgettes on the pastry. Cook and add feta and mint as before.



Buon appetito.