BISTECCA IN SALSA DI PISTACCHI

This week I wanted to do something different with the pizzaiola steak cut and I decided that a pistacchio and mushroom sauce would do the trick.  In Italy, you just ask the butcher for pizzaiola steak and the cut most often used for this is round steak.  I asked for pizzaiola steak for four people.  I also wanted to incorporate cedro [citron] and this is what I did:

Bistecca in salsa di pistacchi

Cut one cedro in half.  Juice one half and marinate the steak pieces in it with a little dried oregano. Leave it in the fridge for a few hours.  [This will tenderise the meat further as well as adding flavour.] Slice the other half and grill the slices quickly, on both sides, in a little olive oil on a ridged griddle pan.  Set aside.

Drain the steak and pat dry with kitchen paper. Cook the pieces in 2 tblsp olive oil on a ridged griddle pan.  Do not overcook them! Place on kitchen paper as they are ready.  

Keep the steak warm in a dish in the oven while you make the sauce:  Soften a chopped white onion in 2 tblsp olive oil in a frying pan.  Do not allow it to brown.  When it is soft, add 200 gr sliced white mushrooms.  Cook for a few minutes, then add 200 ml panna di cucina if you are in Italy or single cream if you are not.  Keep stirring for a few minutes and season.  Do not let it boil.  Off the heat, add a generous sprinkling of farina di pistacchi  [pistacchio flour - very finely ground pistacchi].

Serve the steaks with the sauce and cedro slices.

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!

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.

GOING NUTTY

I enjoyed being taken out for dinner on Saturday and took advantage of the occasion to go nutty!

For the main course both my friend and I had fillet steak in a pistacchio sauce and there was an interesting contorno to share. Then my friend chose pannacotta with caramel whilst I couldn't resist one of my favourites, parfait alle mandorle [almond parfait] which was.....well, perfect!

AUTUMN CASSEROLE

In 2003 I lived, for one month, in Prague. I loved the tiny apartment I rented there and I bought a Czech cookbook and cooked my way through it. One of the techniques I learned there was to thicken casseroles with bread and every now and then, I still do this. 

At Halloween, having found, for the first time, a butternut squash here, I decided to add it to a Prague-style casserole. The Sicilian ingredients are 'strattu [tomato paste], pomegranate seeds, the orange peel and Mediterranean cardoncello [king trumpet] mushrooms:

First of all, cut a long strip of peel from an orange and put it on a plate in the microwave for about 1 minute on medium. Put aside till needed.

Heat 6 tablesp olive oil in a large, wide pan and in it brown 1 kg cubed beef for casseroles or spezzatino. Add 1 chopped white onion and a chopped clove of garlic and swirl these around with the beef until they are browned too. Then add the peeled and chopped squash and brown this. 

Now add 1 tablesp 'strattu, seasalt to taste and a few grindings of mixed peppercorns plus 170 gr roughly sliced mushrooms, a handful of chopped parsley and some sprigs of fresh thyme. Add the strip of orange peel and 568 ml water [1 UK pint]. Bring the mixture to simmer, cover and leave for 1 hour, stirring once or twice.

Add 4 slices of bread, crusts removed and cut into squares. [This can be brown or white - it doesn't matter] and stir till dissolved.

Finally add the seeds of 1 pomegranate, discard the orange peel [if you can find it] and serve.

This is serious comfort food and will serve 4 - 6. 

Buon appetito!  Dobrou chuť!

Me in Halloween mood

TAGLIATA WITH CHERRIES

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.

"UN PICCOLO PIATTO"

It's always nice to have lunch out with a friend and this is what we were served the other day when we each asked for a piccolo piatto [little plate] of antipasti:

A fish-based selection for my friend....

.... and salumi- based antipasti for me - the speck timballo [right]
was particularly good.

Then an Italian version of steak au poivre for the main course - excellent.

After that lot we decided to be good and take some exercise,  so we walked to another bar for ice cream.

CHE BELLA TAVOLA!

What a beautifully set table there was at a party to celebrate my friends' 50th wedding anniversary on Saturday:

The menu consisted of dishes that brought back memories of places where the couple had lived and you may be able to see the little Spoleto pizze at the top of the place settings.  The antipasti were all Italian but the main course was roast beef and Yorkshire puddings!

I've mentioned before that a lot of Sicilians are reluctant to try foreign food and so it was with the Yorkshire puddings and gravy. "Peggio per loro - so much the worse for them", as this meant that there was more for the British contingent.

There were three kinds of anniversary cake - an Italian sponge, a chocolate cake and a traditional British wedding cake, which further perplexed some of the Italians. Those who did try it, though, agreed with the Brits that it was delicious.

I think you need a closer look at the cakes:

I had a lovely time and felt honoured to have been invited so "happy anniversary" again, my dear friends.

A LITTLE BIT OF WALES

Dining out with friends the other day, I was surprised and delighted to see these among the condiments:

And what a pretty way to serve a steak!

A SORT OF COTTAGE PIE - WITH A MYSTERY INGREDIENT

This recipe, a sort of Italian cottage pie, is from a book called Cucina Low Cost. Only garlic and onion are cooked in olive oil prior to adding the meat but, in addition to the mince - in this case, a mixture of beef and pork but it could be mince of your choice - there is an ingredient I had never heard of before, pasta di salame. I was rather irritated with myself about this but was comforted by the fact that none of the Sicilians I asked knew what it was either.  I did an internet search and, although I found some recipes requiring this ingredient, none of them told me what it was. "From the best supermarkets", said a note in one of these recipes but no one had heard of it in the local supermarket.  By this time, I had begun to suspect that we were probably talking about a sausage mix and at my next stop, the butcher's, this was confirmed.  My butcher seasons his sausage meat with fennel seeds, sage and red wine so some of this to put in the dish seemed a great idea to me!

One thing I don't miss about Britain is most British cheese and I cannot stand cooked Cheddar cheese, so I was happy to sprinkle a mixture of ragusano and grana cheese over the top of the dish.  Oh, and some 'strattu was stirred in with the meat, onion and garlic, too.

I was pleased with the result and will definitely be making this again.

BISTECCA D'AUTUNNO

It's always nice to be taken out to lunch and this is what you get when you order a small steak with potato croquettes at Modica's Vecchio Caffè - delicious and just what I needed.

HEARTS OF GOLD

My dear friends Jean and Gino truly have hearts of gold so it was with great pleasure that I attended their golden wedding anniversary party at the Marina di Ragusa on Friday night.  Jean and Gino have been living happily in Sicily for 17 years and Gino, as you may imagine, is of Italian descent.  

The party, appropriately for around 50 of Jean and Gino's friends,  was held in the elegant, covered courtyard of a restaurant which has the original name of Stasera pago io! ["Tonight I'm Paying!"]

The generous antipasti came plated and were very prettily presented. [There was melon under the Parma ham.]

Then there was wild asparagus risotto

and pasta with speck and mushrooms:

The main course was fillet of beef in a mushroom sauce

served with a side salad:

There was a refreshing macedonia for dessert

before Jean and Gino cut this beautiful cake, which had been made in a tiny, nearby pasticceria:

I wonder if they remember the first time they did this?

Unlike Will and Kate, Jean and Gino repeated the kiss several times for their friends - and for themselves!

The cake tasted every bit as delicious as it looked:

Every guest received one of these beautiful bomboniere [wedding favours]

decorated with a crystal bunch of grapes and containing golden sugared almonds:

Here is your intrepid blogger with Jean, Gino and our friend Linda of whom I've written many times on this blog:

Yes, that's a chignon I've got for the occasion, courtesy, of course, of Raffaele the hairdresser and I know he won't forgive me if I don't show you the back!

And now I'd like you all to join me in a toast: To Jean and Gino, our golden couple.  May you enjoy many more happy years together.

MANZO DI MARZO

March beef with capers

I have to give you this recipe while it is still March! It is inspired by a recipe in this month's La Cucina Italiana and for those of you who are in Italy and have the magazine it's the one for brioni di manzo brasati.  First of all, what's a briono of beef?  My butcher didn't know [again] but I showed him the recipe and, after consulting the internet - he is getting quite geeky! - he decided it must be what is known down here as the ala di tenero or cappello del prete ["priest's hat", because of its shape] cut.  He suggested I let him slice the beef as then I could cook it for less time and that was fine with me as carving is not my forte.  [Many Italian women have one of those slicing machines that cuts the meat extra thinly.]   Another change to the recipe that I decided upon as soon as I saw it was that there would be no anchovy fillets in my version, as I am allergic to any kind of fish.  I also used red wine instead of white as that is what I had and the zucchini are my addition, as I had some to use up.   I added the herbs for the hell of it.  OK, here we go:

4 tablesp olive oil

1 kg ala di tenero of beef, sliced fairly thickly across

3 stalks celery, sliced [if you can get the small, Sicilian kind, all the better.]

1 medium white onion, sliced into rings

2 zucchini, sliced

handful capers preserved in salt, rinsed  

500 gr passata  [the smooth kind]

c. 300 ml  red wine

1 vegetable stock cube

sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme

seasalt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oil in a fairly deep, wide pan and brown the beef on all sides.  Chuck in the vegetables and continue to cook for about 10 mins.  Add the capers, stock cube and wine.  Cook for a few minutes, stirring, then add the passata and the rosemary and thyme.  Season to taste, put the lid on and simmer for about 1.5 hours, turning the meat once.

I don't think this dish needs any accompaniment other than a salad of tender spring leaves.

POLPETTE DI VITELLO ALLE MANDORLE

Or veal and almond meatballs:

First, toast 100 gr chopped almonds and soak 300 gr ordinary, white bread with the crusts cut off in enough milk to cover.  After a few minutes, drain the bread and give it a good squeeze with your hands.  Now put the bread in a bowl with 500 gr minced veal or lean minced beef, 100 gr grated caciocavallo cheese, the almonds, 3 teasp sugar, a little ground cinnamon and 1 beaten egg.  Mix it all together well with a fork, then use your hands to form balls, which you put on a plate.  [My meatballs tend to get bigger towards the end of this process!]  Now roll the balls first in a bowl containing 2 beaten eggs and then in pane grattuggiato or fresh breadcrumbs.  Fry in sunflower or groundnut oil in a deep pan or wok till browned all over. You will have to do this in batches.  Lift the meatballs out as they are done and drain on kitchen paper.  They will look like this:

When they are cool enough, you can refrigerate them for a couple of hours to firm up if you have time.  Next you have to cook them for about 45 minutes in simmering homemade tomato sauce or passata.  I did this in 2 batches, in a wok.  As I've now run out of the summer's tomato sauce, I used 2 bottles of passata for each batch and I find that the passata with a texture closest to homemade tomato sauce is De Cecco's Rustica.

These quantities will serve 4 - 6 people.   Serve with salad.  Buon appetito!

SIX-FLAVOURED VEAL

I liked the idea of this beef dish a sei profumi [with six flavours] from the Cucchiaio d'Argento.  The beef  or veal is marinated with garlic, basil, parsley, fresh lemon and orange juice plus the grated peel of a lime and some cumin seeds before being cooked.  At the end of cooking, the marinade is poured back over the meat. 

It is not always easy to find limes in Sicily but when I do this is a pleasant way of using them.

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.