WORLD PASTA DAY!

It's World Pasta Day and here is a photo of a wonderful dish of risotto (I know it's not officially pasta but it counts as a pasta course) which I was served in my local bar, the Cicara Caffetteria, last week - risotto with pumpkin and crispy guanciale. I loved the presentation of this dish:

The second dish I want to show you is my own pasta with pumpkin sauce. It also contains the juice and grated rind of a Sicilian orange and saffron. It's a dish I can make very quickly and quite joyously so it has become my go-to pasta dish and I always find it comforting.

In my cookbook, Cooking in Green Lemon Land, part of my introduction to the pasta and rice section reads:

Who doesn't like a bowl of pasta? It is one of the world's most comforting foods and in Italy it is served as a first course at almost every lunch table. "La pasta scola! – The pasta is draining!" is the cry that brings everyone to the table and often the aroma of ragù being prepared for lunchtime wafts through apartment buildings and along streets from as early as 8 am. In restaurants pasta is not necessarily served as a primo (first course) as many busy people at lunchtime have either pasta or a secondo (main), rather than both, but in the home it is. There is a myth abroad that Italians do not eat pasta salads or cold pasta dishes but they do, especially in summer. Bread, by the way, is not served with pasta, even when you order it as your main in a restaurant.

In "A Place Called Siracusa" I tell the story of a neighbour of mine who ignored me for over a year when I first came to Modica, until one day, when I met her on my way home for lunch, she asked me if I was about to prepare pasta. When I replied that indeed I was, she beamed and from that day she has greeted me as if I am old friend. I have no idea why she had never acknowledged me before but I think the fact that I was going to serve pasta made me a normal person in her eyes.

I do not make pasta every day or even most days but I do always look forward to it and if I feel unwell I do what Italians do and prepare myself some brodo (meat broth) to which I add the tiny pasta shapes called pastine. It instantly makes me feel better. My favourite pasta dishes? Pasta all'amatriciana, which contains hot chilli pepper and my own pasta alla zucca (pasta with pumpkin sauce) for which I include the recipe here. Oh, and practically all pasta al forno – baked pasta. Lasagne is probably the best known of these dishes outside Italy but I have included some others that I have created. One recommendation I would make if you want to cook pasta often is to invest in a pasta pan that comes with a drainer in the lid. It is much safer and it has changed my life!

So enjoy your pasta today and every day that you have it. You never know - it might change your life!

HURRICANE PASTA

 At the end of last week, we were all very worried and frightened in Sicily because a Medicane (a blend of the English words "Mediterranean" and "hurricane") was coming in. In Modica it just passed us by and we were fortunate but the effects were devastating in Catania and the Province of Siracusa, as many of you will have seen in the news. We were told to stay at home on Thursday evening and all day on Friday, if possible and the silence in the streets brought back uneasy memories of lockdown for many of us. The early hours of Thursday were particularly scary.

I did venture to my local greengrocer's late on Thursday afternoon, thinking I might be at home until Sunday, and on Friday evening it was my intention to make an amatriciana, one of my favourite pasta dishes. Then I discovered I had forgotten to buy tomatoes and I didn't have a tin of them to improvise with. I did, however, have pancetta, if not the guanciale (pork cheek) you should really use with an amatriciana. (I remember a Masterchef Italia judge groaning because a contestant was using pancetta cubes, but they weren't in an imminent hurricane situation!) I also had passata and - a favourite store cupboard ingredient of mine - a tin of grilled peppers. Therefore it was with these that I created a comforting pasta dish and I named it "Hurricane pasta":

Hurricane pasta

These quantities will serve two people very generously:

200 gr spaghetti or spaghettoni (which are a bit thicker)

2 tablesp olive oil

100 gr smoked pancetta cubes

1 white onion, chopped

200 gr small mushrooms, sliced

330 ml bottle passata

380 gr tin or jar grilled peppers in oil, drained 

seasalt and freshly ground black pepper

chilli flakes to taste

fresh basil leaves if liked

First, get the pasta water on with a little coarse salt in it and, while it is coming to the boil, heat the oil in a wide pan.

Add the pancetta and, as soon as the fat begins to release, add the onion and cook, stirring until softened but not browned.

Add the mushrooms and stir.

Add the passata and stir, lowering the heat.

Add the drained peppers, having cut any very large pieces in half.

By this time, the pasta water should be boiling, so add the pasta to it and cook for the time stated on the pack (probably 10 - 12 mins.)

Add the seasoning and chilli flakes to the pepper mixture and, at this stage, if liked, you can add a few torn fresh basil leaves.

Drain the pasta once it is al dente and add it to the pan containing the sauce. Stir on low heat for just a few minutes.

Serve and enjoy your "hurricane pasta", hopefully in better weather than we had in Sicily last week!

RELIGION AND RAVIOLI

The weekend again saw the festival of the Sacred Heart or Sacro Cuore and, although I wouldn't describe myself as a religious person, there is something that I find very uplifting and restful about watching groups of people gathering together to celebrate their religion in a joyful, peaceful  way without causing any harm or disurbance to anyone.  It may be a small festival and it may not be very sophisticated but it is, quite simply, "good" in the Christian sense of the word.

I was invited to watch the procession from a friend's balcony and we had a great time chatting out there, intermittently watching the proceedings, listening to the music coming from the church courtyard, exclaiming at the fireworks and finally, eating.

For yes, there has to be food and this year the programme proudly announced the Sagra (food festival) of ricotta-filled ravioli in sauce - not any old sauce, you understand, but a rich tomato sauce that is lovingly cooked for a long time with 'strattu and pork.  The cook serving the trays of ravioli told my friend's husband that she had earlier made no less than 1,000 ravioli by hand! Well, faced with that information, I'm sure you would agree that it would have been churlish to leave any of the tempting offerings on the individual trays on which they were served. Everyone who bought a tray got ricotta ravioli with not just sauce, but a generous portion of the pork used to flavour it, a sausage, bread and cheese and some sweet ravioli to finish.  Of course, it wouldn't have been an Italian summer festival without ice cream and I had made and taken along some of  that old stand-by of mine which I call "chocolate thingies".

Keep gathering in peace, cari modicani, and I hope the "ravioli lady", once she has recovered from Sunday, gets to make many more!

NAILING IT IN SICILY

You'll know when your nail varnish is good and hard and dry in Sicily because [especially if it's near lunchtime] your beautician will say to you,

" Signora, ora può impastare la pasta! - You can go and knead the pasta dough now!"

MODICAN PHILOSOPHY

"Cry if you need to", said one friend here this week when I told her I was a bit down in the dumps, "but a good cup of coffee is better."

Photo courtesy of Cicara Caffeteria, Modica

"Cry if you need to, " said another, "but a nice plate of pasta is better".

"I'll cry if I need to, but a beautiful cremolata di gelsi [mulberry cremolata] is better",  said I.

PASTA AL FORNO VEGETARIANA

Let's have a recipe for a change: I love pasta al forno and it's on my list of the great comfort foods of the world.  Last weekend, I invented this vegetarian [but not vegan ] version:

Pasta al forno vegetariana

First of all, peel and cube 200 gr pumpkin.  Cook the cubes in salted water till tender. Drain and set aside.

Take 2 white and 2 green courgettes and slice 3 of them as thinly as you can [or do it in a food processor].  Grate the other courgette. Heat 4 tablesp olive oil in a wide pan and cook the courgettes, stirring, until they are tender. Now add a sliced white onion and a chopped clove of garlic and continue cooking everything until these, too, are tender. [Yes, I know this is the wrong way round for making a soffritto but it works!] When the onion and garlic have softened, add the pumpkin along with 300 gr sliced mushrooms, a little chopped parsley, seasoning and 400 gr passata.  Stir and cook on a low heat for 15 mins.

Meanwhile, heat the oven to 160 C and cook 400 gr rigatoni for the length of time indicated on the pack. Drain the pasta and oil a large, rectangular, Pyrex-style oven dish. Put a layer of pasta in the dish, followed by a layer of sauce and then a layer of thinly sliced provoleta or other pasta filata cheeese [about 10 slices]. Add another layer of pasta and finish with another layer of the sauce. Sprinkle some fresh breadcrumbs or pane grattugiato and some freshly grated Parmesan over the top.

Cook in the oven for 15 mins.

Buon appetito.

ON HAVING YOUR SANTA AND EATING HIM

The tree and decorations have been taken down and put away and it's all over for another year, God willing - but it wasn't over for me before two other feste had been crammed into the season!

On Sunday I was invited to Chiara's for lunch again and there we were treated to two kinds of lasagne, this one with aita [chard]....

... and this one which contained meat and tomatoes:

Then there was a spezzatino of pork:

After the fruit, there were dates and homemade torrone,

some of Chiara's Christmas cake and some special, traditional, handmade biscuits:

There was also Chiara's chocolate cake:

Yesterday was the Epifania holiday in Italy and I invited a friend to tea.  I made date and cinnamon cookies [top left]. I'd found the recipe in an Australian magazine and, although they didn't come out scone-like as the recipe suggested, they did resemble the photo in the magazine and tasted good.  To the right of them is a plate of crackers with my [tardily made] cranberry sauce, because you just have to have a taste of cranberry sauce at Christmas. In front of the date cookies is a plate of cheese bites with cotognata [quince paste]. I also cut up the last of my own Christmas cake and made yet another raspberry upside-down cake.

Putting the sugar Santa on the raspberry cake - and I assure you I bought six so did not use the same one each time! - I was reminded that, at Irma's on New Year's Day, a young niece of Irma's decided she didn't want to eat any cake but did want to demolish the sugar Santa.  "He won't come next year if you eat him!" said her mother, at which the little one started to cry.  "No, no, it's all right - he'll come!" we all chorused, until she smiled again and finished him off.  

I also made a semifreddo of candied Sicilian zest - and decorated it with the last Santa!

But never mind - in Italy it is always possible to have your Santa and eat him!

PASTA AL FORNO CON ZUCCA

When I need comfort food, as I often do these days, pasta al forno is high on my list of possibilities. At the weekend, I decided I wanted to create a rather more seasonal pasta al forno, so I added pumpkin and a bit of orange zest. Here's the recipe:

Pasta al forno con zucca

First, discard the peel from about a quarter of a small pumpkin and slice the flesh. You'll need about 300 gr. Cook in salted water till the pieces are tender then drain and set aside.

Heat 4 tablsp olive oil in a large, wide pan and add 75 gr pancetta cubes [cubetti di pancetta dolce if you are in Italy]. Cook until browned, then add 1 chopped red onion and cook till the onion is soft. Add 500 gr mixed minced meat - I used a mixture of minced pork and beef but there is nothing to stop you using all beef if you want to. Cook, stirring, to lightly brown the meat.  Add 300 gr sliced mushrooms, the pumpkin pieces and the grated rind of 1 lovely Sicilian orange.  Add a dollop [or dessertspoon] of 'strattu, 200 gr passata and 200 ml water. Season, stir, turn the heat down and simmer for about 40 mins., coming back to stir from time to time. This is your ragù.

Pre-heat the oven to 160 C.

Meanwhile, cook 400 gr rigatoni or tortiglioni for the time indicated on the pack. Drain the pasta and wait for the ragù.

Oil a large ceramic or Pyrex-style roasting dish and add a layer of pasta, a layer of ragù, a layer of 125 gr crumbled ricotta, another layer of pasta, another 125 gr ricotta and finish with a layer of ragù. Sprinkle a handful of fresh breadcrumbs [pane grattugiato] over the top, along with about 1 tablesp of grated Grana Padano, Parmesan or Ragusano cheese. Cook in the oven for 15 mins.

This turned out to be one of the nicest pasta al forno dishes I have ever made so buon appetito!

It will serve at least 4 people generously.

SOSBAN FACH

I think I'm in love with my rather jolly new pasta pan, with its own drainer, and "wok" for the sauce - courtesy of my supermarket points:

And it gives me an excuse to repost this:

Cerys Matthews - Sosban Fach

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!

A SIMPLE SUNDAY LUNCH

Well......

My favourite - roast artichokes!

It wouldn't have been a Modican lunch without scacce.

There had to be arancini, too!

Did you think there wouldn't be pasta?

And here comes the main course!

Now for a nice siesta......

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!

LASAGNE AI FUNGHI

Oyster mushrooms are plentiful and cheap in Sicily at the moment so I decided to use some in a simple lasagne:

1 medium white onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

2 tablesp olive oil plus a little extra to oil lasagne dish

250 gr oyster mushrooms, trimmed of stalks

Handful of chopped parsley and another of chopped basil

seasalt and freshly ground black pepper

400 ml béchamel sauce [bought in cartons in Italy]

c. 250 gr oven-ready lasagne all'uova sheets

12 large, thin slices cooked ham

3 - 4 tablsp grated ragusano, grana or parmesan cheese

Unsalted butter for dotting over top of lasagne

Heat the 2 tablesp olive oil in a wide pan and soften the onion and garlic without browning.  An Italian would probably remove the garlic at this point but I like mine so it stays! Add the mushrooms [halved lengthwise if very large], herbs and seasoning to taste, stir and cook to soften the mushrooms.  Set aside.  Now heat the béchamel gently in a milk pan without letting it boil. Next, oil the bottom of your chosen lasagne dish very lightly and smear a little béchamel over it. Lay enough lasagne sheets to cover and then spread over a layer of more béchamel, a layer of mushroom mixture, a layer of ham and a layer of grated cheese.  Now repeat the process - you will probably get three layers altogether - and finish with a layer of pasta.  Spread béchamel over this and sprinkle over more grated cheese. Now place dots of butter all over the top of the dish and bake in an oven heated to 160 C for about 20 minutes.  It should be nice and crispy on the top.

I'll let you see the creamy layers:

Buon appetito!

LASAGNE WITH CHICKEN & MODICAN CHOCOLATE

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

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

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

Here's what I did:

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

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

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

CARNIVAL IN RAGUSA

There was son et lumière, a parade of masked figures and dancing for all at Ragusa's Carnevale nel Barocco in the city's Piazza San Giovanni on Sunday evening:

Best of all, €5.00 bought you a tray of pasta with traditional pork sauce, a hunk of local bread, a glass of red wine and a container of chiacchiere:

My, that sauce was good!