"LOVE SICILY" COOKERY CLASS - 3

Cookery teacher Katia [right] and me at loveSicily.

On Thursday morning your galloping gourmet blogger galloped down to Modica Bassa for the last cookery class with Katia of loveSicily. Katia had phoned me beforehand to suggest that I meet her with Lois and Amanda at Bonajuto's Chocolate Factory and Shop, and as time spent in Bonajuto's is time spent in "chocolate heaven", I was very happy to do so.



This is the oldest chocolate making establishment in Sicily and the chocolate is carefully made by traditional methods.

Here Pierpaolo of the Bonajuto family makes sure the display is perfect. Now we can sample some of the many flavours of chocolate. [I always go for the chilli one myself!]



Visitors can see the workroom at the back of the shop:





You will notice that the chocolate in the right-hand tin is smoother. The bubbles disappear when the moulds are shaken by hand:



The items in these cupboards tell the story of chocolate-making:





Chocolate to taste and chocolate to buy:



'Mpanatigghi to sample. You would never think that these delicate, sweet pastries contained beef. [When British people remark that it's weird I ask them how they think mince pies got their name!]



If you are a lover of chocolate - and who isn't? - you must come to Modica at least once in your life!

Lois and Amanda had acquired substantial parcels of chocolate to take home to their lucky friends and relatives so we had a leisurely walk back to the Cookery School, where Katia explained that we were first going to make salame al cioccolato [chocolate salame] for Friday's end-of-course dinner and then calamari for lunch. Don't worry - there's no salame in the chocolate dish! Let's get right to it:

Katia used 100 gr of cinnamon-flavoured chocolate but you could use a different flavour. Katia says that it is possible to use cocoa powder instead, in which case you will need to add some sugar. She crushed the chocolate, then bashed roughly 250 gr biscuits made with a short pastry:





Fork up 100 gr slightly softened unsalted butter and separate 2 eggs. Whisk the whites to the soft peak stage. Now mix the yolks with the butter and chocolate, crushing the chocolate further as you mix:



Next, add the egg whites and mix:



Add the biscuits and mix well:



Keep stirring till the texture changes and you have a nicely amalgamated mixture:



Dollop it all onto a length of baking parchment, roll the paper over the mixture and press with your hands until you have a plump sausage shape. Tie the ends of the paper and refrigerate. [You can freeze this for up to a week.]





Slice when ready to serve. You can see the sliced "salame" towards the end of this post.

Although I am allergic to all types of fish I was interested to learn how to prepare the calamari.

First of all Katia cleaned the squid well:




Then we peeled and chopped 6 tomatoes. Katia runs the blunt side of a blade over the skin, which then comes away more easily:




Peel 4 garlic cloves and chop some parsley and capers. Mix the parsley and capers with the tomatoes.

Chop up the tentacles:



Brown the garlic cloves in oil, then take them out. Add the tomato mixture and tentacles and cook:



Add some fresh breadcrumbs [about 12 dessertsp] to soak up the juices:



Add 3 dessertsp grated ragusano cheese:



Then use the mixture to stuff the squid:



Secure with a skewer:



I had to leave at this point but couldn't have tasted the fish anyway. I asked Katia how she finishes the dish and she told me that she sautés the stuffed squid in olive oil, then adds a splash of wine. She smears some left-over stuffing on the top of the calamari and simmers them for 30 minutes.

UPDATE: 4.10.09. See the finished dish and read Katia's instructions and a story about her grandmother here.

And so to last night's end-of-course dinner. A beautifully set table in a room with a view:



Pasta with pancetta, cream, chanterelles and pistacchi:



Tender and delicious beef fillet steaks which Katia had cooked in a salt crust and flavoured with Bonajuto's salt chocolate:



And the chocolate salame. Don't you like Katia's simple but elegant decoration of cocoa in the top corner of the plate?



Here is Katia



and here we all are, [left to right]: Katia, Amanda, Luisa, me, Lois, Ronald [Katia's husband] and Angelo. Luisa and Angelo work with Ronald and Katia.



Thank you for your company, Lois and Amanda. I hope you are both having safe and pleasant journeys home. Don't eat all that chocolate on the way! And thank you Katia, Ronald, Angelo and Louise for a wonderful week during which I learnt a lot, made new friends and discovered some fabulous new tastes. I recommend loveSicily.

SABATO MUSICALE

I hope you enjoy this haunting track from Ennio Morricone's score for Baarìa:

Ennio Morricone - Brindisi from the film Baarìa

MOUNTAINGIRL'S PHOTO CHALLENGE - "SEASON"

I'm a day late for the Photo Challenge so I hope my friend mountaingirl will forgive me. This week's theme is "season".

Whatever the season, here are two places where it's cold at the top:

My Mum with family friend on the summit of Mt Snowdon, Wales in a photo taken by my Dad a lifetime ago

and the snow-covered summit of Mt Etna in a photo taken from Monte Lauro by a friend in 1999:

I'm sitting here shivering just looking at these!

"LOVE SICILY" COOKERY CLASS - 2

Amanda, cookery teacher Katia and me at loveSicily on Tuesday.


Amanda, Lois and Katia.

Off early again yesterday morning for the second cookery class, your galloping gourmet blogger is beginning to get used to the pace!

Katia explained that we would be making a timballo of sausage and ricotta, stuffed pork chops and a very ancient sweet which her grandmother called il nido [the nest].

First, the timballo: Katia uses ziti pasta to form the base and alternate layers, so this was cooked and, when it was ready, sprinkled with olive oil:

Meanwhile, we popped a fennel-flavoured Sicilian sausage out of its skin and broke it into small pieces.

So that we could each make our own timballo, Katia used individual small, springform tins but you could also make this in a large, rectangular dish. We smeared a little ricotta onto the base of our tins and watched Katia start to fit the pasta on top:

Then Katia smeared some ricotta onto the pasta and we mixed the rest of the ricotta [3 x 12 oz tubs were used in all] with the sausage. [Katia says you can add chopped marjoram at this stage if you like.]

Next we had to lay circles of pasta on top of the ricotta and sprinkle them with grated ragusano cheese:

After that we added a layer of the sausage mixture, then another of pasta and so on until there were 3 layers of pasta in all and the top was covered with another layer of sausage misture and sprinkled with cheese:

The timballi were baked in an oven heated to 180 C for 30 minutes



and lo and behold, when I turned mine out at home, it was near perfect [much to my surprise!]

I'm sure that when I prepare this at home I will make much more mess than we all did at Katia's, but it will be worth it. It's a very satisfying dish to make - and to eat!

Now for the pork: Katia had asked her butcher to cut a pocket in each chop

and to flavour some minced pork and beef with fennel seeds and chilli flakes. She mixed the meats together, adding 1 egg:

We chopped some semi-matured ragusano cheese roughly and sliced 4 hard-boiled eggs:

Then we each used a dessertspoon to spread the meat mixture in the pockets of the chops, topping it with a little of the cheese and egg slices. "The chops should not look pregnant", joked Katia. We closed the pockets with wooden skewers:

Next Katia chopped half a white Giarratana onion and seared the chops in oil. Then she added the onion, which should not brown:

She mixed a dollop of my favourite ingredient, 'strattu, with a little red wine and added it to the pan, after which we all had fun doing the same with "our" chops:





Finally we put all the chops together in a large pan to simmer with the sauce for 30 minutes:

My, that tasted good!

Lastly,the dessert: Katia says this is a very ancient dessert which few people make nowadays. I think it must be related to Greek kataifi and Albanian kadaif and therefore that the Greeks must have brought a version of it to Sicily. [If anyone can confirm this and again, if any Sicilians know the Sicilian name for it, please tell me.]

Katia has a special take on this dessert and she first cooks capelli d'angelo [angel hair pasta] in a mixture of dry Marsala and water with a pinch of sugar.

We grated a lemon per portion or "nest" of pasta. [Yes, it's the green lemon season again!]





Then we mixed the pasta portions with the lemon zest and a little sugar:

Next we fried the portions one by one, pressing them down with a fish slice. Once they are brown around the edges, turn them. When they are done, drain them well on kitchen paper:

Finally, cut the portions to make a nice shape, spoon a generous amount of your favourite honey over and add some chopped pistacchi:



Believe me, eating this is heaven on earth!

Grazie per la compagnia a Lois e Amanda e grazie a te per una bella lezione, Katia.