Food is all about sharing... especially at Christmas!

Merry Christmas dear readers! My best wishes to you on this special occasion of the year.

  

I believe sharing begins at home and I believe the more you share the happier you are. 
I think food is all about sharing, isn't it?


Otherwise why would we be spending the whole day or the entire previous afternoon to think of a special Menù, prepare amazing dishes, set the table in the most beautiful way, buy lovely presents for everyone? 
Because we want to share our lives with others and that starts with food.

So... here it is my suggestion: have a great Christmas lunch because is one of the most beautiful and touching festivities of the year, but if something goes wrong... like the roast is a bit burnt or the pudding decoration isn't perfect... that's fine, keep smiling and just let it go. Have fun, don't fight with others or with yourself. Everyone will be happy anyway and will appreciate the efforts and the love with which you did all these things.

This should be, I believe, the spirit of Christmas, a family that stays together and that shares food, time, laughs and in the end, only in the end, some presents. Don't forget it!

Have a Wonderful Christmas Time from... THE SICILIAN CUISINE BLOG!

Pears cooked in 'Nero d'Avola' served with whipped cream

 

Do you know how to cook pears in Sicilian red wine and serve them with soft delicious whipped cream? Ok... I will tell you! As Christmas is very close by now, here there is a lovely idea to make a dish with juicy fruits that can also count as a great dessert for one of our upcoming festivities: Christamas Eve, Christamas day, St. Stephen's day (which is boxing day), New Years Eve, Capodanno (New Year day) or Epiphany. See how many occasions we have? 

Infact to be honest... we often forget about fruits when we prepare big meals. We are usually (here in Italy at least) concentrated on the first dish (fresh pasta? baked pasta? lasagne?), the second one (pork? turkey? beef roll?) and the dessert (cake? pie? pudding?), so we tent to miss out the 'fruit course'.

But, if you like the idea, this recipe is elegant and easy at the same time, as you can cook the pears in wine the day before and whip the cream on the big day!!!

Ingredients & Preparation for 4 people: 4 pears cut in halves - 1/2 lt Nero d'Avola (Sicilian red wine) - 200 gr double cream - 200 gr caster sugar - 2 big pieces of lemon zest - cinnamon

1. Wash the pears under running water, cut them in halves and remove skin and inside.

2. Place them in a sauce pan on a medium heat with the red wine to cover them all, plus 100 gr caster sugar, the lemon zest and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

3. Let them cook like this for about 25 minutes, time is also related to the quality of the pears, if they are pretty ripe and soft (but not too much!) probably 15-20 minutes would do, but if they are hard better 30 minutes. You need to check them anyway from time to time!

4. In the meantime whip the cream with the remaining sugar until smooth and soft.

5. As soon as the pears are ready (try them with a fork to test how tender they are) take them out of the sauce pan and place them on a dish to cool down, while keep the sauce going on the heat to restrain a bit more. We are looking at a red wine syrup of some sort that will be poured onto the pears when served so it has to be more juicy than watery.

6. Once the sauce is ready place the pears on a serving tray and the whipped cream in a bowl so that you can serve them separetely. Pour the Nero d'Avola syrup onto the pears and serve straight away.

If you want to try this recipe on a normal Sunday lunch and want to keep it low fat just serve them with plain white yogurth instead of the cream. It will be as delicious as the first one!

Enjoy :-)))

Pizza 'a taglio' and rounded one: what's the difference?

Have you ever heard the expression "pizza a taglio"? Do you know what it means? 

Italy is the homeland of pizza, but there is a big difference between the one we call "a taglio" and the most famous one, which is rounded and can be single-sized (for one person) or family-sized (often 8 slices for 3-4 people).

The first type is usually sold in bakeries and supermarkets (not in pizzerias) and "a taglio" literally means that you have to cut it because it is made in large oven trays, so when you go to a bakery and ask for a portion of a specific pizza (pic above), they will cut it for you, so it's always in squares or rectangles. The other different is in the dough, first one is thick, while the rounded ones are very thin.

To sum it up then: the famous Margherita from Naples is a rounded pizza (pic below on the right), while our traditional Sfincione for example is pizza a taglio. (pic below on the left)

On the 8th of December in Italy is the Catholic Festivity of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, which means that no matter what day of the week it will be on the calendar..... is gonna be a big Sunday lunch!!!

Traditionally on the Immaculate's Eve, friends gather to have dinner together, play cards, chat and have fun and we usually buy our local pizza, the sfincione, or some rotisserie, or some other kind of pizza a taglio, that's because the meal of the following day is often very demanding.

Now, if you want to prepare the sfincione you find the recipe here, but if you are in Palermo and would like to taste the best pizza a taglio in town, well... there is only one place where you can go and is called: GRAZIANO!!! 

It's a "panificio", a bakery located in via del Granatiere 11, a small street not far from upper Via Libertà.

Graziano is famous all over Palermo in particular for his PIZZA RUSTICA (here on the right), a delicious squared pizza with sliced salami, fresh tomatoes and primosale cheese (one of our best local cheeses). It is also sprinkled with parsley on top and once you have tried it you just won't forget it! 

You will love it and miss it and dream about it. Believe me... I do it all the time :-)

Graziano's website can be found here

We are totally green friendly!!!

Hi there, just a quick post to inform you that the Sicilian Cuisine Blog is totally green friendly... and eco-friendly... just in case you were wondering. Recyclable and biodegradable materials are the best ways to help the environment and everyone should definetely go for it. 

My tips for today are these colorful and adorable dishes, bowls and glasses. They are made of bamboo fabric and corn powder, you can put them in the dishwasher and they are 100% biodegradable. 

Don't you wanna buy them all? I do! :-)

So while I was looking at these things I thought... why not spreading the word? I believe a small change can make a big difference.
We need a greener world, so let's be GREEN!!!!!

Saint Martin's day, his cookies and the Moscato wine!

Have you ever heard about the  S. Martin festivity? Well, November the 11th is the day of Saint Martin and in Sicily is usually accompanied by a lovely tradition. We eat some crusty dry rounded cookies sold in bakeries (and now supermarkets), usually broken in pieces and sopped up in the extraordinary Sicilian Moscato wine.
Ingredients for 8 people: 500 gr flour - 200 gr caster sugar - 100 gr lard - 200 gr brewer's yeast - Aniseeds - Cinnamon powder - Butter - Salt

Preparation:
Preheat the oven at a temperature of 200° degrees. On a kitchen surface put the flour and make a hole in the middle of it. Mix 1 dl of warm water and a pinch of salt, plus the lard, mixing everything together carefully. Add the brewer's yeast, the sugar and a teaspoon of aniseeds with a pinch of cinnamon. Knead the dough well until is soft, smooth and homogeneous.
From the dough make some sticks long about 5-6 cm, then try to bend or fold each stick on itself,  giving a kind of spiral shape. Put them on a buttered baking tin. Cover them and leave it there to rise for at least 3 (or 4) hours in a warm place (it really depends on how warm is the place). As soon as the cookies are risen and ready to be cooked put them in the oven at 200° degree for 10 minutes. 

 
Take them out and reduce the oven temperature at 160°degrees. Put them inside again for about 20 minutes for a second baking carefully checking that they won't get too brown. 

Of course because in Sicily we never miss a single occasion to get fatter we do also have the "patisserie version" which is slightly different from the original recipe, obviously softer because it cooks less and it's filled with ricotta cream and has icing sugar and cinnamon on top.

Then we have a third version that I like to call the "baroque" one because is all decorated with a frosting and little chocolates on top, just like in the picture below.

So, if you happen to be in Sicily on the 11th of November (or near that date) try at least one of the three Sammartinellis. And don't forget the Moscato wine.

You won't be disappointed!!!

Sicilian excellence: the unique yet historic chocolate of Modica

Have you ever heard about the famous chocolate made in Modica? Modica is a lovely baroque-style town in the south of Sicily, precisely in the province of Ragusa.

As you all probably know pretty well Sicily has been dominated from the Spanish empire for a long time, so during those centuries local people learnt some recipes and food process from their conquerors. One of the most famous product became the chocolate that finds its roots in the ancient Aztec people in the territory of Mexico back in the 16th century. The Spaniards obviously learnt it from them after the discovery of the Americas and taught it in other parts of their empire. We know for sure that in Modica stayed until today. Isn't it amazing?

Now, what makes this chocolate different from the others is the process with which is made. Infact the cocoa beans are roasted and grinded, then mixed to the sugar at a low temperature, that doesn't make the sugar melt. Infact if you taste it just as it is you will feel the grainy texture into your mouth. A totally different experience from the usual chocolate bars. 

Since many years the chocolate of Modica has also been famous for having different flavours. The most traditional still remain cinnamon and vanilla, but now you find such a wide variety of species and flavors, like: orange, nutmeg, lemon, red chilli pepper, white pepper, pistaches, anise, ecc... 

Even the New York Times dedicated an amazing article on this great product and its history some years ago.

For those who are crazy about chocolate I would suggest a lovely but simple way to enjoy this product as its best: melted in a soft big choc cake or in a plain pudding (don't ask for the recipe I will put it as soon as I can). You will savor a strong lasting chocolate aroma and you will definetely love its taste! This is SICILIAN EXCELLENCE!!!

You can read the NYT article here, while the chocolates in the pictures come from the Pasticceria Bonajuto in Modica.

Reviews: "Al Fogher", a fine lunch (or dinner) in the heart of Sicily

Some weeks ago I had lunch in a gorgeous restaurant near the small town of Piazza Armerina (in the province of Enna), a place in the heart of Sicily famous for its Roman villa, recently restored. The place is also near the famous archaeological site of Morgantina.

The restaurant I went to, has a very curious name, to start with. 'Al fogher' infact is an expression in a northern Italian dialect, probably from the region of Veneto and means 'focolare', fireplace. The Sicilian chef and owner Angelo Treno, after having worked many years up in the north decided to come back to Sicily and brough the name with him.

The restaurant, who used to be an old train station is now an elegant place amazingly decorated and furnished like a real rustic dining room: comfy chairs, soft lights, colorful bucolic paintings on the walls and ancient pieces of furniture make the atmosphere particularly cosy and familiar. But this is just the beginning. The food experience is something you won't forget because of the peculiar matches of the ingredients.

A sensational starter with buffalo mozzarella and sauteèd chards served on a yellow mellon puree and accompanied by a lovely mix of homemade bread of different flavors as you can see in the pic on the left (tomato flavour, pistaches and even ink black from cuttlefish). Absolutely incredible!!

As a first dish I tried a biological spelt-flour pasta (the bavette type) with a unique ragout made of kid meat and cooked with wild fennel and cherry tomatoes, served with flakes of Sicilian primo sale cheese on top. A second dish with a fresh grilled snapper served  with vegetable cous cous and some mussels aside.

Let's not forget the delicious plate of Sicilian cheese between the main dishes and the sweets, served with a bit of eucalyptus honey and sweet onion marmalade. Something that you definetely don't have every day!

Finally an amazing dessert called "Childhood memories" made of three different samples of what the chef used to eat when he was a child: a panna cotta with strawberries on top, a biancomangiare pudding (in the middle) and a condensed milk chocolate in little squares.

So... whenever you find yourself in that part of the Sicilian region and would like to mix a cultural trip to a Roman villa with a great food experience that's exactly the place where I suggest you to go. 

Here you can find the restaurant's website in Italian language. Have fun and enjoy!!! :-)