"Anelletti al forno", our scrumptious baked Sicilian pasta

 

Do you know what "anelletti al forno" are? Here in Sicily we have a typical shape of pasta that is called "Sicilian anelletti" which means little rings. We normally use them when we want to prepare our traditional baked pasta! 
You may find this little timballo of pasta in bars and diners in Palermo that goes with the most classic Sicilian ragout made of minced meat, tomato sauce, onions and pieces of vegetables like carrots and peas.

As this recipe is usually very rich we normally eat it in winter, while for summer we have a different version, considered absolutely "lighter" :-)
It is made of tomato sauce, fried eggplants or aubergines and Sicilian primosale cheese.

My family and I love this version of baked anelletti a lot more than the one with meat and we also add another ingredient: thin slices of Napoli salami, while other people prefer to add ham. 

This preparation takes a while (about 3 hours plus baking time), but the result is a scrumptious mouthwatering baked pasta that we normally have for the most important summer festivity: August the 15th, which is called Ferragosto (mid August term) but it is also a Catholic festivity that celebrates the Assumption of Our Lady, the Virgin Mary.
Baked pasta is something you do in layers, so read and follow the recipe carefully.

Ingredients and preparation for about 6 people:
600 gr. anelletti
2 aubergines or eggplants
200 gr. Napoli salami
250 gr. Sicilian primosale cheese
100 gr. Grated Sicilian caciocavallo cheese
1 bottle tomato sauce (about 750 ml)
breadcrumb
olive oil

1. First turn on the heat and put on a big pot for cooking the pasta. In the meantime 2. cut the eggplants in slices, not too thin, place them on a colander with salt on and leave them aside for about 15 minutes. It will make them release the bitterness and taste sweeter. After the time has passed just wash them under running water and they are ready to be fried in olive oil.

3. By the time you have finished frying, water in the pot will be boiling, so cook the anelletti as normal pasta, putting some salt in the water. They need about 20 minutes of cooking. 4. Stir the anelletti from time to time and prepare the tomato sauce in an appropriate sauce pan. 5. Cut the primosale cheese in slices or thin pieces and also the salami (you can either leave it in slices or cut it into pieces as well).


6. When the pasta is cooked (but careful not to overcooked it because it has to go in the oven as well!), drain it and add the tomato sauce plus the grated caciocavallo cheese.

Now it's time to start building the layers:
7. Take a large oven dish or tray with high rims and cover the space with some olive oil first, and breadcrumbs after, then put half the amount of anelletti mixed with tomato sauce and grated caciocavallo cheese on the bottom of the tin, then cover with a layer of fried eggplants, then primosale cheese and finally the third one with salami, just as shown in the picture below.

8. Put the rest of anelletti on top and finally cover with some more spoons of tomato sauce to avoid the pasta becoming too dry in the oven, then a drizzle of olive oil and a bit of breadcrumbs again to make the crust in the oven.
9. Bake for about 35 minutes or a little more, until it is golden and crusty.

10. Serve hot! On the right the final picture of how the whole thing should look before the baking phase. This is one of the best first dishes of all times... enjoy it!!!

Have a rest with a "Sicilian granita"

Hi everyone, do you know what the "granita di pistacchi" is? Granita is something very typical from Sicily and is basically what you probably call a shaved ice or similar. Nice, cool, refreshing, perfect when the sun is hot and you want to have a rest.

In the southern part of Sicily the granita is particularly good and they prepare it with so many different flavors: pistaches, figs, coffee, watermelon, mint, ecc... besides the most classic one that is made with lemon.

Thanks to the picture that my two friends Laura e Carlo sent me while they were visiting the town of Ragusa. If you are in that part of Sicily, or near Siracusa as well, don't forget to try one of this excellent granite!!!

Everyone is on holiday right now so I want to wish Happy Ferragosto (ferragosto is our Summer festivity: August 15th) and enjoy your Summer vacation wherever you are!

Gelo di mellone: our summer watermelon pudding

Do you know what the "gelo di mellone" is? It's the name of a very traditional summer pudding that is made ONLY in Palermo and its province. Mellone in Italian is a generic word to mean melon, but this dessert is actually made only with watermelon and has a delicate and delicious fresh taste. 

We like to eat it plain, just as a pudding but we also use it as filling in the pie, to have a more important dessert! You find it in all the patisseries of the Sicilian capital in summertime and you can also see the single-portions (mini-pies) as well as the big pie.

Ingredients & preparation for 8-10 people:
1 lt fresh watermelon juice
100 gr. starch
200 gr. sugar
50-60 gr. dark chocolate chips
a glass of jasmine water
*pistaches and cookies to serve (but not essential)

Before starting to prepare the "gelo" you need a couple of jasmine flowers. Wash them and leave them in water for 24 hours. 
Now you are ready to start:
1. Cut the watermelon and put the pieces in a blender, having removed the green hard parts and the seeds. Blend until it becomes all liquid.
2. To strain the juice and remove the solid little parts we usually use a kitchen tool similar to the one we use to press the tomatoes for the sauce, it's also similar to a colander, but bigger, like the one in the pic below. When you have finished to strain the juice you can measure how much of that you've got. Usually a quarter of a big watermelon should be around 1 liter.

3. In a sauce pan mix the starch and the sugar, then, when you have obtained the proper amount of juice pour it little by little, stirring constantly with a spoon or a whip. When the ingredients are all melted together place the sauce pan under a low heat. 
4. Add the jasmine water and gently keep stirring until the liquid starts to boil and become as consistent as a pudding. As soon as it is quite solid (few minutes) turn off the heat and place it in little bowls for single portions or in a large mold or tin instead.

5. Let it cool down and after at least 40-45 minutes, if it is not warm anymore, put the chocolate chips on top and if you like also some pistaches as the one shown in the big picture above.
6. Place in the fridge at least two hours before serving it. Then, to finish up the decoration in the best possible way just stick two wonderful cookies or other kind of biscuits to accompany the pudding and you will enjoy it so much that you are definetely going to make it every single season! Happy & sweet Summer :-)))

Let's talk about "CAPONATA!"

Do you know what "caponata" is? With this word we generally refer to the caponata made of eggplants (or aubergines) but it's actually a generic word to indicate a specific Sicilian sweet & sour sauce with which we like to cook and season several kind of vegetables, but not only.

In ancient times people used to have it with fish and white meat as well, while today we make the traditonal one with eggplants and different other versions like artichokes, carrots and even green apples. Delicious!!!

What probably happened in the past was that rich and noble people used to have it with fish and meat, but the majority of the population coudn't afford it, so they just substituted the expensive food with a cheaper one, and the fried eggplant/aubergine was the perfect ingredient for its  soft consistency and its not particularly strong taste.

 

History: To talk a little bit more about the introduction of the caponata sauce in Sicily we have to go back to the Middle Age, during the Saracen domination. Infact they were the ones to introduce it in our island.

Its secret is the perfect balance between the sweet (sugar or honey) and the sour (vinegar).

Then capers, olives, onion, celery and tomato sauce were added in the following centuries on a drizzle of olive oil.

It was a dish that became very popular among Sicilian sailors on ships, because it was easier for them to eat the rusk on board with a more scented sauce.

For us it's a side dish or sometimes even a starter and definetely needs some fresh rustic bread to be appreciated at the most.

Recipe & preparation of the Caponata sauce:

1 onion

200 gr green olives

50 gr salted capers

50 gr celery ribs

1 cup of tomato sauce

1/3 cup of sugar

2 or 3 tablespoons of vinegar

salt

olive oil

1. In a small sauce pan put some water and blanch the celery already cut in pieces. 2. In a frying pan put some olive oil on a low heat and add the thinly chopped onion. 3. Let it sauteè a bit, then put some tomato sauce, celery, capers and olives. 4. Now for the sweet and sour sauce pour some vinegar first, then sugar and salt, one after the other.

It's always hard to define quantities precisely when you have a family recipe. As the flavor of the caponata has to be very balanced it's important to taste the sweet&sour sauce while cooking and adding sugar or salt or vinegar if needed.

If you want to do it with eggplants/aubergines we usually use 2 big rounded ones (the Tunisin type), we first put them under salt and fry them (read the exact process here). Different is for artichokes and carrots which are actually blanched or boiled and then  seasoned with the sauce on a medium heat.

I really hope you can enjoy this scrumptious dish as much as we do.  
I am sure you will lick the plate clean and can't wait to try another version of this wonderful recipe of our historical food tradition. A bit of caponata cheers your life up and everyone loves it, veggies and not veggies. Enjoy!

Sicilian cheeses: la vastedda del Belice

Do you know what is the so-called "vastedda del Belice"? It's a local exquisite cheese coming from the area of Belice, in the province of Agrigento.

The vastedda, which is the only "pasta filata cheese" (or stretched cheese) is made from sheep and has an ivory color. In the past it was produced only in Summer (from May to October) but now you find it all year round. The experts used to produce it in summer to try to recuperate the pecorino cheeses that had come out with some defects. Infact the name itself in Sicilian dialect vasta or vastedda means wrong, gone bad.


Basically these pecorini were stretched at high temperature, creating a new kind of oval-shaped cheese that was perfect to be eaten fresh in few days and it was extremely tasty too! Farmers started to eat it with bread and tomatoes at their lunch break in the fields. Nowadays this local cheese is a POD and is produced in the provinces of Agrigento, Palermo and Trapani. 

From the Sicilian food "Pasta alla Norma" to "La Norma" opera

I couldn't tell you about Pasta alla Norma without posting Casta Diva, the most famous aria of Vincenzo Bellini's masterpiece, La Norma, here sung by Maria Callas.

I hope you can appreciate it as much as I did, because I think that music is just as sublime as food. Enjoy!

"Pasta alla Norma", what's the story of this incredible dish?

Do you know how to make pasta alla Norma? And what is the story of this Sicilian dish? The pasta alla Norma is originally from Catania, the second bigger city in Sicily and is dedicated, just as the name suggests, at the famous opera lirica LA NORMA composed in 1831 by Vincenzo Bellini, a musician from Catania.

I have actually heard two different stories about this dish: the first one says that the name of the dish was given by a playwright Nino Martoglio, also from Catania. He was comparing the goodness of the pasta with the opera lirica and exclaimed: This is a Norma! (meaning as goos as the Norma...)

Second story is that while writing this masterpiece Vincenzo Bellini used to go to a restaurant and ordered always this dish of pasta, so the owner finally name it after his opera to homage Bellini. Besides, it is said that at those times the dish had a very special presentation: it was like a mountain-shaped plate of pasta with eggplants/aubergine at the bottom, all cut in pieces or slices and then on top the tomato sauce with grated salted ricotta covering everything. It was a very creative representation of the Mount Etna with its land, lava and snow.

Making the Norma is very easy if you have the right ingredients. For 6 people you will need:

600 gr maccheroni or spaghetti

500 ml tomato sauce

olive oil

grated salted ricotta

basil

salt
aromas (cinnamon, nutmeg)

2 eggplants or aubergines

Preparation:

In Sicily we have two varieties of eggplants or aubergines: the oval ones and the rounded ones. These last ones (the pic on the right) are the best and the most used in the kitchen because of their sweeter delicate taste. We call them "tunisine" which means Tunisian, allegedly because they used to come from there.
1. When we use eggplants/aubergine we cut them in slices or dices, depending on the dish we are gonna make and then we place them on a colander with abundant salt and leave it aside for about 15 minutes. My mother taught me since I was a kid that this is good for giving eggplants/aubergines a sweeter taste and letting release the bitter they contain. After that you just have to wash them under running water and they are ready to be cooked.

2. Second step is frying. In a pan put some olive oil and start frying your eggplants until they become slightly brown on both sides (not black!). For this dish you can either do slices or cubes, it doesn't really matter!

3. Prepare pasta as you normally do, boiling it in salted water. While pasta is cooking put some tomato sauce in a sauce pan with some fresh basil and adjust with salt, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg to make it more parfumed.

4. As soon as pasta is drained cover it with the tomato sauce and the eggplants/aubergines and grate on top the salted ricotta or instead, if you don't have it, some parmisan cheese. It will still be delicious and you will just ask for more.

*In some families they also like to add some mozzarella cheese in cubes before serving the pasta. They mix all the ingredients together in the pan and then serve with the mozzarella still thready. It is just an addition to the original recipe, but I swear they are both unforgettable and suitable for vegeterians. Enjoy!

Thanks to my friend Giuseppe for sending me the picture of his lovely pasta alla Norma!