It is the season to begin thinking about fish and how to cook it to make it special.
Baked Fish With Potatoes, Vinegar And Anchovies Sicilian – Pisci o furno chi patati is a recipe from my book Sicilian Seafood Cooking (now out of print), and it is so simple to cook that I could do it with my eyes closed.
The fish is a locally caught sustainable Snapper. You can see that I make slits in the fish’s sides and in the slits I insert a couple of anchovies. If you don’t like anchovies use fresh herbs; good for this fish are wild fennel, thyme, rosemary or tarragon.
I made the marinade and marinaded the fish in your baking tray for an hour before cooking.
In the marinade you can see that I have used consists of chopped parsley, quite a bit of onion and grated lemon peel. The liquid is: extra virgin olive oil, some wine vinegar and some lemon juice. Add a bit of salt and pepper also. I have included some quantities in the recipe below, but really, the fun of cooking is also experimenting.
Mix up the marinade and let the fish steep in it for about an hour. Turn it over a few times before you bake it. You can bake potatoes with it if you wish and the potatoes take on that lemon flavour that often Greek baked potatoes have when baked with lemon (usually cooked with chicken). The Greeks did settle in Sicily after all!
I usually part-cook my potatoes and put them in to bake with the fish about 15mins before I think the fish is ready. Raw slices of potatoes are used in the recipe and these will require longer cooking time, but do whatever you think is more practical for you.
PESCE INFORNATO CON PATATE/ Sicilian – Pisci o furno chi patati
Baked fish with potatoes (and vinegar and anchovies)
Ingredients
1–1.5kg (2lb 4oz–3lb 5oz) whole fish
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 onions, finely chopped a small bunch parsley, finely chopped
250g (9oz) potatoes, thinly sliced or par-boiled potatoes in chunks
3–6 anchovies, finely chopped (see above)
juice of 2 lemons, plus grated zest of 1 lemon
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Suitable fish
Any whole fish or large, thick fillets of medium to firm fish, preferably with the skin on. The fish is cooked whole, filleted and portioned at the table.
Method
If using whole fish or fillets with skin, make a series of slashes in the skin. Mix
the oil with the vinegar, onions and parsley. Add seasoning and marinate the
fish for about an hour, turning frequently.
Place the fish in an ovenproof dish, spoon half of the marinade over it and bake for 10 minutes in a 200°C (400°F) oven. Arrange the sliced potatoes around the fish. Sprinkle the potatoes and the fish with more marinade, the anchovies, lemon juice and grated zest. Bake for another 20–35 minutes, depending on the type of fish. Serve hot.
To see if the fish is cooked to your liking, you can test the fish with a fork held at an angle. Insert it at the thickest point of the fish and twist the fork. it should flake easily.
Variation
Place rosemary and bay leaves underneath the fish in the baking pan.
Somehow, I ended up eating fish for most of the week, and part of the first recipe lead into the second, and part of the second led into the third, but each dish was unique.
Of course there were also left overs.
I made Baccalà Mantecato on the weekend. The baccalà has to be soaked for a couple of days before it is poached in milk with some bay leaves and a clove of garlic. It is a dish that comes from the Veneto region and is also particularly popular in Trieste (Friuli Venezia Giulia).
Cooking the garlic in milk softens the taste and once blended with the baccalà and extra virgin olive oil, the taste of the garlic is less aggressive.
I always save the poaching liquid whether I poach the baccalà in milk or in water, and I did this a couple of days later when I made Baccalà Mantecato for a friend who is allegic to diary.
I cooked fish again. I bought some fish cutlets, slices cut horizontally, each steak usually has four distinct fleshy segments and each segment can be studded with a different flavour. Below is a photo of what I expect when I buy this cut of fish that I use regularly. I have included a link to a full recipe at the end of this post.
The photo below shows the four distinct segments of fish that surround the central spine, each receptive to a different flavour. It looks like on that occasion I studded the segments with cloves, oregano, fennel and garlic. At other times I have used sage, cinnamon, dill, thyme, rosemary or tarragon. The flavours I use for the stuffing will also determine what use to deglaze the pan after I have sauteed the fish, for example on various occasions I have used dry marsala (especially for Sicilian cooking), vermouth, Pernod and a variety of white wines that impart different flavours to the fish. Lemon juice or vinegar is also good.
When I opened the parcel and was ready to stud my fish, I noticed that only one slice was as I expected (cut from the tail end of the fish), but the other slices included what I call ‘flaps’, the often long and bony sides of fish encasing the gut of the fish.
It is part of the fish’s anatomy, but what I objected to was that the slices in the display cabinet were all the same size. These slices were not at all suitable for inserting with four different flavours; they were also difficult to fit into the frypan comfortably.
I cut the flaps off and only used two flavours to stud into the flesh of the fish – garlic and thyme.
I pan fried the fish, added some herbs – fresh fennel fronds and parsley. I deglazed the pan with a splash of white wine, evaporated it, added a little of the stock from the baccalà, added some capers.
What to do with the flaps?
The next day I poached the flaps in water flavoured with some onion, whole peppercorns, bay leaves, a little celery. This gave me some extra fish stock as well as an opportunity to remove the flesh and discard the skin and bones. I discarded the greenery.
I had the makings of a fish risotto.
Making a risotto is easy. I decided to add peas, frozen at this time of year and herbs of course, as in all of my cooking.
I softened one chopped onion in butter and extra virgin olive oil, added 1 cup of rice to the pan and toasted the rice. A splash of white wine, evaporated it, added 1 cup of peas and some chopped parsley and fennel. Tossed them all in the hot pan, added a little salt and then proceeded to add the milk stock from the baccalà and the stock used to poach the flaps of the fish to cook the risotto.
I added the fish pieces to the risotto when it was nearly cooked (to warm it), the grated rind and juice of a lemon and at the very end some butter and black pepper.
There was enough for lunch the next day and the evolving fish meals stopped there!
Ricci, they all called and in Italian and this means the ‘curly’ ones. Spiny, perhaps, rather than curly.
At first sight, before they are sliced in half to be displayed or eaten, sea urchins or ricci (in Italian) look most like small explosive mines, covered as they are in dark glossy spikes.
Sea Urchins- Spaghetti chi Ricci – Sicilian
Whatever they are called in either English or Italian, the name of these forbidding looking delicacies is a puzzle.
A riccio di mare is an urchin (Ricci di mare is the plural).
A riccio in Italian is also a porcupine. Both of these creatures have spikes and neither are curly so I have yet to fathom why the name ‘riccio’ is applicable to both of these creatures.
As to why they are called “urchins” in English – who knows?
Richard Cornish in his regular Brain Food column for the Good Food section in the The Age. (February 14 / 2023) has written about Sea Urchins.
His articles always stir up memories and give me an opportunity to use the produce in the recipes he mentions, or refer to recipes I have already written. This time I shall provide links to posts about sea urchins I have written about in the past. His article also alerts me to the fact that sea urchins are available to purchase now and I must buy some again soon.
When ricci are mentioned I always conjure up an image of me as a child walking with my father, early in the morning on a beach somewhere in Sicily. My mother and father and I went to Sicily every summer. One of my dad’s brothers who lived in Sicily had driven the three of us there to collect ricci. On this deserted beach, my father lifted rocks. He wore gloves. My task was to lift small rocks and alert my dad if I found a sea urchin. My uncle had his own bag and he was collecting ricci on another part of the beach. We took them home, sliced them open, and like Joseph Vargetto (as mentioned in Richard‘s article), removed the black bits and we ate them raw like oysters with lemon. On another occasion more members of the family came to the beach and we ate them at the beach with lemon. I do not remember ever having ricci in Trieste, where we lived; ricci are popular in some other parts of southern Italy, but not in the north.
The other memories are eating them as an adult in Sicilian restaurants, always with spaghettini with some slight variations in the ingredients.
When I have bought ricci and used them I have found them to be incredible variable in the size and number of tongues of roe. There are supposed to be five delicate tongues of gonads – the gonads are the roe, these are the edible parts (gonads function as both the reproductive organs and as nutrient storage).
The roe tongues can vary in colour from off-white to a deep orange, but the colour is not necessarily an indication to the taste.
How do I describe the taste? I can’t, it is not a pungent taste like say, anchovies, but it is definitely a marine taste, creamy but tasty. Pasta is a great recipient for a quickly prepared sauce to dress the pasta. The roe is added raw, the heat of the pasta does the cooking. The pasta is traditionally spaghettini, (the thinner the better, more opportunities for the sauce to coat the greater surface), but hey! Not conventional, but I have also used egg pasta with great success, and I shall definitely experiment with using roe as a topping for steak tartare.
This is Richard’s article:
Everything you need to know about Sea urchins
The spiny armour of these simple sea creatures hides a rich and luscious interior. They’re a delicacy in Europe and Asia. In Australia, chefs are making the most of native species, using umami-rich urchins in pasta sauce and to top steak tartare.
What is it?
Ancient denizens of the sea, sea urchins are endemic to most of the globe’s waters. They live on the sea floor and dine mostly on algae. Inside these prickly, globe-shaped creatures is a simple alimentary canal and five large lobes of roe. The edible roe has a slippery yet creamy, buttery texture and a fresh, salty seafood flavour with a clean finish . Australia has many urchin species but one of particular interest is the long spine sea urchin, which has moved with warmer currents from its home off the NSW coast to Victoria and Tasmania. There, it devastates the kelp (brown algae) forests. These pests are targeted as a food species, alongside indigenous species, and hand-harvested by divers.
Why do we love it?
‘‘ Sea urchin is rich and buttery, a decadent and naughty food,’’ says Pip Pratt, executive chef at The Rover in Surry Hills, Sydney. ‘‘ Most rich food fills you up, but urchin is light. I love it because you
can spread it, eat the roe whole as is or use it in a sauce as a fresh, sea-like flavour enhancer.’’ At The Rover, lobes of roe are draped over a mound of finely chopped steak tartare, the creaminess working with the minerality of the raw beef. Melbourne chef Joseph Vargetto used to dive
for urchins off the beach at Brighton, treating them like oysters and eating the flesh raw with lemon, washed down with a crisp white wine. At his Kew restaurant, Mister Bianco, he serves fine hand-cut fresh spaghettini with a creamy sauce of cultured butter, pureed sea urchin roe and vermouth, garnished with fresh urchin roe.
How do you use it?
If using live urchins, wear a sturdy glove. Find the mouth opening at the base and use sturdy kitchen scissors to make two equal and opposite cuts halfway down the urchin. It will now split apart easily. Remove the five lobes of roe. Wash in salted water and remove darker membrane. The roe is now ready to use. Lay fresh lobes over nigiri rice to make the classic Japanese uni sushi. Serve roe as a side to Spanish cold almond soup. Add to seafood risotto with cold butter for extra creaminess and umami. Whisk raw urchin through eggs and a little cream to make silky smooth, just-set scrambled eggs topped with salmon caviar.
Where do you get it?
Buy live sea urchin from fish markets and fishmongers . Look for fresh processed roe from local processors. Keep live urchins in the fridge for two days if you are going to eat them raw, or five days if you are going to cook them.
The spiny armour of these simple sea creatures hides a rich and luscious interior. They’re a delicacy in Europe and Asia. In Australia, chefs are making the most of native species, using umami-rich urchins in pasta sauce and to top steak tartare.
What is it?
Ancient denizens of the sea, sea urchins are endemic to most of the globe’s waters. They live on the sea floor and dine mostly on algae. Inside these prickly, globe-shaped creatures is a simple alimentary canal and five large lobes of roe. The edible roe has a slippery yet creamy, buttery texture and a fresh, salty seafood flavour with a clean finish . Australia has many urchin species but one of particular interest is the long spine sea urchin, which has moved with warmer currents from its home off the NSW coast to Victoria and Tasmania. There, it devastates the kelp (brown algae) forests. These pests are targeted as a food species, alongside indigenous species, and hand-harvested by divers.
Why do we love it?
‘‘ Sea urchin is rich and buttery, a decadent and naughty food,’’ says Pip Pratt, executive chef at The Rover in Surry Hills, Sydney. ‘‘ Most rich food fills you up, but urchin is light. I love it because you
can spread it, eat the roe whole as is or use it in a sauce as a fresh, sea-like flavour enhancer.’’ At The Rover, lobes of roe are draped over a mound of finely chopped steak tartare, the creaminess working with the minerality of the raw beef. Melbourne chef Joseph Vargetto used to dive
for urchins off the beach at Brighton, treating them like oysters and eating the flesh raw with lemon, washed down with a crisp white wine. At his Kew restaurant, Mister Bianco, he serves fine hand-cut fresh spaghettini with a creamy sauce of cultured butter, pureed sea urchin roe and vermouth, garnished with fresh urchin roe.
How do you use it?
If using live urchins, wear a sturdy glove. Find the mouth opening at the base and use sturdy kitchen scissors to make two equal and opposite cuts halfway down the urchin. It will now split apart easily. Remove the five lobes of roe. Wash in salted water and remove darker membrane. The roe is now ready to use. Lay fresh lobes over nigiri rice to make the classic Japanese uni sushi. Serve roe as a side to Spanish cold almond soup. Add to seafood risotto with cold butter for extra creaminess and umami. Whisk raw urchin through eggs and a little cream to make silky smooth, just-set scrambled eggs topped with salmon caviar.
Where do you get it?
Buy live sea urchin from fish markets and fishmongers . Look for fresh processed roe from local processors. Keep live urchins in the fridge for two days if you are going to eat them raw, or five days if you are going to cook them.
Recipes and information on my blog about Sea Urchins:
Cooking and eating is greatly influenced by the seasonal variations in weather and the available seasonal produce.
Abundant in summer are eggplants, tomatoes, zucchini and peppers/capsicum and I enjoy making the most of these vibrant ingredients during this time. Summer is also a time for grilled food that adds both char and depth of flavor to food.
Celebrating what’s in season enhances the taste of our dishes and allows us to connect more closely with nature’s cycles.
There are recipes in this post for grilled sardines and squid. Also grilled zucchini, eggplants and peppers and a version of caponata as baked in the oven. A celery caponata makes a perfect and easy accompaniment for grilled food.
I particularly like grilled fish, especially sardines.
And squid tastes fantastic grilled, the charring adds so much flavour and character. The tentacles are good too and apart from having a more intense flavour they offer a different texture. Squid will not need much cooking, especially if it has been marinading beforehand for an hour or so. Cook the squid quickly – about 5 mins on one side, flip it over and cook the other side for less. The marinade can be as uncomplicated as a little extra virgin olive oil, salt and a few herbs of your choice. To the marinade this time, I also added a splash of white wine.
A simple drizzle of good, extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice could be sufficient as a finishing dressing, especially it you are accompanying the squid with some flavourful side dishes.
There are also two accompanying, Sicilian green, traditional sauces – Salmoriglio and Zogghiu to accompany all grilled food.
As for the accompanying dishes, I made two different Sicilian caponate (plural of caponata) and a green salad.
Caponate also make good starters and they taste better if cooked days before, making them an easy option. They are always served at room temperature: take them out of the fridge about 30 mins before serving.
Caponata as cooked in the oven
I cooked one of the caponate in the oven and used eggplants, onions, celery and peppers/capsicums. To make it different, apart from baking the vegetables, I also added fennel seeds, plenty of basil and garlic as well as the customary green olives, capers, sugar, vinegar and pine nuts.
I definitely prefer the traditional method of sautéing of each of the vegetables in hot oil because although I roasted the vegetables at high temperatures, they released far too many juices. I drained the liquid and evaporated in a saucepan and then pour it back into the oven tray. In the end it did taste good, but the flavour took far too long to fix.
Cool the caponata. Place the basil and toasted pine nuts on the caponata at the time of serving.
The caponata in the photo below is made with celery. This caponata is very quick to cook and the addition of sultanas accentuate the sweet taste. The vinegar (present in all caponate) provides the sour taste and this cooked salad tastes very much like a pickle.
This celery caponata has the addition of toasted almonds rather than pine nuts.
The celery and onions are the only two vegetable ingredients and they can be sautéed in the same pan at the same time. Once they are slightly softened, add the drained and plump sultanas that have been soaking in water for an hour or so. Add a little sugar and once the sugar begins to caramelise, add a splash of vinegar and evaporate.
Friends also enjoy the chocolate version of caponata. Pieces of dark chocolate are added in the final stages of cooking the eggplant version of caponata that is characteristic of Palermo and its region.
The caponata that includes peppers is typical of Catania and its region.
Over summer and the Christmas period I did make a few favourite standout dishes that were requested time and again: Zuppa Inglese and Caponata Catanese seem to have left such a lasting impression on my friends and family that they’ve become favorites for special occasions.
Egg Mayonnaise and Zogghiu (a green sauce made with garlic, mint, and parsley) are incredibly versatile sauces that pair wonderfully with almost anything.
November and December are always my busiest months, and while I spend a lot of time cooking, there’s rarely a moment to take photos or write about it. The Christmas period was no different.
Though I don’t tend to stick to traditional holiday foods, for family and friends some special dishes are memorable.
I had three requests for Zuppa Inglese, one was for this year’s shared Christmas lunch.I topped it with Chantilly cream, preserved cherries soaked in Maraschino, and bits of Torrone with pistachio. Instead of the traditional sherry used in an English trifle, the Savoiardi biscuits are soaked with Alchermes, the ancient Florentine liqueur. I also spooned the traditional rich egg custard between the layers, te results are a decadent and obviuosly memorable dessert.
Caponata Catanese, a Sicilian dish from Catania, is another favorite. This version features eggplant, red and green peppers, celery, onion, and green olives and I also added capers. Each vegetable is cooked separately in olive oil, then combined after caramelizing some sugar and evaporating white wine vinegar. Finally, tomatoes are added and simmered until the sauce thickens to a creamy consistency. The result makes a memorable antipasto that’s best served cold or can be placed as one of the choices if having salads with grilled food.
The essential ingredients of my Caponata Catanese, a Sicilian caponata from Catania, are eggplant, red and green peppers, celery and onion with green olives (I also added capers). Each of the vegetables in the caponata are separately cooked in olive oil and not mixed together until some sugar is caramelised before adding white wine vinegar that is evaporated and finally some tomatoes that are cooked till reduced to a cream.
I scattered this one with fresh leaves of basil, pine nuts and breadcrumbs toasted in some extra virgin olive oil. The breadcrumbs added the crunch.
Two other staples I often prepare are homemade Egg Mayonnaise and Zogghiu The green sauce is especially good with grilled meats, and it was fantastic with both crayfish and grilled squid this season. Egg mayonnaise is particularly good with asparagus.
I also enjoy a hearty meat broth, and one dish I hadn’t made in a long time was Stracciatella. This simple yet delicious Roman soup is quick to prepare and incredibly satisfying. The name “Stracciatella” refers to the delicate, shredded pieces of egg that form as you stir them into the hot broth. To make it, simply bring meat broth to a boil, then whisk in beaten eggs, fresh parsley, nutmeg, and Parmigiano, cooking over low heat until it thickens to your desired consistency.
Although the Christmas season has passed, all the recipes I’ve shared here are perfect for the summer months. I hope you enjoyed your holiday season, and I look forward to sharing more delicious recipes with you in the future.
I have not had time to do much writing as I have been travelling quite a bit , both in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia and not like some of my friends who have been travelling overseas.
I only take my iPad when I travel and writing posts is not something that I find easy on this device.
I am finding that inserting links to recipes that are already on the blog, pretty impossible and if you are interested in some of the recipes, for example about cockles or sea urchins use the search button. I am hoping that the photos are sufficient, but maybe not.
Below are some of the things I have cooked or prepared lately. When one is ‘on the run’ one does not have the luxury of ingredients from home:
Mushrooms braised with saffron, white wine, tomato paste and parsley.
Goolwa cockles cooked with parsley, garlic and a splash of white wine. Parsley yet to be stirred through.
Braised red cabbage cooked in red wine and bay leaves and some smoked pork with whole meal spaghetti .
King George Whiting braised with with lemon slices, fennel seeds and white wine. Fried capers till crisp added at last minute.
Sea urchin roe bought in brine and cooked with braised fennel, anchovies, garlic and chillies in wine, parsley, roe grated lemon rind and lemon juice added right at the very end.
Burrata with basil mayonnaise, soft boiled eggs and a salad of avocado, lettuce, asparagus and baby tomatoes.
This is Kingfish crudo, fig leaf, mascarpone, grape, as presented at Chianti Restaurant in Hutt Street in Adelaide.
The restaurant prides itself in serving fresh, seasonal food. This is exceptionally good, modern Italian food! As for seasonal produce, figs and grapes are in season.
I did not know what to expect of the taste of fig leaf infused oil, but it was very pleasant – for me, the fig leaf oil tasted grassy, slightly nutty and with a hint of bitterness.
And look at the colour! It is so intense.
I have made parsley, coriander, dil, mint and basil infused oil and making fig oil appears to be no different.
When making oils infused with herbs I have always used a blender and I have used the the aromatic oils to drizzle over foods like labneh, fresh cheeses like fior di latte, ricotta, burrata or fresh mozzarella (this category includes bocconcini), vegetables, especially potatoes and of course carpaccio, raw fish, usually referred to as crudo. As you can see by my suggestions for its use, the green looks particularly spectacular with white colours, but you can also imagine how a blob will look good on pureed soups – for example, think about Gazpacho (or Gaspacho), pumpkin, Vichyssoise, zucchini soup. Visualize it on pasta dishes too. And why not use a combination of fresh figs, a fresh cheese with a drizzle of fig leaf oil!
I do notmeasure ingredients, but as a rough estimate use 1 cup of good quality, fragrant, extra virgin olive oil to 3-4 fresh fig leaves (depending on size) or 4 cups loosely packed fresh herbs – use only the soft leaves of soft leafed herbs, for example – basil, parsley, oregano, dill, chives, chervil, fennel, coriander, tarragon.
Make sure you use bright green, healthy, fig leaves and not too mature.
Blanch fresh fig leaves, or the leaves of fresh herbs (with no stems) in some boiling water to soften. The blanching preserves the colour and the leaves will turn bright green.
Quickly transfer the leaves or herbs from the boiling water to an ice water bath and cool quickly. Remove the herbs from the ice bath, strain and squeeze out as much excess water from the herbs as possible.
Add the squeezed leaves to the oil with a pinch of salt and blend. Infuse in the oil for at least 1 hour. if you leave it overnight it will not suffer and in fact will turn a darker green. Strain the puree through cheesecloth or a fine meshed strainer. When I did this, strangely enough, the blend had coconut aromas.
Keep oil refrigerated, bring to room temperature before use.
I used a tea strainer to filter the oil for the photo below. I am not at home and therefore do not have access to muslin or a fine meshed strainer. If I had filtered this through muslin, I could have intensified the colour by squeezing the muslin and squeezing the green colour through. It still tasted great.
Richard Cornish’s first article this year in his Brain Food column is on Bottarga (The Age, January 25 issue, 2022).
What a great start!
He says that we love bottarga because it has the power to enrich and enhance dishes, much the same way as Parmesan cheese improves pasta and jamon makes everything more delicious. I always think of anchovies and how widely they are used not just in Sicilian cooking but in Italian cooking generally an how much they enrich the taste of many dishes.
The bottarga that Richard is writing about is Bottarga di Muggine: ‘the salted, processed and sun-dried mullet roe that is pale orange to yellow in colour.”
Having roots in Sicily, I am more accustomed with Bottarga di Tonno, made from tuna. In comparison to the mullet roe, bottarga from tuna can be darker in colour and more pungent in taste.
I bought this lump of bottarga (in the photo below) from Enoteca Sileno in Melbourne. Mullet bottarga is easier to find.
In Sicily bottarga has been used for millennia and is only one of many parts of the tuna that is salted.
Many years ago, when bottarga would have been next to impossible to purchase in Australia, I purchased many packets of plastic wrapped bottarga and various salted parts or the tuna from a vendor in the Market in Syracuse who specialised in salted and dried fish. I brought them back to Australia in my suitcase. I declared them, but because they were sealed securely I was cleared through customs.
In my book Sicilian Seafood Cooking, I begin the section of the book PESCE SALATO (Salted Fish) by saying:
Salted fish has been greatly valued and an important industry in Sicily. During medieval times the standard Lenten diet was based on pulses and dried salted fish. Still popular in Sicily, salted fish were popular with the ancient Romans. Anchovies, which still flavour many dishes, probably replaced the gurum used widely by ancient Romans.
Gurum was made by crushing and fermenting fish innards. It was very popular during Roman times, an import from the Greeks. It was a seasoning preferred to salt and added to other ingredients like vinegar, wine, oil and pepper to make a condiment used for meat, fish and vegetables – much like the fish sauce used in some Asian cuisines.
Two early cookery books, The Art of Cooking: The First Modern Cookery Book by Martino of Como and On Right Pleasure and Good Health by Platina, praise the taste and quality of salted tuna (particularly the middle section of tuna called tarantellum or terantello). Salted tuna (sometimes called mosciam in Sicily) was introduced by the Arabs (who called it muscamma) in about the 10th century. It has firm, deep red-brown flesh that needs only paper-thin slicing and is mainly eaten softened in oil with a sprinkling of lemon juice.
Salted tuna is also produced in southern Spain; they refer to it as air-dried tuna or sun-dried tuna and Mojama tuna.
Bottarga (called buttarica or buttarga in Sicilian) are the eggs in the ovary sacs of female tuna. These are pressed into a solid mass, salted and processed. The name bottarga is thought to have evolved from the Arabic buarikh or butarah – raw fish eggs, once made made by dipping the sac in beeswax and leaving it to dry. Making bottarga is a much more complicated process now and is only produced in Favignana. It is grated to flavour dishes, or sliced finely and eaten as an antipasto.
I have eaten bottarga mainly grated over pasta dishes and eggplant caponata, but in Syracuse I enjoyed baked eggplant stuffed with seafood and topped with grated bottarga.
Richard Cornish says :
‘Grated bottarga is sensational over buttered pasta. You need nothing other than a glass of wine to complete the dish. Try it grated over spaghetti with tomatoes and a little chilli, or on hot flatbread drizzled with oil as an aperitivo. Make a delicious salad of finely sliced fennel and radicchio topped with bottarga. Grate bottarga into aioli to make a dressing for a Caesar salad. Make softly scrambled eggs, grate over 50g of bottarga and enjoy on hot buttered sourdough’.
Sounds good and I am looking forward to trying some of these.
I am not Calabrese, and not being Calabrese means that I only discovered ’nduja late in life, as it was very much a regional and local food. I may have been late, but I did discover ’nduja much earlier than those living in Australia, who are now celebrating its use in a big way. Better late than never, because ’nduja is a fabulous salume (smallgood).
Featured photo is Tropea, Calabria.
So what is ’nduja?
We can thank Richard Cornish for his full-flavoured description of it in his Brain Food column in The Age on 10 November: A fermented sausage, originally from Calabria in Italy, that has a texture like sticky pate and a spicy kick on it like an angry mule. Pronounced en-doo-ya, it is a mixture of pork fat (up to 70 per cent), pork, salt, spices, culture and chilli peppers, which are ground together until smooth, wet, unctuous and deep red. It is stuffed into large-sized natural animal skins and slowly fermented and air-dried. The lactic acid bacteria in the culture ferments the sugars in the mix, making the ’nduja acidic enough to keep it safe from bad bugs. The name is Calabrian slang and is said to derive from the word for the smoked French sausage andouille.
Is it nduja or ’nduja? You will find that in certain references the spelling will be without an apostrophe.
The apostrophe before the nd (as in ’nduja), does not appear in the Italian language and I spent some time looking for the why it is spelt that way. It appears that in Calabrese, nd is proceeded by an apostrophe. Think of ‘Ndrangheta, as the mafia is referred to in Calabria, and ‘ndrina, the different families or clans, usually made up of blood relatives that are part of the ‘Ndrangheta.
Like most Calabresi, I usually spread ’nduja on fresh bread (like pâté) or I have used it as an ingredient in pasta sauces – it can fire up a tame ragù (a meat-based tomato sauce). I have also added ’nduja to sautéed cime di rape and Italian pork sausages,and to squid or octopus for a pasta sauce or on their own to be mopped up with bread.
I first encountered this spicy, spreadable sausage about forty years ago in the home of a Calabrese family who used to slaughter a pig and make smallgoods. They covered all of the smallgoods with chili. To their taste, food without chilli seemed flavourless, but also that the coating of chilli acts as a barrier, repelling flies (and bad bugs as Richard says) and is therefore a powerful and natural preservative. It’s the chili that gives this soft spreadable ’nduja salame its distinctive red colour.
Years later (about 23 years ago), I had some ‘nduja in the Sila mountains in Calabria, but I did not know then, that this peasant food product was to become the taste-sensation outside of Calabria that it is now.
My addition of ’nduja to seafood came much later in my cooking after I tasted a pasta dish of squid and fried breadcrumbs spiced with ’nduja, in a restaurant in Marin County, in California in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S). Years later, I had a similar dish in a London restaurant. Both blew me away.
Probably the first dish I tasted with ’nduja in a Melbourne restaurant (Baby octopus with ’nduja) was at Tipo 00 when it first opened and later at Osteria Ilaria.
Originally, ’nduja was considered peasant food. It was first made by contadini (farmers/ workers on the land) who raised and butchered pigs and being poor, would sell the prime cuts of pork to upper-class families who could afford them. as is the way of the frugal, offal, excess fat, and off- cuts of meat were blended together, seasoned intensely with chilli, stuffed in a casing and transformed into a soft salame that tasted good and did not spoil easily.
These days ’nduja is probably made with better fats and cuts of meat and with its popularity, the price has also risen. ’Nduja originated in the Vibo Valentia province in Calabria, and much of it still comes from the town of Spilinga but it is now showing up as an ingredient all over Italy and in many restaurants in UK, US and in Australia – imparting a chilli kick on pizza, in pasta dishes, seafood dishes, burgers and even with Burrata; I would have thought that fresh cheeses are far too delicate to go with the strongly flavoured and spicy ’nduja. However each to their own. ’Nduja is no longer just found in specialist supermarkets and specialty butchers, but also in some fairly ordinary supermarkets. I have liked some varieties much more than others, so it is worth experimenting.
For those who like chillies, recipes that include ’nduja on my blog:
It looks impressive and it is not too much trouble to make.
For the Filling:
Drained yogurt (labna or labnah), tarragon or dill, pink peppercorns, grated lemon peel, lemon juice, capers. In the centre are pickled baby cucumbers. Sometimes I have used cream cheese as the filling but I like the lightness of yogurt and the tart taste suits the salmon.
I also add trimmings of the salmon and a dollop of mayonnaise or extra virgin olive oil.
On the outer and spread on a cling film wrap:
Silverbeet leaves, wilted in a little water and some egg mayonnaise spread over the top. On top of silverbeet, a layer of smoked salmon or salmon trout . Mine is from Denmark… a long way from home but not bred in cages like Tasmanian salmon.
Begin the rolling process. The cling wrap makes this possible.
Wrap the roll tightly and leave it in the fridge at least 4 hours or overnight.
Unwrap and cut into slices.
A more elaborate roll on a different occasion topped with more egg mayonnaise and tarragon. Pink pepper also a adds flavour and looks great.
A slice of rye or spelt bread never goes unappreciated.
Over summer and the Christmas period I did make a few favourite standout dishes that were requested time and again: Zuppa Inglese and Caponata Catanese seem to have left such a lasting impression on my friends and family that they’ve become favorites for special occasions.
