Tag: Arab flavours in Sicilian Cooking

A TASTE OF PALERMO: Pasta con le Sarde

When I cook Pasta Con Le Sarde (pasta with sardines), an iconic dish from Palermo, I can always count on my guests falling in love with Sicilian food.

This dish is a beautiful celebration of Sicily’s history, combining pasta with the deep flavours of sardines, spring onions (I especially like the green leaves), wild fennel, saffron, currants, fennel bulbs, toasted pine nuts and/or almonds. The crowning touch is a topping of crispy, golden breadcrumbs, sautéed in olive oil. The combination of ingredients is both unexpected and fascinating. But how can a dish so rich with these unique flavours be Italian? Where are the ingredients that one associates with Italian food?

The answer lies in the island’s fascinating history.

Sicily, and especially Palermo, has long been a crossroads of cultures, where various peoples and flavours were absorbed and blended. One of the most influential groups were the Arabs who settled in Sicily and ruled the island from the 9th to the 11th centuries. The Arabs brought with them an array of ingredients and culinary techniques, many of which still permeate Sicilian cooking today. The use of fennel, saffron, almonds, pine nuts, and currants, as well as the habit of combining sweet and savoury elements in one dish, are hallmarks of Arabic influence.

The photos are of Palermo.

A critical ingredient in pasta con le sarde is wild fennel, which contributes a fresh, slightly aniseed flavour to the dish. However, wild fennel has a short growing season and can be difficult to forage, and if you’re making this dish outside of the growing season you may only find stalky, yellowing plants, as I did recently, but I managed to find some fresh shoots. While you can’t replace the wild fennel entirely, you can substitute it with fennel bulbs (preferably with their fronds still attached), which will lend the dish a similar flavour profile. This too is seasonal.

Sometimes, if I am short of fennel, I add some fennel seeds to the pasta water or to the fennel and onions when I am cooking them.

Ingredients:

For Cooking the Pasta: Wild fennel stalks and fronds (if available) to infuse the cooking water.

Recommended Pasta Shape: Bucatini is the traditional choice, but spaghetti or casarecce will also work well.

extra virgin olive oil

500g fresh sardine fillets

4 spring onions, finely chopped

a handful of fennel fronds, finely chopped

1-2 fennel bulb, finely diced

a pinch of saffron (soaked in a little warm water)

50g currants (soaked in water for 10 minutes)

50g – 100g toasted pine nuts and or toasted almonds, roughly chopped

salt and pepper to taste (or a pinch of ground chili for heat)

For the Breadcrumb Topping:

1 cup breadcrumbs made from good quality day-old bread

a pinch of sugar

a sprinkle of ground cinnamon (optional, but adds a nice touch)

grated lemon zest

Instructions:

Prepare the Ingredients:

  • Make sure that the sardine fillets are free of bones.
  • Chop the spring onions and fennel fronds. Dice the fennel bulbs.
  • Soak in a little water the saffron and currants in separate bowls.

Make the Breadcrumb Topping:

  • Heat a little olive oil in a pan and add the breadcrumbs.
  • Stir in the sugar, cinnamon, and lemon zest.
  • Toast the breadcrumbs until golden and fragrant. Set aside.

Prepare the Pasta Water:

  • Add fennel stalks and some of the tough fronds in a pot of water, add a little salt and bring the salted water to a boil. Let them simmer for about 30 minutes to infuse the water with flavour.

Cook the Sardine Sauce:

  • Heat olive oil in a pan. Sauté the spring onions until soft and fragrant.
  • Add the fennel bulb and fronds and cook until softened. You may need to add a splash of water or white wine to help soften the fennel, depending on its texture.
  • Stir in the saffron, currants, pine nuts, and almonds. Season with salt and pepper (or chili if you prefer a little heat). Blend the flavours and cook for a few minutes and leave it to rest while you cook the pasta and fry the sardines.
  • Drain the solids out of the fennel infused water.  Cook the bucatini (or your choice of pasta) according to the package instructions, using the fennel-infused water for a subtle flavour boost. Once the pasta is ready, drain it, reserving a little of the cooking water in case you need it.

  • In a separate pan, fry the sardine fillets in a little olive oil. I sometimes add a few greens from a spring onion or a few fennel seeds but it isn’t optional).  They will cook quickly, and some may begin to break apart. Break about ¾ of them up slightly and add them to the fennel mixture. Reserve the whole fillets to place on top of the dressed pasta.

Assemble the Dish:

  • Toss the cooked pasta into the sardine and fennel mixture, ensuring the flavours are well incorporated. If the sauce seems a little dry, add some reserved pasta cooking water to bring it all together. At this stage I will probably add a splash of extra virgin olive oil.
  • Transfer the pasta to a serving dish, top it with the sardines and generously sprinkle with the nuts.
  • At this stage you have a choice. You could also top the pasta with some toasted breadcrumbs and place the extra crumbs in a bowl so that eaters can help themselves as they would with grated cheese, or to gently fold the nuts and fillets through the pasta before topping the whole bowl with toasted breadcrumbs.
Pasta Con Le Sarde – Pasta with sardines, Sicilian from my book Sicilian Seafood Cooking

You can never have enough posts for Pasta Con Le Sarde:

PASTA CON LE SARDE (SARDINES)

PASTA CON LE SARDE, an iconic Sicilian recipe from Palermo. Cooked at Slow Food Festival Melbourne

PASTA CON SARDE; the baked version, Palermo, Sicily

PASTA CON LE SARDE (SARDINES)

Pasta Con Le Sarde (sardines) can only be a Sicilian dish.

Sardines are plentiful, so is the wild fennel (it is seasonal), and most Sicilians eat pasta in some form, every day.

The flavours and ingredients of pine nuts, saffron and currants are said to have been introduced by the Arabs.

Breadcrumbs toasted in a fry pan with a little bit of olive oil are popular in Sicily as a topping or dressing – called muddica/ mollica/pan grattato, it is sprinkled on pasta instead of grated cheese, and some vegetable dishes like Parmigiana di Melanzane (eggplants), Caponata, fried peppers (Peperonata), and Sfincione (a type of regional pizza) .

And I make Pasta Con Le Sarde when I know I can impress friends, those who appreciate being impressed.

Accept that not everyone likes sardines or fancy the idea of wild fennel. The photo below shows how some bunches of wild fennel are sold in Sicilian markets.

Over the years I don’t just toast the breadcrumbs in the frypan (made bread that’s several days old); I  also add a little cinnamon, a tiny bit of sugar and grated lemon peel. The lemon flavour really makes this pasta topping even more special. Sometimes I also add pine nuts to the pan.

Bucatini is the pasta I prefer – it’s slightly larger than spaghetti, long and hollow, like a tube.

But last time I made Pasta Con Le Sarde, I did use spaghetti. You can see how many pine nuts I sprinkled on top before folding them into the pasta. In a traditional dish there would be fewer.

Most of the time my Pasta Con Le Sarde looks like pretty ordinary, but still tastes magnificent. Sometimes I also add chopped, roasted almonds. Looking at this photo below can see that not all the almonds were chopped!

It is sometimes difficult to find wild fennel that is healthy looking or in season, so  sometimes I do add a fresh fennel bulb.

Below the photo shows fennel and onion sauté-ing (if there is such a word!)

This is followed by the addition of saffron, wild fennel and currants.

If I can get sufficient wild fennel I use it in the boiling water to flavour the pasta. The stalks from fresh fennel also work. Simply cook the stalks or wild fennel in the water and remove them before adding the pasta to cook.

Although Sardines are easy to clean, sardines are also sold as fillets.

I have written about Pasta Con Le Sarde before.

PASTA CON LE SARDE, Iconic Sicilian made easy

PASTA CON LE SARDE, an iconic Sicilian recipe from Palermo. Cooked at Slow Food Festival Melbourne

PASTA CON SARDE; the baked version, Palermo, Sicily

WILD FENNEL and photos

PASTA WITH BREADCRUMBS, anchovies and fennel (Pasta cca muddica)

From my book, Sicilian Seafood Cooking.

PASTA CON SARDE – the baked version, Palermo, Sicily

This is Pasta con le Sarde, the baked version, and a taste of Sicily’s history. It is one of the most iconic Sicilian dishes and consists of bucatini pasta tossed with sardines, wild fennel, pine nuts, saffron, and topped (or encased)  with golden, fried breadcrumbs.

Pasta con le Sarde can be served hot or cold and is visually more impressive when baked into a tummàla, a Sicilian term derived from the Arabic. The Italian name is timballo, from the French timbale, the cooked ingredients are encased in rice, pasta or pastry.  The dry breadcrumbs are used to line and cover the contents in the baking pan, the long bucatini can be coiled around the pan and together with the sardine sauce become the filling.

I’ve cooked this dish many times and it is one of those recipes that tells a tale that begins with Sicily’s layered history and whenever I make this dish, I enjoy telling this story to my guests.

A tale – a Dish Born of Conquest and Creativity

Muslim Arabs took control of North Africa from the Byzantines and Berbers and began their second conquest of Sicily in 827 from Mazara, the closest point to the African coast. By 902 they had fully conquered Sicily. The Muslims were known as Moors by the Christians and by the time of the Crusades, they were also referred to as Saracens.

When the Muslim Arabs conquered Sicily from 827 to 902 AD, they brought with them not just new rulers, but new flavours — saffron, nuts, and dried fruit. Legend has it that when Arab troops first landed on the island, their cook was told to prepare food from whatever could be foraged. The soldiers brought to the cook wild fennel and sardines, plentiful along the Sicilian coast.

The cook combined these local ingredients with his own Arabic exotic ingredients and flavours of Arabs and North Africans – the saffron, dried fruit and the nuts. And so Pasta con le Sarde was born.

To this day, it remains a quintessentially Sicilian dish, especially in Palermo. Its sweet-savoury, sea-meets-land flavour captures Sicily’s unique blend of cultures.

Baked or Fresh Pasta con le Sarde  – The Sicilian ‘Tummàla’

This layered, breadcrumb-crusted bake turns simple pasta into a festive centrepiece. The recipe  with slight variations is also featured in my book, Sicilian Seafood Cooking.

Wild fennel is seasonal and is not always easy to find so I use fennel bulbs. On this occasion I bought fennel bulbs with the greatest amounts of green fronds, added some ground fennel seeds and a splash of Pernod to enhance the fennel taste.

Wild fennel

If you can get wild fennel, place it into some cold, salted water (enough to cook the pasta) and boil it for 10-15 minutes (it can be left in the water for longer). The green tinged, fennel-flavoured water is used to cook the pasta — it will flavour and colour the pasta. Reserve some of the tender shoots of wild fennel raw to use in the cooking of the sauce.

Drain the cooked fennel and keep the fennel-flavoured water to cook the pasta. Some of the cooked fennel can be added to the pasta sauce.

Traditionally, wild fennel is boiled to make the aromatic water used to cook the pasta. When wild fennel is scarce, bulb fennel makes an excellent substitute. I like to boost the anise flavour with a pinch of ground fennel seeds or a splash of Pernod.

Baked Pasta con le Sarde (Serves 4–6)

I prepare Pasta con le Sarde in sufficient quantities to have some leftovers for baking. This is a particularly useful strategy when I have different guests arriving on two occasions in close proximity. It is especially advantageous around Easter and Christmas when fish is still a preferred dish on Good Friday and Christmas Eve. The leftovers can be reconfigured for the following day.

Ingredients:

  • 500g bucatini
  • 500g fresh sardines (fillets)
  • 1 large fennel bulb with fronds, finely chopped
  • 1 tsp ground fennel seeds or a dash of Pernod
  • ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 onion, finely sliced
  • 4 anchovies, chopped
  • ¾ cup toasted  pine nuts
  • ¾ cup toasted almonds
  • ¾ cup currants or sultanas (soaked)
  • ½–1 tsp saffron threads (soaked)
  • Salt, black pepper or chilli flakes
  • 100g coarse breadcrumbs, made with day old, quality bread (sourdough/pasta dura), lightly tossed and toasted in oil with a little lemon zest, a little cinnamon, and sugar

Method:

Prepare the fennel and Sardines : Slice the fennel into thin slices and cut fronds finely. Cut about two thirds of the sardine fillets into thick pieces. Reserve whole fillets to go on top and provide visual impact.

Cook the sauce:

In a wide pan, heat olive oil and sauté onion until golden. Add fennel and cook until softened. Stir in pine nuts, almonds, and currants  (drained). oss gently until heated.

Add the sliced sardines, salt and pepper or chili. Cook  for about 5-7 minutes, stirring gently.

Add the anchovies (try to remove any bones if there are any) and as they cook, crush them with back of spoon to dissolve into a paste. Add ground fennel seeds or a splash of Pernod to enhance the fennel taste. Add saffron (and the soaking water) and continue to stir and cook gently.

Fry the whole fillets of sardines in a separate frying pan, keeping them intact. Remove them from the pan and put aside.

The Pasta: Boil bucatini in the fennel water (if using wild fennel) until al dente.
Drain the pasta.

Combine: Toss pasta with the sauce, sprinkle with breadcrumbs, and top with fried whole sardine fillets.

Timballo (Baked Version) of Pasta con le Sarde

Method:

Make more breadcrumbs using the quantities above. For a deeper crust, double the quantities. I am not a great lover of using more breadcrumbs as you see in the photos.

Line a baking tin with baking paper or foil to prevent sticking and make lifting easier. Traditionally a round shape is used.

Sprinkle with the toasted breadcrumbs and layer coiled bucatini, sardine mixture, more pasta, and breadcrumbs. Make the bottom and the top thick layers of breadcrumbs if you wish for a significant crust.

 Sprinkle with extra virgin olive oil, cover with foil and bake in preheated 200°C for approximately 20- 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 10 minutes. When the dish is baked, the breadcrumbs form a crust.

 

The result? A fragrant, golden, fragrant dish and centuries of Sicilian history.

 

LINKS:
WILD FENNEL, link with photos

PASTA WITH ANCHOVIES , wild fennel and breadcrumbs recipe

EASTER IN SICILY

LA VIGILIA (Christmas Eve revisited)

A SEAFOOD CHRISTMAS Feast with Fran Kelly; RADIO NATIONAL BREAKFAST PROGRAMME

PASTA CON LE SARDE (Pasta with sardines, from Palermo, made with fennel, pine nuts and currants)

I sent three recipes to SBS and this was one of them. All have been published on the website
 
One of my recipes, Sarde a beccafico was selected as part of the food series My Family Feast and cooked by Sean Connolly (chef). You can see it making it online during the broadcast of the series.
You cannot go to Sicily and not eat pasta con le sarde. There are many regional variations of pasta sauces made with sardines, all called by the same name, but the most famous is an ancient, traditional dish from Palermo. The pasta can be eaten hot or cold (at room temperature).

I like the way Sicilians often skip between the sweet and savoury tastes – the sour and/or salty is often combined with the sweet and what makes this dish unique is the unusual combination of textures and strong fragrant tastes: the strong taste of the oily sardines, the cleansing flavour of the fennel, the sweetness of the raisins and the delicate aromatic taste of the pine nuts.

Pasta con le sarde is presented with toasted breadcrumbs as a topping, in the same way that grated cheese is used.

Pasta con sarde 1

Originally the breadcrumbs may have been a substitute for cheese for the poor. In some versions of this dish the cooked ingredients are arranged in layers in a baking dish, topped with breadcrumbs and then baked – the breadcrumbs form a crust.

Unfortunately we are not able to buy bunches of wild fennel (finucchiu sarvaggiu in Sicilian) in Australia, but we do have the wild fennel that grows in neglected areas such as on the side of the road, vacant land and along banks of waterways. In Sicily it can be bought in small bunches. In Australia you will recognise it by its strong aniseed smell and taste, strong green colour and fine fern like fronds. I collect the soft, young shoots of this plant, recognised by their lighter colour. This fennel is unlike the Florentine fennel and has no bulb. Because of its strong smell and taste, animals and insects tend not to eat it, so it can be prolific. I always ensure that the plant looks healthy before I collect it, after all it is a weed and it could have been sprayed.

DSC_0001

Fresh bulb fennel can replace the wild fennel, but the taste will not be as strong. If you are using bulb fennel try to buy bulbs with some of the green fronds still attached. I usually buy more than one fennel at a time and save the green fronds to use as a herb in cooking and I enhance the taste by using fennel seeds as well.

Sardines+crop_0018-200x200

The addition of almonds is a local variation and is optional – it brings another layer of taste and texture to the dish. If you choose not to use the almonds, use double the quantity of pine nuts (see recipe).

The origins of pasta chi sardi (Sicilian) are said to be Arabic. In one story, an Arab cook was instructed to prepare food for the Arab troops when they first landed in Sicily. The cook panicked when he was confronted by a large number of people to feed, so the troops were instructed to forage for food. He made do with what they presented – wild herbs (the fennel) and the fish (sardines) to which he added Arabic flavourings, the saffron, dried fruit and the nuts.

I remember coming back to Australia and cooking this dish for friends after eating it in a restaurant in Palermo (Sicily) called L’ingrasciata (In Sicilian it means The dirty one!), and how much all of my guests enjoyed it. I have continued to cook pasta con le sarde over the years, especially since sardines are plentiful, sustainable and now widely available in Australia.

Pasta con le sarde is fairly substantial, and although in Sicily it would be presented as a first course (primo), in Australia I am happy to present it as a main (secondo) and I use greater quantities of fish. I follow the pasta course with a green salad as a separate course, but I never serve pasta and salad together. Part of me remains Italian to the core – in Italy a salad is a contorno (a side dish) and an accompaniment to a main course. Pasta, risotto and soup – which are all primi, cannot be accompanied by a side dish.

Traditionally the sauce is made with sardines that are butterflied (i.e. remove the backbone), or as the Italians say, aperti come un libro (opened like a book). I buy fillets to save time.

 Sardines butterflied_0019

INGREDIENTS

bucatini, 500g
sardines, 700g
fennel, wild is preferable, stalks and foliage, about 200g. If not, a large bulb of fennel with the fronds, cut into quarters and a teaspoon of fennel seeds to strengthen the flavour
extra virgin olive oil, about 1 cup
onions, 2, finely sliced
anchovies, 4, cut finely
pine nuts, 1 cup
almonds, 1 cup, toasted and chopped (optional)
currants, ¾ cup, or seedless raisins or sultanas
saffron, ½-1 small teaspoon
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
breadcrumbs, 4–5 tablespoons

PROCESS

Cook the fennel
The wild fennel is put into cold, salted water (to give maximum flavour to the water) and boiled for 10-15 minutes (it can be left in the water for longer). The green tinged, fennel-flavoured water will be used to cook the pasta – it will flavour and colour the pasta. The boiled fennel is added as an ingredient in the sauce. Reserve some wild fennel to use in the cooking the fish.
If using the bulb fennel, wash and cut the bulb fennel into quarters but reserve the green fronds to use raw in the cooking the fish. Add fennel seeds and boil until tender.
Drain the cooked fennel in colander, and then gently squeeze out the water. Discard the seeds and keep the fennel-flavoured water to cook the pasta.
Chop the fennel roughly, this will be added to the sauce later.
Cut about two thirds of the sardine fillets into thick pieces. The whole fillets go on top and are used to provide visual impact.
Heat oil in shallow wide pan, suitable for making the pasta sauce and to include the pasta once it is cooked.
Sauté the onions over medium heat until golden.
Add pine nuts, raisins and almonds (optional). Toss gently.
Add the sliced sardines, salt and pepper and the uncooked fennel. Cook on gentle heat for about 5-10 minutes, stirring gently.
Add the anchovies (try to remove any bones if there are any) and as they cook, crush them with back of spoon to dissolve into a paste.
Add the cooked chopped fennel and the saffron dissolved in a little warm water and continue to stir and cook gently.
Boil bucatini in the fennel water until al dente.
Fry the whole fillets of sardines in a separate frying pan, keeping them intact.
Remove them from the pan and put aside.
Drain the pasta.

 

At this stage the pasta can be assembled and presented, or baked.
To assemble:
Place the pasta into the saucepan in which you have cooked the fish sauce.
Leave the pasta in the saucepan for 5-10 minutes to incorporate the flavours and to preserve some warmth.
Gently fold in the whole sardines.
When ready to serve, tip the pasta and fish mixture into a serving bowl, arranging the whole fillets or butterflied sardines on top and dress the whole dish with the toasted breadcrumbs.
If you are baking the pasta:
Oil a baking tray or an ovenproof dish and sprinkle with toasted breadcrumbs to prevent sticking (it is not necessary that they be browned in oil, just browned in the oven).
Place a layer of pasta on the breadcrumbs, top with some of the fish sauce and some whole fillets of sardines. Form another layer and ensure that some of the whole fillets are kept for the top.
Cover with fresh breadcrumbs and sprinkle with extra virgin olive oil and bake in preheated 200C oven for approximately 10 minutes. A teaspoon of sugar can also be sprinkled on top of the breadcrumbs – this, with the oil will help the bread form a crust, adding yet another contrasting taste and a different texture.

SBS website with Sarde a beccafico – part of the food series My Family Feast and cooked by Sean Connolly (chef):