Tag: Currants

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

FISH BALLS with Sicilian flavours

Fishy bites that never fail to get gobbled up are fish balls poached in a tomato salsa with Sicilian flavours.

A Polpetta in Italian is a ‘patty’ or ‘rissole’ or in this case a ‘ball’ and these can be made with meat, fish or vegetables and bound with eggs and breadcrumbs.

I made these fish balls quite small as finger food that was easily transported and to a friend’s birthday celebration.

Because they are poached in a tomato salsa I presented them on Chinese soup spoons.

Of course these fish balls can be made larger and are not just limited to party food. They make a great antipasto or main course.

The fish I used this time is Rockling.   At other times I have made them with other Australian wild caught fish (sustainable at the time), for example Snapper, Flathead,  Blue-eye and Mahi Mahi.

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Here are some photos of the process I used to make the fish balls.

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Cut the fish into chunks and mince it in a food processor.

You maybe able to identify the ingredients I used to make these fish balls, mainly currants, pine nuts, parsley and fresh bread crumbs. I always use 2-3 day old sourdough bread and no crusts. In the mixture there is also some minced garlic, grated lemon rind, chopped parsley, chilli flakes, pine nuts, grated cheese and cinnamon. On this occasion I added nutmeg too.

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These ingredients are common in Sicilian cuisine, but also found in Middle Eastern food. This is not surprising when you look at Sicily’s legacy.

Combine the mixture and add some grated Pecorino (yes! with fish!), salt and pepper to taste.

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Eggs bind the mixture.

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The mixture should be quite firm and hold together. You may need to add more eggs – the number of  eggs you will need will vary because it will depend on the texture of the fish and the bread and how much moisture is needed to shape the fishtballs.

On this occasion I  found that I needed to add 1 extra egg (3 eggs altogether) for 1k of firm fish.

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In the meantime make a tomato salsa. I also added a stick of cinnamon.

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Shape the mixture into small balls and poach them gently in the hot salsa – use a wide saucepan. Poach them in batches and remove them gently from the salsa when cooked and set aside. When you have cooked all of them return them to the saucepan. On this occasion I made 60 fish balls and cooked them all in 3 batches.

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This  is the link to the recipe that is also in my second book, Small Fishy Bites.

FISH BALLS IN SALSA – POLPETTE DI PESCE (PURPETTI in Sicilian)

I presented the fish balls in Chinese soup spoons –  an easy and very tasty mouthful.  I made 60 fish balls for this celebration and the photo below shows the very few fish balls left on the festive table.

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Spaghetti and this mixture of fish balls? Why not?

For a variation of flavours use other Mediterranean flavours: preserved lemon peel instead of grated lemon peel, fresh coriander instead of parsley, omit the cheese, add cumin and perhaps more garlic. sprinkle with fresh coriander when serving.

My last post was about marinaded white anchovies –  also a great crowd pleaser.  This is easy finger food that can be presented on crostini (oven toasted or fried bread) or on small, cup shaped salad leaves. Whitlof leaves are perfectly shaped, radicchio as well; the small inside leaves of the of cos lettuces are firm and may be preferable to those who don’t like bitter tastes.

KALE SALAD with Italian Flavours

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Kale was everywhere in the places I visited in the US recently and I made this salad when I was visiting friends  in Okemos, Michigan. I bought a bunch of kale at a Farmers’ Market – it was local, in season, very fresh, and so why not?

When I make any salad I think of flavours and ingredients that I like and have used in other recipes. For example I have always enjoyed the flavours that go with sautéed spinach – pine nuts and dried grapes, usually currants.

With the addition of a little nutmeg this was originally a Tuscan/ Ligurian dish. Pine nuts and dried fruit are also found in Sicilian cooking but this dish is not Sicilian. Various Italian regions have adapted this dish to suit their culinary cultures, for example some Southern Italians may add chilli, in some regions they may add chopped anchovies that have been dissolved by sautéing in a little extra virgin olive oil. Broccoli or other leafy greens (like cavolo nero – Tuscan cabbage – or kale) are cooked in this way also.

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Although in Michigan I could have cooked the kale in the same way as I would have cooked spinach and eaten it as a cold cooked salad, I chose to use raw kale.

This was the US after all and there were plenty of cranberries in the pantry (they weren’t too sweet) so I chose these instead of currants. If I had dried, sour cherries (used in Middle Eastern cooking) I may have used those. Dried figs sliced thinly could have been OK as well.

In the photo, just to show their sizes, from left to right: top – dried sour cherries, muscatels, below – currants, cranberries.

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If I had no pine nuts, I may have used another kind of nut, for example walnuts, hazelnuts or pepitas (green kernels from pumpkin seeds).

On another occasion I may use walnut oil or hazelnut oil instead of extra virgin olive oil or perhaps a mixture of two.

I often use grated lemon peel as an ingredient in either a raw dish or in my cooking (quite Sicilian) so I also added this to the salad.

This salad is so simple that I almost feel embarrassed writing about it. No amounts for the ingredients are necessary, make it to suit your tastes.

For the photo of the ingredients used in the salad, I have used baby kale leaves.

INGREDIENTS

Kale, spring onions, pine nuts (lightly toasted), dried small fruit: such as dried grapes – currants, sultanas, raisins, or cranberries or dried cherries.

Dressing: extra virgin olive oil, grated lemon peel from 1 lemon and juice, a pinch of nutmeg, salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

PROCESSES

Strip the leaves of the kale, removing the tough ribs/ stalks then tear it into small pieces or cut it finely. Slice the spring onions thinly.  Combine kale and onions and add the nuts and dried fruit. Mix  all of the dressing ingredients together and dress the salad.

This salad is quite suitable as a starter and of course, it can be part of a main course.

See also:

Kale (Winter Green Vegetable and How to Cook It)

Cavolo Nero and Three Ways to Cook It

MICHIGAN, DETROIT, GRAND RAPIDS food and produce. Beef Spare Ribs Recipe.

 

PUDDASTRI CA PIPIRATA: POLLASTRI CON PEPERATA (Chicken with a sauce containing pepper and spices)

These beautiful chickens (and dogs) belong to friends. The chicken with the speckled feathers around her neck (in the front of the top photo/ and in the second photo at the bottom) won 1st prize at the Royal Melbourne show in 2009.
My friends would not dream of eating their chickens.

Whilst admiring these chickens my friends and I began discussing a chicken recipe that they had eaten at my place, an adaptation of a Sicilian recipe called Jadduzzedi e Puddastri ca sarsa pipirata in Pino Correnti’s book: Il libro d’oro della cucina e dei vini di Sicilia.

Correnti describes the dish as young chickens and roosters, pot roasted in oil, butter, bay leaves, rosemary, salt and pepper and deglazed with a little marsala (the dry variety). These were then served with a reduced salsa pipirata consisting of the following ingredients: vin cotto, broth flavoured with cinnamon, cloves, ginger and rosemary, grated lemon peel and pomegranate juice. Apparently this particular dish was appreciated by a noble in Palermo in the eighteenth century.  Unfortunately then Correnti  goes on to say that this dish was revealed to him by a medium, and that he has never found  any basis or documentation for this recipe.

All cuisines have cultural origins, but the cooking methods and flavours have altered and evolved throughout history to become what they are today.

For a detailed version of the possible Cultural Origins of this medieval sounding dish see:

SPICY CHICKEN SALAD WITH PEPPER, PUDDASTRI CA PIPIRATA: POLLASTRI CON PEPERATA

Here is my version of Puddastri ca pipirata.

INGREDIENTS
chicken fillets, skinless or with skin. I use organic and depending on how large they are, estimate 1 per person.
The following recipe is sufficient for 6 people.

For the poaching liquid:
chicken stock, sufficient to cover the fillets (made beforehand)
celery, 2 stalks left whole
carrots, 3 young, scraped and left whole
onion,1 sliced into thick slices
spices, 5 whole cloves, 1 cinnamon stick, 6 pepper corns
bay leaves, 3
parsley, 4 sprigs
rosemary, 1sprig

For the marinade:
extra virgin olive oil, 1 cup
spices, 1/2  teaspoon of each, ground cloves and cinnamon (I used whole cloves once and watched my friends picking them out from their mouths – not a good feel),
bay leaves, 3- 4 (fresh leaves look great as well as doing their job)
chilly flakes or black pepper, to taste (I use plentyt)
sugar, a small teaspoon
salt, to taste
red wine vinegar 1/3 cup
lemon, the juice of 1, and the peel , peeled with a potato peeler and kept in strips so it can easily be removed.

For the salad:
celery, 2 of the tender stalks sliced thinly, and some of the light green leaves, chopped
cooked chicken and carrots
spring onions, 3 chopped or cut lengthwise into thin , short pieces
pine nuts, 3/4 cup
seedless muscatels (or raisins or currants), 3/4 cup previously soaked in a little wine or marsala

PROCESSES
Prepare this dish at least the day before you serve it – this allows the flavours in the marinade to achieve the required results.(I have learned through experience that this dish tastes even better if left to marinade for at least 24 hours).
Use a wide, shallow sauce pan which allows the fillets to be placed in a single layer (if possible). If the chicken is in a double layer, ensure that during the poaching process you swap the ones on top with the ones in the bottom layer to allow even cooking.

Prepare the poaching liquid – I really like to make this strongly flavoured.
Use sufficient chicken stock to cover the chicken fillets. (I usually have some stock in the fridge or stored in the freezer made with chicken with bones, carrot, onion and celery stick, a little salt, boiled and then reduced – see BRODO earlier post).
Strain the stock through a colander, empty it into the saucepan and to the stock, add the ingredients in for the poaching liquid listed above.
Bring the stock with added flavourings to the boil.
Place the fillets gently into this poaching liquid – it should just cover the fillets. Adding the meat to the hot stock will seal the meat and preserve the flavou. Adding the meat to the cold liquid will enrich the taste of the broth. Because the meat is the focus, add the chicken to the hot liquid.
Cover with a lid and bring slowly to the boil again on medium heat. Leave the chicken to poach gently for about 7 minutes (I do not like to overcook them – they need to be white in colour and when pricked with a fork still have some resistance).
Remove the pan from the heat and leave the chicken in the poaching liquid till cool – the chicken will keep on cooking in the poaching liquid and be kept moist till you are ready to marinade it.
Marinade: Mix all of the ingredients together in a container.
To assemble the salad:
I like to use a deep glass bowl to see the chicken and salad ingredients in layers.
Take out chicken fillets and cut each fillet into thick slices.
Strain the poaching liquid, discard the solids but keep the carrots – these can be sliced into batons and added to the salad.
Place the chicken fillets and carrots in layers and cover with a little marinade and other ingredients as you go. The lemon peel and bay leaves can be at the bottom of the dish and between the layers. Sprinkle pine nuts and drained dried muscatels, the spring onions, celery and carrots between the layers.
Top the whole dish with some of the cooled poaching liquid until all the chicken is covered (this will keep it moist and a good colour) and leave to pickle in the fridge. Shake the dish occasionally to amalgamate the flavours. Remove it from the fridge about an hour prior to serving.

Presentation
Prior to presenting the dish you may like to drain off some of the liquid to make it more manageable. Ensure that each person receives some of the other solids as well as the chicken and serve some of the liquid separately if you wish.

It is at this stage that on numerous occasions I have taken more liberties with dish by:
•    adding one or more extra ingredients to the dressing: 1-2 chopped anchovies , 1 tablespoon of pomegranate molasses instead of the sugar (molasses is definitely not Sicilian)
•   scattering pomegranate seeds on top of the salad.

Save any left over liquid to use as a stock to flavour braised rabbit, chicken, pork and venison dishes.

A bit of trivia:
I read recently that pomegranate juice has anti-inflammatory compounds, cancer-killing isoflavones and antioxidant properties. Italians call it melograna, melograno granato, pomo granato, or pomo punico. The generic term, punica, was the Roman name for Carthage, and the best pomegranates came to Italy from Carthage.

 

SARDE A BECCAFICO (Sardines stuffed with currants, pine nuts, sugar and nutmeg)

Sardines – SARDE A BECCAFICO. I am really pleased that the three recipes I sent to SBS have been published on the SBS website.

One of the recipes may be selected as part of upcoming food series My Family Feast. Selected recipes will be cooked by Sean Connolly (chef) in a short website and published online during broadcast of the series.

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This is one of the recipes:

 Sarde a Beccafico

When I invite friends for a meal, I love to serve something they may not have tried before.
One of my favourites? Sarde a beccafico — a classic Sicilian dish with an interesting backstory.

The word beccafico refers to a small bird known for feasting on ripe figs — from becca (to peck) and fico (fig). Sardines, when stuffed and rolled, resemble this fig-stuffed little gourmand, and the dish is named in its honour. It’s a humble nod of respect to a bird known for its fine taste.

In fact, the birds themselves — beccafichi — were traditionally cooked in a similar way: stuffed and baked. Whether they still flutter through Sicilian skies is debatable, but the recipe lives on with sardines as the star.

As with most Sicilian dishes, there are regional variations in both the stuffing and the preparation. Over the years, I’ve blended a few of my favourite versions into the one I make today — a tribute to the rich culinary tapestry of Sicily.

There are local variations in the ingredients used for the stuffing, the method of cooking and for the names of the dish in other parts of Sicily. These are my favourite ingredients for this recipe from a combination of local recipes.

INGREDIENTS
fresh sardines, fillets, 700g,
breadcrumbs, 1 cup made with good quality1-3 day old bread
anchovy fillets, 5-8 finely, cut finely
currants, ½ cup
pine nuts, ½ cup
parsley, ¾ cup, cut finely
bay leaves, 10, fresh
garlic, 2 cloves, chopped
lemon, 1, juice and zest
sugar, 1 tablespoon
nutmeg, ½ teaspoon
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
extra virgin olive oil, ¾ cup

PROCESSES
Prepare sardines: Scale, gut, butterfly and clean sardines and leave the tail. If you buy fillets, they are sometimes sold without tails – this may not matter, but when the fillet of the sardine is closed around the stuffing, the tail is flicked upright to resemble a bird – and this may be missing. (In the photo there are no tails – photo taken in a restaurant in Monreale, Palermo, December 2007)
Wipe each sardine dry before stuffing.
Preheat oven to 190 C
Prepare the stuffing:
Toast breadcrumbs until golden in about 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil (I use a non stick fry pan) over a low flame.
Take off heat and cool.
Stir in pine nuts, currants, parsley, anchovies, lemon zest, nutmeg, salt, pepper and garlic.
Add a little more extra virgin olive oil if the mixture is dry.
Place a spoonful of the stuffing in each opened sardine and close it upon itself to resemble a fat bird (any leftover stuffing can be sprinkled on top to seal the fish)
Position each sardine, closely side by side in an oiled baking dish with tail sticking up and place a bay leaf between each fish.
Sprinkle the sardines with lemon juice and any left over stuffing, the sugar the left over oil.
Bake for 20-30 minutes.

Other sardine recipes:

SARDINES, grilled or barbecued with Sicilian dressings

SARDINE, CRUDE E CONDITE (Sardines raw and marinaded)

FILETTI DI SARDINE CON VINO E LIMONE (Sardines with wine)

And there are many other posts about sardines ALL THINGS SICILIAN AND MORE