Tag: Rice

MONTALBANO’S PASTA WITH BLACK INK SAUCE

Fans of the television series Inspector Montalbano are often captivated not only by the beauty of the Sicilian landscape, but also by the abundance of traditional Sicilian dishes that appear in almost every episode. Andrea Camilleri, the creator of the Montalbano novels, filled his stories with food references, knowing that Sicilian cuisine is inseparable from Sicilian culture.

Montalbano, Food and Sicily

Commissario Salvo Montalbano lives in the south-east of Sicily, near Marina di Ragusa, where many of my relatives have their holiday houses. His now-famous seaside house is in Punta Secca, a small fishing village in the comune of Santa Croce Camerina. In the series, Montalbano often sits on his terrace overlooking the sea, enjoying whatever Adelina—his devoted housekeeper and cook—has prepared for him.

Food is not merely fuel for Montalbano. He savours every dish with appreciation and gratitude. Meals help him think, reflect, and plan his next moves. He accepts invitations readily, has favourite trattorie, and resents interruptions at dinner. Camilleri describes almost every dish Montalbano eats, and many of them are regional staples of south-eastern Sicily.

Among these dishes, one appears repeatedly: pasta (or rice) with black ink sauce.

Southeastern Sicily: Where Books and TV Meet

Although Camilleri lived and worked in Rome, he spent many years in Sicily and was born in Porto Empedocle. Many of the places in the Montalbano series carry fictional names but are easily recognisable. For example:

  • Marinella, the location of Montalbano’s seaside home, is really Punta Secca.
  • Vigàta corresponds to Porto Empedocle.
  • Fiacca is Sciacca.
  • Fela is Gela.
  • Montelusa is Agrigento.
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Montalbano’s beach house is in Punta Secca.

 

Sicilian-080-Ravioli-w-Black-Ink
Riicotta ravioli with black ink sauce.Photos of Ravioli and Pasta are by Graeme Gilles, stylist Fiona Rigg, from my book Sicilian Seafood Cooking.

The police station shown in the TV series is a real building in Ragusa Ibla, and many of the trattorie featured in the show proudly serve pasta (or risu) cu niuru di sicci—Sicilian pasta with cuttlefish or squid ink.

The police station in Montalbano’TV series is a building in Ragusa Ibla
Pasta with black ink sauce

On one of my trips to Sicily, I ate in trattorie in Palermo frequently visited by Camilleri and his friend, the Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia. It seems clear that pasta or rice with black ink was one of Camilleri’s favourite dishes, appearing in several of the Montalbano novels. In Siracusa, I once enjoyed ricotta ravioli dressed with black ink—an unforgettable flavour.

Recipe: Pasta (or Risu) cu Niuru di Sicci — Pasta with Black Ink Sauce

This classic Sicilian dish is simple but deeply flavoured, relying on the sweetness of tomatoes, the richness of squid ink, and the tender bite of squid or cuttlefish.

Ingredients

  • 500 g pasta (spaghetti, linguine, or bucatini)
  • 600 g squid or cuttlefish, plus 2–3 ink sacs (or use jarred nero di seppia from Italian supermarkets)
  • 300 g ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
  • 1 large tablespoon tomato paste
  • 1 medium onion and/or 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • 1 cup dry white wine
  • 1 cup finely chopped parsley
  • Salt (a little)
  • Chili flakes or freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  • Grated pecorino or fresh ricotta, to serve (optional)
Method

  1. Prepare the squid:
    Clean carefully and extract the ink sacs if using fresh ink. Cut the squid into 1 cm rings and set aside. Tentacles can be included.

  2. Make the sauce:
    Sauté onion and garlic in olive oil until soft. Add tomatoes, parsley, salt, white wine, and tomato paste. Simmer until the sauce reduces and thickens.

  3. Cook the pasta.

  4. Add the ink:
    Stir the squid ink into the sauce along with chili flakes or pepper. Mix well.

  5. Cook the squid:
    Add the squid rings and cook over medium–high heat until just tender—a few minutes only.
    Italians often prefer squid cooked longer: add a splash of water, cover, and braise until soft.

  6. Serve:
    Toss the pasta with the sauce. Finish with grated pecorino or a spoonful of ricotta.
    (If using ricotta, add it on top—mixing it through will turn it grey.)

Regional Variations

Sicilian cooking is incredibly local, and variations on this dish appear from town to town:

  • Keep the squid white:
    Sauté separately in olive oil with garlic and parsley. Fold gently through the dressed pasta and reserve a few pieces to place on top.

  • Add peas:
    Stir in 1 cup of shelled peas along with the tomatoes.

  • Add bay leaves:
    Include 1–2 bay leaves when adding the squid.

  • Two-tone presentation:
    Reserve a small amount of the tomato sauce and serve the black pasta with a spoon of red sauce and a spoon of ricotta on top.

This part of Sicily is deeply proud of its culinary heritage, and Montalbano’s Pasta with Black Ink Sauce remains one of the most iconic dishes associated with both the books and the TV adaptation. If you find yourself travelling through Ragusa, Scicli, or Marina di Ragusa, you will have no trouble finding a trattoria ready to serve it.

LINK also contains photos of the SE part of Sicily where the the TV series and books are set:

MONTALBANO’S FAVOURITE DISHES

RICOTTA RAVIOLI and STONE GROUND FLOUR

 

RISI E BISI (Risotto with peas)


Today in Venice, Venetians are celebrating the feast day of their patron saint (25 April, the date of the death of San Marco).

Risi e bisi the classic Venetian dish was traditionally offered to the Doge (do not know which one) on April 25, the feast of Saint Mark. This is not surprising, it is spring in the northern hemisphere and peas are one of the symbols of the season.

It is a public holiday in Venice and all sorts of events take place.

Although Venetians celebrate his feast day they also celebrate Liberation Day (liberation from the Nazis at the end of 2nd World War) and Festa del Bòcolo (is a rose bud) and it is customary for all women, not just lovers, to be presented with a bud. The very old legend concerns the daughter of Doge Orso Partecipazio, who was besotted with a handsome man, but the Doge did not approve and arranged for the object of her desire to fight the Turks on distant shores. The loved one was mortally wounded in battle near a rose bush. There he plucked a rose, tinged with his heroic blood and asked for it to be given to his beloved in Venice.

I grew up in Trieste (not far from Venice and in the same region of Italy) and risi e bisi is a staple, traditional dish.

The traditional way of cooking it does not include prosciutto but prosciutto cotto, what we call ham in Australia. Poor tasting ingredients will give a poor result; use a good quality smoked ham. As an alternative some cooks in Trieste use speck, a common ingredient in the region (it tastes more like pancetta). Some of the older Triestini use lard and only a little oil.

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My mother also added a little white wine to the soffritto of onion and the ham, but this also would have been a modern addition. The butter is added last of all for taste. Use parmigiano – parmigiano is the cheese used in the north of Italy, pecorino in the south.

The secret is in using good produce, preferably organic, young and freshly picked peas (for their delicate taste) and a good stock.

My mother made chicken stock. If she had no stock, she used good quality broth cubes- very common in Northern Italian cooking. Use as much as needed.

INGREDIENTS

peas (young, fresh), 1 kilo unshelled
rice, 300g vialone nano preferably,
ham, cubed 50-70g,
onion,1 finely cut (I like to use spring onions as well)
parmigiano (Reggiano), grated
50g
extra virgin olive oil, ½ cup
dry white wine, ½ glass (optional),
parsley, finely cut, ½ cup
butter, 2 tablespoons
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

 
PROCESSES
Shell the peas.
Heat the olive oil, add ham and onion and over medium-low heat soften the ingredients. Do not brown.
Add the shelled peas, parsley and when they are covered in oil, add very little stock (to soften the peas), cover and cook for about 5 minutes.
Add the rice, and stir, add the wine (optional) and evaporate.
Keep on adding the hot stock, stirring the rice and adding more stock as it is absorbed. End up with a wet dish (almost soupy and all’onda as Italians say) and with the rice al dente. In fact, the dish should rest for about 5 minutes before it is served so take this into consideration (the rice will keep on cooking and absorb the stock).
Add parmesan and butter, stir and serve.
 
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RISO NERO (Black rice, Sicilian dessert)

maria's tindari
A rice pudding is something I have always associated with English cooking – the very simple type of rice pudding my English mother-in law used to make with milk, a little rice, sugar and butter, topped with a sprinkling of cinnamon and then baked in a slow oven. But there are variations to this recipe even in England and not surprisingly there are rice pudding-type desserts made all over the world using either long grain, short grain or black rice, and cooked on the stove, or baked, or wrapped in leaves and steamed. Some eat them hot, others cold.

And even Sicilians have rice puddings, made like a rice custard – the rice is cooked in sweetened milk on the stove top and delicately flavoured with a cinnamon stick, almonds and candied fruit. Only the modern recipes include eggs, cream or butter, these probably used to enrich pasteurised milk. It is served cold. This particular Sicilian recipe has chocolate in it and in most references it is simply called Risu niru (Riso nero in Italian – Black rice). The flavours and origins of this particular Sicilian rice pudding are likely to be Arabic; they bought the more complex sweets and ingredients to Sicily – the cinnamon, sugar, and the rice, which they traded from Asia, the dried or candied fruits and more complex recipes that made greater use of almonds and pistachios. The Spaniards introduced chocolate much later to Sicily. 
 

The type of rice used in the recipes is not specified, but in Italy originorio rice is the standard type with short, round grains and a pearly appearance, and similar to the short grain calrose rice.

This chocolate rice pudding is in honour of the Black Madonna of Tindari (on the north east coast of Sicily). Tindari’s history is one long cycle of conquest and colonisation. It was one of the last Greek colonies in Sicily; founded by the Syracusans in 396 B.C. Tindari also prospered under the Romans and became a diocese during the early Christian period before been captured by the Arabs.

There are many fascinating legends and miracles attributed to the wooden statue of the Black Madonna housed in Tindari. It is thought that the statue came from the Christian east, around the late 8th or early 9th Century. It could have been smuggled out of Constantinople during the period of Iconoclasm (which literally means image breaking – the destruction of images for religious or political reasons). In the Byzantine world, the production and use of figurative images, particularly in Constantinople and Nicea were banned. Existing icons were destroyed or plastered over and very few early Byzantine icons survived the Iconoclastic period.

One of the legends tells how a storm forced the ship carrying the smuggled statue of the Black Madonna into the port of Tindari. When the storm abated and the sailors tried to leave, they found that the ship would not move. They realised that it was the Madonna that was preventing them and so they off-loaded the statue in a casket. Local sailors found the Black Madonna and took her to the tallest spot in Tindari and there they built a sanctuary (rebuilt on a number of occasions). The sanctuary houses the statue and is richly decorated with mosaics. It has miraculously withstood the raids by pirates and invading armies – no doubt due to the defending, dark-skinned Mary. She is also credited with having protected believers from such afflictions as earthquakes and pestilence.

At the base of the statue is the Latin inscription: Nigra sum sed formos (I am black but beautiful) and riso nero is cooked and eaten in her honour – the chocolate is her dark, luscious skin, the almonds and fruit represent the stars in her gown and the coloured stones of the mosaics. Cocoa is used in the older recipes. In the more modern versions dark chocolate is added and melts in the rice custard.

The pudding is prepared in two stages, the basic rice cream is cooked and cooled before the other ingredients are added and shaped into a pudding.
Serves 6-8
INGREDIENTS (for the rice cream)
full cream milk, 9-10 cups (I like to use organic, unpasturised milk when I can get it. Modern versions of this dish replace one cup of milk with cream)
short grain rice, 1 ½ cups a little
salt, a little
white sugar, 1 cup
cinnamon sticks,  2
lemon peel, large strips from 1 lemon.

ADDED INGREDIENTS

sugar, ½ cup
bitter cocoa, ¾ cup of (mixed together with a little milk) or 250 g block of good quality, dark chocolate, broken into small pieces
almonds, 1½ cups of (blanched, toasted and chopped)
candied or glace fruit, 1 cup – a mixture of chopped orange, lemon and/or citron, but save some of the nuts and fruit to decorate the top.

PROCESSES

Pour 8 cups of milk and all of the ingredients for cooking the rice into a large (heavy bottom) saucepan and mix gently. Because rice has different absorption rates you may need to add the extra cup of milk as you cook it.
Simmer the contents gently and stir frequently until creamy and add the extra milk as you cook it if necessary.
Remove from the heat and take out the lemon peel (could taste bitter if it is left) and the cinnamon sticks. Cool slightly before adding cocoa and sugar or dark chocolate. Mix thoroughly.
Add some almonds and fruit, but save some to decorate the top.
Traditionally the pudding is shaped into a mound on a plate. Decorate the pudding with the almonds and candied fruit before serving.
 A Sicilian prayer
Beddra ‘n terra, beddra ‘n celu, beddra siti ‘n paradisu; beddru assai, è lu Vostru visu.
Bella in terra, bella in cielo, bella sei in paradiso; molto bello e il Vostro viso
(Italian translation)
Beautiful on earth, beautiful in the sky, beautiful you are in paradise; very beautiful is your face.

Black Madonnas are found in various parts of the world. This photo below is de Nuestra Señora del Sagrario in the Cathedral of Toledo. She is beautiful.

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