Tag: Seafood pasta

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

SPAGHETTI CHI RICCI – SPAGHETTI CON RICCI DI MARE (Spaghetti with sea urchins)

Sicilian 289 Sphaghetti w Sea Urchins.tif.p
When in Sicily eating Spaghetti With Sea Urchins (Spaghetti chi Ricci) is a must.

They are relatively unknown culturally in Australia and have been next to non-existent commercially.
Sea urchins have a unique taste – they are considered a delicacy by Italians and are popular particularly with the Japanese, French, and Greeks. The gonads of both sexes of sea urchins are referred to as roe (which sounds nicer than testes and ovaries).

They are called ricci in Italy (means curly, the spines of sea urchins are curly at the ends) and when I was a child visiting Sicily, I remember finding sea urchins under rocks on the beach — family and friends wrapped their hands in newspaper and went looking for them at low tide. Most of the time it was very easy to find 4 to 6 sea urchins for each of us to eat raw — the urchins were simply cut in half using a very sharp knife, revealing the yellow-orange roe that was easily removed with a teaspoon and eaten from the spoon with a squeeze of lemon juice.

The next favourite method of eating them was as a dressing for pasta.

In my book, Sicilian Seafood Cooking there is a recipe for this. I had great trouble finding sea urchins to cook (and to be photographed) for my book that was published November 2011.

Sicilian 285 Sphaghetti w Sea Urchins.tif.p

At the time I found it surprising that there are about 42 species of sea urchins found in Australian waters and although they can be found in many locations, only a few are good tasting. Most are exported to Japan. The market price for fresh, chilled sea urchin roe varies considerably depending on colour and texture.

The Tasmanian sea urchin fishery is now the largest in Australia and I purchased Tasmanian roe from a specialist sea-food vendor (Ocean Made) who deals mainly with restaurateurs. I found some whole sea urchins at the Preston Market but when I opened them I found them very inferior in quality.

In the photographs (from my book Sicilian Seafood Cooking) you see the work of the photographer Graham Gilles and food stylist Fiona Rigg. I was the cook. The photo of the boats at Mondello  (Sicily, close to Palermo) is by Bob Evans.

Spaghetti are traditionally used for this recipe, but I also like ricci with egg pasta, either fresh or dry  — narrow linguine  — a delicate taste, which in my opinion complement the sweet, fresh taste of the roe.

I ate my best ever pasta with sea urchins in a restaurant in Mondello (close to Palermo) and I am sure that this included lemon – grated peel and juice so I have included these in the recipe.

And one last thing — the sea urchins are not cooked and are mixed with the hot pasta at the time of serving. The aroma is indescribable. Bottarga is sometimes grated on top of the pasta and anchovies are commonly added to the sauce to accentuate the taste, but this is optional.

For 6 people

spaghetti, 500g. If I am using fresh pasta, I use 600g
sea urchins, 3-8 per person
garlic, 4-5 cloves, chopped finely
extra virgin olive oil, ¾ cup
salt and freshly ground black pepper or chili flakes
parsley, ¾ cup cut finely
anchovies, 3 cut finely (optional)
1-2 red fresh chilies cut finely

finely grated lemon peel of 1 lemon, and the juice

½ cup of your best quality, extra virgin olive oil to drizzle on top of the pasta at the end.
If you have purchased whole sea urchins, using a short and very sharp knife or scissors cut into the shell and enter the riccio di mare via the mouth (you will see the opening).
Split the sea urchins in half and remove the soft urchin flesh using a spoon. Place the roes into a bowl and discard all the rest. Break up the sea urchins into smaller pieces – they are soft so use a spoon.
Cook the pasta and while the pasta is cooking prepare the sauce.
Heat the ¾ cup of olive oil, add the garlic and over slow heat cook the garlic slowly until it becomes translucent.
Add chili and anchovies – the anchovies will dissolve in the hot oil.
Add this mixture of oil to the hot just drained pasta at the same time as the sea urchins and toss quickly to coat.
Add the parsley, lemon peel and the juice. Toss well to combine. Serve immediately and top each portion with a drizzle of your best olive oil – this is best done at the table.
Finally there has been some interest in eating Sea Urchins:
Date with plates sends chills down urchins spine:
Sea urchins, sometimes called sea hedgehogs, are the black, spiky creatures that lurk at the bottom of the ocean.
They prey on the kelp beds that are a vital habitat for the rock lobsters and abalone of the north-east coast of Tasmania and are considered one of the state’s worst marine pests. But have you ever thought of eating them?

Diver and seafood exporter Dave Allen has helped pioneer the sea urchin export industry in Australia and, in the process, has set about saving the reefs from being stripped bare by these pests.
Laura Banks. From Sunday Age, March 2, 2014.

I was pleased to see that sea urchins will be featured in a dinner called The Delicious Pest at The Melbourne Food & Wine Festival on March 9, 2014.

Sea Urchin Roe is seasonal and as mentioned above, it is available from (Ocean Made), fresh  and frozen when it is not in season.

Roe is also available from David Stringer at Kina, Sea Urchins Australia:

We deliver all over Melbourne and Australia wide. We use air freight and provide the freshest sea urchin roe available across the country. All our processing is done with the highest degree of care in order to make our product the best and we pride ourselves on excellent customer service and quality of product. Last year we won a Victorian seafood of the year award for best customer service and quality of product.
We have a minimum order of 20 X 100gram or 150 gram punnets.
If that seems too much then you could suggest our products to friends to see if they would like to be included in the order. Please also note that when we have further shops open in Victoria then we will list them on our website. Customers can also sign up to our newsletter and stay informed of seasonal conditions, new products or anything regarding sea urchins.
Our new prices for 2015 are being implemented as we speak.
Welcome to Sea Urchins Australia.