Tag: Sicilian

PESCE SALATO (Salted Fish in Sicily)and BOTTARGA revisited

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 have a post on my blog  for  the recipe:

PASTA CON BOTTARGA ( Pasta with Grated Bottarga)

PASTA ALLA NORMA and a variation (Pasta with tomato salsa and fried eggplants; and currants, anchovies and bottarga) …photo, as eaten on the coast near Agrigento.

MAKING RICOTTA, Paneer or curd cheese

I think I have fallen in love with rich Jersey milk.

It is so easy to make the curds  to make ricotta.

All it takes is full cream milk and some lemon juice. The only other things you’ll need are a slotted spoon and a colander lined with cheese cloth (muslin) to strain the curds.

You may have a ricotta basket handy – if you buy ricotta it is often sold in a plastic basket and you can use it to drain the curds and shape the ricotta.

A slotted spoon will be handy to gently scoop out the curds.

Making ricotta is very simple.

I used 3 litres of milk, two lemons and 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

Bring the milk almost to a simmer on medium heat, add some salt and wait till little bubbles form close to the edge of the pot before you add the lemon juice; stir it in gently. The milk should separate into clumps of curds, and the whey will be thin and watery. If not enough of the milk has separated, reheat it and add a little bit more lemon juice and once again stir it gently. Once it has separated leave it undisturbed for about 10  minutes; stirring will make the curds dense.

Gently scoop out the curds with a slotted spoon – do not pour – into a large ricotta basket or a colander lined with cheese cloth that you have placed over a bowl to catch the whey.

A culinary specialty and a way of serving ricotta in Sicily (especially in the Ragusa region) is to ladle the curds with the whey into a bowl and to eat it with a spoon and bread.

** See post, A visit to Massaro,  link below.

How long you let the curds drain or how firmly you press them down will determine how solid the curds will be. If the curds are too solid you may need some whey to mix back into the curds. But if you think of how many recipes suggest that you drain the ricotta before using it for making cannoli, cassata, frittata, ravioli, baked ricotta, ricotta salata, scacce,  having firm ricotta is advantageous.

There are many recipes using ricotta on my blog that can easily be found by using the search button.

Traditionally, ricotta is made by heating the left-over whey from other cheese-making. The curds are worked to make and shape cheeses like mozzarella, trecce, fior di latte, bocconcini, and reheating the whey produces the fine-grained curd that traditionally makes ricotta – ri-cotta, translated as re-cooked/twice cooked. Usually more rich milk is added to the whey to make a full cream ricotta.

The curds can also be formed to make quark, cottage cheese and paneer. When I make paneer I do not add salt to the milk and I drain the curds or press them for longer.

however, the three links below are about making ricotta. The photo above is how ricotta is shaped and sold in Sicily .

SICILIAN CHEESE MAKING. A VISIT TO A MASSARO (farmer-cheese maker) IN RAGUSA. 

RICOTTA how to make it (using rennet)

RICOTTA and FRIED PEPPERS (Peperoni fritti). The Butter Factory at Myrtleford

The whey has many uses especially for baking. My partner bakes bread, flatbreads and cracker biscuits). I have not yet used whey for marinating meat, but I do braise pork in milk – a Bolognese specialty. The milk separates and forms a caramel when heated slowly at a low temperature for a few hours. I will write a recipe for this in my next post.

 

ARTICHOKES and how we love them – CAPONATA DI CARCIOFI

‘Artichokes’ is the topic of Richard Cornish’s regular column. (September 21, Brain Food in The Age). His commentary has certainly provided me with an excess  amount of food for thought – artichokes are one of my very favourite vegetables and I have written many recipes for artichokes on my blog.

Artichokes in Acireale Sicily

I have included some recipes in this post and more can be found on my blog.

In Italian artichokes are called carciofi, in Sicilian they are cacocciuli.

As Richard says, artichokes are thought to have originated from Sicily, and therefore Sicilians have had plenty of time to appreciate their versatility and have come up with some excellent recipes for artichokes cooked in many interesting ways. 

This is not to say that the other regions of Italy don’t have their own local recipes for artichokes, but Sicilians seem to have the lot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Versitility:

Artichokes in Italy are eaten as appetizers, contorni (sides), first and second courses, and stand-alone dishes.

Artichokes can be stuffed with a wide variety of fillings, fried whole or sliced, and crumbed before being fried, sautéed, boiled, baked, braised and stewed, roasted in ashes, used in frittate (plural of frittata), pasta and risotti (plural of risotto).

When they are young, they are sliced thinly and eaten raw in salads. They are canned commercially and, at the end of plant’s life, the last of the artichokes that will never mature, but will stay small and underdeveloped, are conserved, mostly in olive oil. When they are old, they are stripped of all the leaves and the bases are eaten.

You may be familiar with Cynar, one of the many Italian bitter, alcoholic drinks (of the Amaro variety) and made predominantly with artichokes. Below is some information.

Recipes: 

CARCIOFINI SOTT’ OLIO (Preserved artichokes in oil) 

It is spring in Australia now and the very best time to celebrate artichokes when they can be combined with other spring produce such as broad beans, peas, asparagus and potatoes.

A couple of recipes in my blog make a special feature of spring flavours:

A QUICK PASTA DISH for Spring: asparagus, artichokes, peas

CARCIOFI IMBOTTITI (Stuffed artichokes)

ASPARAGUS and ARTICHOKES PASTA ALLA FAVORITA (Pasta with artichokes, broad beans, peas alla favorita)

FRITTEDDA (A sauté of spring vegetables)

Different varieties of artichokes are also available in autumn, but somehow pairing them with spring seasonal produce, deserves extra applause.

CARCIOFI (Artichokes and how to clean them and prepare them for cooking) 

Cynarin

In his Brain Food column about artichokes Richard says that artichokes contain a compound called cynarin which inhibits your tongue’s ability to detect sweetness. You don’t notice it until you have a bite or a drink of something else: the cynarin gets washed off the tongue, and suddenly, your brain tells you that what you have in your mouth is sweet, even when it is not!

Hence Cynar, one of the many Italian bitter alcoholic drinks (of the amaro variety) and made predominantly with artichokes. Cynar is classed as a digestive and it is said to have stomach-soothing qualities and cleansing and restorative properties for the liver. It can be drunk as an apéritif or after dinner drink.

BITTER GREENS and AMARI (Aperitivi and Digestivi)

Richard mentions how Richard Purdue, executive chef at Margaret in Sydney’s Double Bay, beams when the word artichoke is mentioned. ‘‘One of my favourite dishes is one I picked up in Sicily, where the artichokes are cooked in a kind of caponata – tomatoes, celery, pine nuts, currants, red wine and sugar.’’ So to finish off here is a recipe adapted from my book, Sicilian Seafood Cooking for a caponata made with artichokes.

In recipe in my book, Sicilian Seafood Cooking, I suggest using 9 -10 artichokes and it is intended for 6 -8 people.

Caponata di Carciofi (Artichoke Caponata) can only be made with young artichokes. It is also worth noting that you will need to remove the outer leaves and only use the tender centre, therefore reducing the amount of artichokes significantly.

CAPUNATA DI CARCIOFFULI – Caponata Di Carciofi  (Artichoke caponata)

Sauté each of the vegetable ingredients separately as is the traditional method of making caponata (as in a well-made, French dish Ratatouille). Frying the vegetables together does save time, but the colours and the flavours will not be as distinct. However, I have provided this method as a variation (see bottom of this recipe).

Remove the outer, tougher leaves of the artichokes by bending them back and snapping them off the base until you come to the softer, paler leaves.

  • Prepare artichokes for sautéing. The artichokes need to be sliced thinly and vertically into bite size pieces. Keep them in acidulated water as you work. The cleaned stalk is one of my favourite parts of the artichoke and will add flavour to the caponata. Trim the stalk with a small sharp knife to pull away the tough, stringy outer skin (just like the strings of celery) and leave the stem attached to the artichoke. This will expose the light-coloured, centre portion, which is very flavourful and tender and much appreciated by Italians.
  • Drain the artichokes from the acidulated water and squeeze dry (I use a clean tea towel).
  • Select a large, shallow, saucepan to sauté the artichokes. They should not be crowded and if you do not have a large enough pan, sauté them in batches – you want to create as little liquid as possible.
  • Place some of the extra virgin olive oil in the pan and sauté the artichokes on low heat until they are tender. This may take up to 10 minutes or more depending on the freshness and age of the artichokes (add a little water or white wine if the ingredients are drying out).
  • Remove the artichokes and set aside.
  • Add a little more, extra virgin olive oil to the pan (and/or you may be able to drain some from the sautéed artichokes) and sauté the other vegetables in the same pan, separately. Proceed as follows:
  • Sauté the onion until it begins to colour, remove from the pan and add to the artichokes.
  • Add a little more extra virgin olive oil and sauté the celery.
  • Add the olives, capers, salt and tomatoes to the celery. Simmer gently for about 5-7 minutes. Add a little water if needed (this mixture should have the consistency of a thick sauce.)
  • Remove the mixture from the pan and add it to the sautéed artichokes and onions.
  • To make the agro dolce (sweet sour) sauce:
  • Add the sugar to the pan and caramelise the sugar by stirring it until it melts and begins to turn a honey colour.
  • Add the vinegar and swirl it around to collect the flavours of the sautéed vegetables and evaporate it (2-3 minutes).
  • Place all of the sautéed vegetables and artichokes into the pan with the agro dolce sauce and gently toss the ingredients, as you would do a salad.
  • Simmer on very gentle heat to amalgamate the flavours for about 3-5 minutes.
  • Place caponata into a sealed container or jar and store in the fridge. Leave it to stand at least a day but preferably longer.

Now, for the easier cheat’s version:

  • To make caponata, where the ingredients are not fried separately, proceed as follows:
  • Prepare and sauté the artichokes as in the proceeding recipe.
  • Add a little more extra virgin olive oil and heat it. Add the onion and the celery and sauté until they begin to colour.
  • Add the olives, capers, sugar, salt, vinegar and tomatoes. Cover and simmer gently until tender (5-10 minutes or more depending on the freshness and age of the artichokes).

CEDRO o LIMONE? Insalata di limone. Sicilian Lemon salad.

Cedro o Limone? Insalata di Simone — my Sicilian lemon salad — came immediately to mind when I spotted these extraordinary lemons at the Alphington Melbourne Farmers’ Market.

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Mature lemons from Alphington Farmers’ Market.

Was I excited? Absolutely.

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At the Sennsational Berries stall, I found a small basket of mature, thick-skinned lemons—the kind you rarely see unless you’re in Sicily or have an old tree in your garden. For a moment I wondered whether they were cedri (citron), but I was assured they were lemons. One taste confirmed it: fragrant, juicy, and perfect for the simple salad my father used to make in Ragusa before he moved to Trieste.

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Thick-skinned lemon peeled and ready for Sicilian lemon salad.

I peeled the lemon, cut away the pith, and squeezed out just enough juice to keep the flavour balanced but not overly sharp—this salad should be refreshing, not acidic.

Fresh garlic is essential. I still had some cloves from the previous week’s market visit, but this time I also bought tender garlic shoots. I sliced them finely and added fresh mint, a little parsley, and a handful of oregano picked from my balcony plant—originally taken from my father’s garden in Adelaide. He died years ago, and using his oregano still feels like a small act of keeping him close.

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Fresh garlic shoots

The last time I bought garlic shoots was earlier this year when I was in the Maremma, Tuscany. Earlier this year in the Maremma, in our Airbnb in Castiglione della Pescaia, I cooked them with zucchini and zucchini flowers to make a dressing for pici, the local pasta. Simple ingredients, unforgettable flavours.

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Sicilian lemon salad with herbs and extra virgin olive oil.

Below, the pasta dish I cooked with the produce I purchased in Tuscany:

 

But back to the lemon salad in Melbourne.

To finish, all it needs is good extra virgin olive oil and a sprinkle of salt—the salt draws out the natural sweetness of the lemon. It’s a perfect summer dish. Think of it alongside seafood (BBQ fish is wonderful) or served with a simple roast chicken, as I did when I took the salad to a friend’s home.

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Sicilian lemon salad served alongside roast chicken.

I shared this recipe with the stallholders at the market, and they were just as excited as I was.

A simple lemon, but what a story it carries.

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I have written about lemon salad before. That post also explains what is a cedro and has a photo of a cedro from a Sicilian market.

LEMON and CEDRO – SICILIAN LEMON SALAD

I shared my recipe with the stall owners. They were excited too.

Alphington Farmers’Market:  ttps://melbourne-farmers-markets-mfm.myshopify.com/pages/alphington-farmers-market

 

HAPUKA(fish)WITH SICILIAN FLAVOURS

I used Hapuka cutlets to cook with Sicilian Flavours, but any fish can be cooked in the same way.

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Hapuka fish cutlets.

The Sicilian flavours are simple – grated lemon peel, lemon juice, anchovies, fresh mint and parsley.

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Flavours – Anchovies, parsley and lemon.Roasted peppers as a side plate.

Procedure

Cut anchovies into small pieces.

Grate some lemon peel and squeeze some lemon juice.

Chop parsley and mint. Use greater amount of parsley. You will need a double small pile of the herbs: one for pan-frying and the other mixed with the lemon peel for decoration and flavour.

Fry one side of the fish, then flip it and top with chopped parsley and mint and anchovies. Cook the other side until desired, as it’ll be flipped again briefly.

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Slices of pan fried fish with Sicilian flavours. Notice the vibrant fresh colour of the herbs.

The anchovies should have softened. Turn the fish over and season the other side with salt and lemon juice. Evaporate the lemon juice and the fish is ready.

Scatter with more chopped parsley and mint mixed with the grated lemon peel for colour and flavour.

So Simple and so Tasty!

FISH STUDDED WITH FLAVOURS

COOKING CLASS, SMALL FISHY BITES, MERCATO

PUMPKIN – Zucca (gialla) – and two Sicilian ways to cook it

In Italian, the word “zucca” can refer to both an overgrown zucchini, a marrow and a pumpkin, but to avoid confusion, we call a pumpkin “zucca gialla,” (yellow pumpkin).

When it comes to Sicilian caponata, the delightful dish is commonly made with eggplants (Caponata Palermitana), and eggplant and peppers (Caponata Catanese). But the creativity doesn’t stop there! You can find variations featuring celery, fennel, and even potatoes. One other standout is the Caponata di zucca gialla, which showcases the sweet, earthy flavors of pumpkin as the star ingredient. Each version of caponata offers a unique twist on this iconic classic, highlighting the versatility of Sicilian cuisine.

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The principle for making any Sicilian caponata is the same: onion, celery, the key ingredient (eggplant or eggplant and peppers, fennel, potato etc.), capers, green olives, sometimes a splash of tomato puree, toasted pine nuts, or almonds and agro-dolce sauce –  caramelised sugar and vinegar.

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The ingredients a fried separately. Pumpkin first – sauté and then set aside.

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Sauté onion and celery. Add olives and capers.

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Add sugar, then vinegar and salt to taste. Add the fried pumpkin and toasted almonds (or pine nuts). Let rest overnight or for at least half a day.

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The other popular Sicilian way to cook pumpkin is also in an agro-dolce sauce.

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For this recipe, slices of pumpkin are also fried. I bake mine but it is not the traditional way of cooking it. The recipe is one of a number of Sicilian caponate in my book Sicilian Seafood Cooking (now out of print).

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The recipe is called Fegato con sette cannoli. To see the recipe and find out why this recipe is called Liver with seven reeds: 

Sicilian Pumpkin with vinegar, mint, sugar and cinnamon 

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CAPONATA DI NATALE (Christmas, winter caponata made with celery, almonds and sultanas)

FENNEL CAPONATA (Sicilian sweet and sour method for vegetables)

CAPONATA of Potatoes(General information and recipe for Caponata di patate)

PASTA CON LE SARDE, Iconic Sicilian made easy

An important ingredient for making Pasta con le sarde is wild fennel. The season for wild fennel has well and truly passed and all you will find at this time of year are stalky plants, yellow flowers/ seed pods and no green fronds.

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What we call Florentine fennel is also going out of season and you will find  for sale specimens with very small stunted bulbs. If you are lucky, your greengrocer may sell them with long stalks and fronds attached – perfect to use as a substitute for wild fennel and I certainly would not go near these stunted specimens otherwise.

Sardine fillets are easy to find. I use the paper that my fishmonger has wrapped the sardines to wipe dry the fish.

Remove the small dorsal spine from the fillets. Once again the paper comes in handy to wipe fishy fingers.

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Prepare the ingredients:

Sardine fillets, chopped spring onions, the softer green fonds of the fennel, saffron soaking in a little water, currants soaking in a little water, fennel bulb cut finely, toasted pine nuts and chopped toasted almonds, salt and ground black pepper (or ground chili).

The preferred pasta shape are bucatini, but spaghetti or casarecce are good also.

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You will also need some breadcrumbs (made from good quality day- old bread) toasted in a pan with a little oil. Add a bit of sugar, some cinnamon and grated lemon peel. toss it around in the pan so that the sugar melts and the flavours are mixed. This is the topping for the pasta. I have seen this referred to as pan grattato – this would not be my preferred tag – in Italian pan grattato is the term for breadcrumbs, but I accept that over time the terminology has evolved. The traditional Sicilian breadcrumb topping would not have had/ does not have the cinnamon or grated lemon peel.

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The larger fennel fronds and stalks are used to flavour the water for the cooking of the pasta. Place them into salted cold water, bring to the boil and simmer for at least 10 minutes – you can leave the fennel in water as long as you like. The greenery  can easily be fished out with tongs before the pasta goes into the boiling water to cook.

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And  then it is a very simple matter of cooking the ingredients.

Sauté  the spring onion in some extra virgin olive oil.  Add the fennel and chopped fronds and sauté them some more.

Depending on the quality of the fennel (degree of succulence) you may need to add a splash of water or white wine, cover it and continue to cook it for a few minutes more.

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Add salt and pepper and put the sautéed vegetables aside.

Cook the pasta.

Fry the sardines in a little extra virgin olive oil  – they will cook very quickly and begin to break up. Combine the sardines with the cooked fennel, add saffron and  drained currants and mix to amalgamate the flavours. Add the almonds and pine nuts.

Dress the cooked pasta with the sardine sauce.

Put the dressed pasta in a serving platter and sprinkle liberally with the toasted breadcrumbs  – these add flavour and crunch to the dish.

For a more conventional Sicilian Pasta con le Sarde:

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 WITH BREADCRUMBS, anchovies and fennel (Pasta cca muddica)

PASTA CON FINOCCHIO (Pasta and fennel – preferably wild)

SEA URCHINS – how to clean and eat them (RICCI DI MARE)

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The images above are a good indication of how to clean Sea Urchins and eat them.

Sea urchins – how to clean 

Sea urchins are messy to clean and you may feel cheated when find that not all of them are as endowed of gonads as the others, but they are worth it.

Use scissors and place the sea urchin face up.

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Sea Urchin

To extract the gonads (this is what we eat), enter through the mouth and cut around the top of the urchin with scissors. Wear thick gloves.

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Use Scissors and enter through the mouth

The gonads of both male and female sea urchins are usually referred to as ‘roe’ or ‘corals’ and they can vary in colour from yellow- orange to light brown.

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Extract the edible part – the yellow part

Lift off what you have cut and do not be put off by the amount of “black gunk”.

Pour out the black liquid and discard. Use a small coffee spoon or tweezers to extract the roe. Use the tweezers to pluck any residue black matter.

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The delicious edible part off the sea urchin.

I like to eat them with a sauce on some bread. It is the same sauce that I use to make Spaghetti con Ricci – Spaghetti with Sea Urchins.

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Also required  as a topping- is a Gremolata made with , grated lemon peel, ground black pepper, chopped parsley parsley and mashed garlic.

HOW TO EAT THEM:

BRUSCHETTA

  • crusty slices of bread (e.g., sourdough, ciabatta, or pane di casa). I also like to use Rye Bread
  • 1-2 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
  • A little extra olive oil for brushing
  1. Brush each side of the bread with olive oil and toast in the oven until golden.
  2. Rub the bread with garlic clove.
  3. Place some of the Sea Urchin on slices of toasted bread, top with some of the mixture made with GREMOLATA –  ground black pepper, grated lemon peel,  chopped parsley and  minced garlic.

OR

DIPPING SAUCE: made with chilli flakes, lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, grated lemon peel, chopped parsley and optional additions of fresh oregano, mint, dill or fennel fronds.

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A fresh tasting sauce made with grated lemon peel, chopped parsley, minced garlic, a little chilli, extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice

OR

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

STUFFED BAKED FENNEL WITH PANGRATTATO – FINOCCHI RIPIENI

This is a recipe for a stuffed baked fennel. Breadcrumbs are called Pangrattato (grated bread) in Italian.

DEFINITION OF PAN GRATTATO and its use.

Mollica is the soft part of the bread with crusts removed but in the culinary world both pangrattato and mollica have acquired new significances and have been enhanced. Both refer to breadcrumbs lightly toasted in in olive oil, herbs and seasonings and variations include anything from garlic, red pepper flakes, pine nuts, anchovies, lemon zest , cinnamon or nutmeg, salt and a little sugar.

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Mollica or pangrattato adds texture, fragrance and complex flavours and is usually used as a stuffing or topping, especially for pasta in Calabria, Puglia and Sicily. For example,  Pasta con le Sarde and Sarde a Beccafico are two Sicilian recipes that use enhanced breadcrumbs:

When I make pangrattato I store left overs in a jar in my fridge and use it to enhance other dishes: this time I used it to stuff fennel.

STUFFED FENNEL RECIPE

I use Pangrattato to stuff fennel.

For moisture and extra flavour I added  a little ricotta and a little grated cheese – pecorino or parmigiano.

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 PROCESS

  1. Cut the stems off the fennel and remove the toughest and usually damaged outer leaves.
  2. Cut the fennel into quarters.
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  4. Cook the fennel in salted water, bay leaves salt and lemon juice for about 10 minutes until it is slightly softened. Remove it from the liquid and cool.
  5. Make the filling: Work the ricotta in a bowl with a fork, mix in the pangrattato and grated cheese.
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  7. Prise open the leaves of the fennel and stuff with the pangrattato stuffing.
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  9. Place the quarters into a baking bowl that allows them to stay compact and upright (like when you are cooking stuffed artichokes).
  10. Drizzle olive oil on top (or a little butter) and bake at 180 – 190°C for about 15 minutes
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SPAGHETTI with PRAWNS and ZUCCHINI

SPAGHETTI with ‘NDUJA, SQUID, VONGOLE AND PAN GRATTATO

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

PASTA CON SARDE – the baked version, Palermo, Sicily

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

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MARINADED FISH and a recipe for PESCE IN SAOR

Pesce in Saor is one of the iconic dishes of Venetian cuisine, and it is marinated fish. It is also popular throughout  the coastal areas of the Veneto region.

Pesce in Saor—describe a traditional method of preserving fish by frying it and marinating it in vinegar, onions and other flavourings, creating the distinctive Italian balance of agrodolce (sweet and sour).

Long before refrigeration, marinating or ‘sousing’ fish extended its shelf life and is still a popular method. Vinegar inhibits microbial growth in a manner like salt while sugar acts as a preservative and softens the vinegar’s sharpness. This practical necessity has evolved into one of Italy’s most memorable regional dishes.

 

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Pesce in Saor – Sweet-and-sour marinated fish, one of Venice’s and Trieste’s most celebrated traditional dishes.

Pesce in Saor and My Family Traditions

The Italian word for fish is pesce, but in the Triestine dialect it becomes pesse. I lived in Trieste as a child, where pesse in saor was commonly prepared with sardines and served with soft white polenta.

My Sicilian grandmother also made marinated fish, known in Sicilian as pisci ammarinatu, but her flavourings reflected the cuisine of  Catania in Sicily. She preferred mint, bay leaves and garlic in the vinegar marinade, whereas the Venetian and Triestine versions include raisins and pine nuts.

These regional variations demonstrate how a simple preservation technique became adapted to local tastes and ingredients.

Marinated Fish Throughout Italy

Venice is not alone in its love of soused fish. Similar preparations appear throughout Italy:

  • Pesce alla scapece from central and southern Italy, with regional versions flavoured with saffron, garlic or sage.
  • Pesce in carpione from Lombardy, scented with celery and carrot.
  • Scabeccio from Liguria, featuring garlic, rosemary and peppercorns.
  • Sardinian versions that may include chilli, garlic and tomato.

The idea extends well beyond Italy. Escabeche is found throughout Spain and Portugal and travelled to North Africa and Latin America. Nordic countries also have long traditions of preserving fish in acidic marinades. Even a German friend of mine prepares soused fish, adding coriander seeds to his recipe.

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Part of the bay of Trieste

Trieste, Ponte Rosso

 Childhood Memories of Trieste

My maternal grandmother always had pottery terrines of marinated fish in her Sicilian kitchen, covered simply with plates used as lids. When she visited us in Trieste, she continued the same practice, and our kitchen would soon fill with the unmistakable aroma of fish and vinegar.

She especially loved eel. We would walk together to the Pescheria on the waterfront in Trieste, where she would select a live eel from a large tank and the fishmonger would prepare it for her. I never enjoyed watching that part, but I loved visiting the fish market overlooking the bay.

The Old Pescheria of Trieste – now EATALY

Today, the fish market building has been fully renovated and found a new life as Eataly, but my memories remain tied to the sounds, smells and traditions of the old Pescheria.

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The Old Pescheria of Trieste as I remembered it

Using Coorong Mullet Instead of Sardines

Traditionally, pesce in saor is prepared with sardines that are lightly dusted with flour and fried until crisp. However, many small firm fish are suitable.mullet, sand whiting, garfish, flathead or leatherjackets, cleaned and filleted

On some regular trips from Melbourne to Adelaide, I drove through Meningie at the northern end of the Coorong and bought freshly caught Coorong mullet. Their firm flesh made them an excellent substitute, and I used them to prepare this version.

Traditionally, the fish is lightly dusted with flour and salt before it is fried in very hot, extra virgin, olive oil. Although the flour helps to hold the fish together, the oil used to fry the fish will need to be discarded (the sediment will taint the taste of the oil) and the flour coating will often come away from the fish in the marinade.

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Coorong mullet and how it is sold and wrapped in newspaper

Recipe: Pesce in Saor

Serving suggestion: White polenta is traditionally used as an accompaniment for fish and yellow polenta is usually an accompaniment to meat.

Good bread is also good.

Ingredients

Serves 4–6

  • 12–16 fresh sardines or other small fish such as mullet, sand whiting, garfish, flathead or leatherjackets, cleaned and filleted
  • Plain flour
  • Salt
  • Olive oil for frying
  • 2–3 large white onions, finely sliced
  • 1 cup raisins
  • 1 cup pine nuts, lightly toasted
  • White wine (enough to soak the raisins)
  • 250 ml white wine vinegar
  • Freshly ground black pepper

Method

Soak the raisins in the white wine for about 30 minutes.

Lightly dust the fish with flour and a little salt, shaking off any excess.Fry the fish in plenty of hot olive oil until golden and crisp. Drain on kitchen paper.

Gently sauté the onions in a little olive oil until soft but not browned.

Add the vinegar and freshly ground black pepper and simmer for a few minutes.

In a deep terrine or ceramic dish, place a layer of fish followed by onions, drained raisins and pine nuts.

Continue layering until all the ingredients are used, finishing with onions, raisins and pine nuts.

Pour the vinegar mixture over the fish, ensuring everything is well coated.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 24 hours before serving. Like many marinated dishes, the flavours improve with time.

Serve at room temperature, traditionally with soft white polenta.

 

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Coorong Mullet fillets, a very suitable fish to make in Saor

See: PISCI ALL’ AGGHIATA – PESCE ALL’AGLIATA (Soused fish with vinegar, garlic and bay)