Polenta fritters – Sgagliozze

Sgagliozze finished dish

Sgagliozze. From Bari. They don’t generally eat polenta in the south of Italy. In fact a nick name here for northerners is “polentone” which roughly translated means “polenta eaters”. One of the exceptions is this dish from Bari. It is often available as a street food, especially in the old town. Many thanks to Memma for the recipe. She says they are her husband Michele’s favourite.

• 250g polenta flour, the quick cooking kind is fine.
• 1 l water
• salt
• oil for deep-frying

Sgagliozze ingredients

Boil the salted water, add the flour and mix it with a wooden spoon without making lumps.

Sgagliozze cooking polenta

When it is cooked (follow the instructions on the packet) pour it onto a board and form it into a thick rectangle. Let it cool down.

Sgagliozze cooked polenta

Cut the polenta into squares about 2cm thick. Allow them to dry out a little.

Sgagliozze sliced

Fry the sgagliozze in very hot oil until crispy.

Sgagliozze frying

Potato pizza with ham and spinach

Potato pizza finished dish

Pizza di patate e prosciutto. From Bari. This is a more complicated version of the traditional potato “pizza”.  They call it a pizza here, but that name is quite confusing as it does not contain any bread or flour. To confuse matters further it is also known as Torta di patate or Gateau di patate in various regions. It is basically a potato pie filled with ham and spinach. The ham can easily be left out to make it vegetarian (if you are careful about what cheese you use of course). It can be eaten warm or cold and will keep in the fridge for 3 or 4 days. It also freezes well. Serves about 8 as a main course.

Potato pizza ingredients

• 1.2 kg floury potatoes.
• 250g scamorza, provola or mozzarella, grated or thinly sliced.
• 500g fresh spinach
• 150g cooked ham
• 2 egg yolks
• 70g grated parmesan
• Dry bread crumbs
• Butter
• Olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic
• Nutmeg 

Cook the potatoes in their skins in lightly salted water. Drain and peel when cool enough to handle.

Potato pizza cooking potatoes

Mash the potatoes and mix with the egg yolks and parmesan.

Potato pizza mixed with cheese

Fry the whole garlic clove for a few minutes in a little olive oil. Remove and add the spinach. There should be enough water clinging to the leaves after washing. Add a little salt and couple of grates of nutmeg. Cook over a medium heat until the spinach has completely wilted. Leave to cool and squeeze out as much water as possible.

Potato pizza cooking spinach

Grease a 24cm cake tin and dust with bread crumbs. Use 2/3 of the potato to make the base of the pizza. Build up the sides a little to contain the filling. Add the spinach.

Potato pizza with spinach

Add the ham

Potato pizza with ham

Cover with the cheese

Potato pizza with cheese

Close the pizza with the remaining 1/3 of the potato. Cover the top with bread crumbs and dot liberally with knobs of butter.

Potato pizza ready for the oven

Bake in an oven preheated to 200°c for 50 minutes.

Orecchiette with cime di rape

Orecchiette con cime di rape. This probably the most well known dish from Bari. Cime di rape are known as turnip tops in British English. It’s funny, but I’ve never seen turnips in Italy. It must be a real problem for the ex-pat Scots on Burns’ night. They are known as rapini or broccoli rabe in American English. In fact if you can’t find cime di rape you can use broccoli. The results won’t be the same, but it will be in the same ball park. I have seen recipes that also use cherry tomatoes which are added to the oil after the anchovies have dissolved. You can cook the cime di rape along with the pasta or, as I prefer, cook the cime di rape and then cook the pasta in the same water. Some recipes also don’t use chillies and/or anchovies so the dish can easily be made vegetarian. Serves 4

Orecchiette con cime di rape finished dish

• 400 g orecchiette
• 800 g cime di rape
• 4 anchovy fillets
• 1 tablespoon or more olive oil
• 1 large clove of garlic
• 1 dried chilli (optional)

Orecchiette con cime di rape ingredients

Wash the cime di rape well. I prefer to discard the larger stalks, but some people leave them in.

Washed cime di rape

Boil the rape in plenty of salted water until it is cooked to your liking. I find 3 or 4 minutes is enough. Drain them saving the water.

Cooked cime di rape

Cook the orecchiette  until they are al dente in the water you used to cook the cima di rape. Meanwhile fry the anchovies, whole garlic clove and chilli in the olive oil. Stir until the anchovies dissolve. Cook for a few minutes over a medium heat.

Frying the anchovies and chilli

Remove the garlic clove and add the cime di rape. Mix well. Finally add the oriecchette and serve.

Panzerotti

Panzerotti. From Bari. These are one of the most famous and popular dishes from Bari. They are deep fried pockets of dough stuffed with a variety of fillings. Two of the most common are mozzarella, cherry tomatoes and oregano and ricotta forte (also called skuanda), cherry tomatoes, onion and anchovies. Ricotta forte is a bit of a “Marmite” ingredient. By that I mean it is very strongly flavoured and you either love it or hate it.  I am in the first camp, lovely stuff. Rather than cherry tomatoes, “appesi” are more traditional. These are small tomatoes which are picked when still not completely ripe and hung up for later consumption. As these are hard to find, you can use any type. I went to a party here and a lady was employed just to make panzerotti all evening. The last round was filled with Nutella! The size of the panzerotti varies, but I made 12 with this recipe.

Panzerotti ingredients

For the pastry

• 500 g 00 flour
• 100 ml tepid milk
• 1 cube of fresh yeast
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 10 g salt

Dissolve the yeast in the milk. Add the milk to the flour, oil and salt along with enough tepid water to make a smooth dough.

Oil the dough, cover with a tea towel and leave to rise for up to 2 hours.

Separate the dough into 12 portions and roll into small balls. Cover with a tea towel and leave to rise for a further half an hour.

Panzerotti balls of dough

Take one ball of dough and roll it into a large disc. Place a large tablespoon of filling in the middle of each one. Fold the dough over to form a half moon shape. Press down well and try to exclude as much air as possible. Either fold over and crimp the edges or cut off the excess pastry with a pasty wheel and seal the edges with a fork.

Panzerotti ready to cook

Deep fry the panzerotti until they are lightly golden. Some people use extra virgin olive oil and some people use regular vegetable oil. You can also bake them in an oven at 200 °C for 15 minutes, but the result is quite different.

Panzerotti finished dish

Fillings

• 200 g mozzarella
• 300 g cherry tomatoes
• Oregano
• Chop and drain the tomatoes. Cube the mozzarella.  Mix together with a generous amount of mozzarella.

• 50 g ricotta forte
• 100 g cherry tomatoes
• 50 g onions
• An anchovy
• Salt and pepper.
• Fry the onion in some oil, bone and chop anchovy. Spread each disc of dough with ricotta forte. Add a piece of tomato, some onion and a piece of anchovy. Salt and pepper to taste.

• 100 g ricotta forte
• 20 g grated pecorino romano
• 2 cherry tomatoes for each panzerotto
• 1 egg yolk (optional)
• Mix together the ricotta forte and the pecorino. Some people like to add an egg yolk to the mixture. Place a tablespoon of the filling and 2 chopped tomatoes in each panzerotto.

• Radicchio and gorgonzola.

• Fried minced pork mixed with parmsan and mozzarella. This is traditional on shrove Tuesday.

And of course the very untraditional but popular with children young and old:-

• Nutella 🙂

Peppina at the party

Aubergine parmigiana

Parmigiana di melanzane. From Puglia. This is a really common dish here. It takes a bit of time to prepare, so it tends to be a celebration dish. It’s worth the effort though. Lots of people, even Jamie Oliver, assume it’s a northern dish because of it’s name. It is in fact named after the cheese not the city and is a southern dish.He also says to grill the aubergines rather than fry them. I’ve tried it this way and although the dish is undoubtedly less calorific,  I think the taste suffers considerably.  The dish is claimed by Puglia, Campania and Sicily and possibly other regions as their own.  I’ve seen similar recipes from the states called “eggplant lasagne” even though it contains no béchamel sauce or … erm … lasagne. Even though it’s a vegetarian dish it’s quite heavy so I wouldn’t recommend eating it too often. Serves at least 6 as a main course, many more as part of an antipasto.

Aubergine parmigiana

• 1.5 kg aubergines
• 700 g tomato pulp or passata
• 3 eggs
• 100 g grated parmesan
• 400 g mozzarella cut into small cubes
• Flour
• Basil, about 10 leaves torn into pieces
• 1 clove of garlic, whole
• Olive oil

1. Wash and dry the aubergines. Slice into 5 mm rounds. Dust with flour. Dip in the eggs and fry for a minutes in olive oil. Drain on kitchen paper.
2. Fry the clove of garlic in 4 table spoons of olive oil until it is brown. Add the tomatoes and cook for a further 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the garlic.
3. Cover the bottom of an oven proof dish with tomato sauce. Add a layer aubergines. Add a layer of mozzarella and then parmesan. Repeat until all the aubergine is used up. Finish with a layer of aubergines covered with tomato sauce and parmesan.
4. Bake for 1 hour at 200°c. If the top starts to get too brown, cover it with aluminium foil.

Aubergine parmigiana finished dish

Bari style focaccia

Focaccia alla barese ingredients

Focaccia alla barese. I have never really had much success with bread in my cooking career, so I decided to give it one more go. It actually came out really well. The main differences between Bari focaccia and regular focaccia is the use of coarse hard flour (semola rimacinata di grano duro) and the inclusion of potatoes in the dough. There is also no olive oil included within the dough, only in the tin and poured over the top. I just caught it before it burnt, so it looks a little dark. See the recipe for some advice on how to avoid this.

• 500g coarse hard flour (semola rimacinata di grano duro) Use strong white bread flour if you can’t get it.
• Cherry tomatoes
• 150g mashed potatoes
• 1 cube of fresh yeast (or 1 sachet of dried)
• Olive oil
• 1 tsp of sugar
• 1 tsp of fine table salt
• Rock salt

1. Disolve the yeast in 300ml of tepid water to which the teaspoon of sugar has been added.
2. Make a fairly wet dough from the flour, mashed potatoes, table salt and yeast and water mix.
3. Knead the dough well for at least 10 minutes. You should get a smooth, elastic dough after a while.
4. Leave the dough to rise until it has doubled in size – 1 to 2 hours.
5. This recipe is for a rectangular baking tray 30cm by 40cm. Grease the tray well with olive oil. Knock the dough back and pull it by hand to fit the tray.
6. Push halved cherry tomatoes into the focaccia at regular interval. Sprinkle with a little rock salt and drizzle with plenty of olive oil.
7. Allow to rise again – 1/2 to 1 hour.
8. Bake in an oven preheated to 250°c for 15 to 25 minutes. The focaccia is ready when the underside is brown. If the top starts to become too brown before it is cooked, cover the top with foil and continue cooking.

Variations. A lot of people also sprinkle dried oregano over the focaccia after the tomatoes have been added. You can use pitted olives as well as, or instead of, the tomatoes.

Focaccia alla barese finished dish

Spaghetti with mussels

Spaghetti with mussels ingredients

Spaghetti con le cozze. This is a recipe that I cook a lot, but have never got round to posting. I, like the Barese, love mussels.  They are always cheap and are available all year. Here the size changes with the season, but you can make this dish with big or small mussels, it doesn’t matter. They say that the smaller ones have a better flavour. Some people open the mussels raw for this dish. To be honest the flavour is probably marginally better, but I am not very good at opening them so I never have time. If you are adept at opening mussels, feel free to remove the shells before adding them, but don’t forget to include any water that comes out. Some people also remove the shells after they have opened. Again, it depends on my mood, but I usually don’t.You can also use fresh or tinned tomatoes.

Serves 4

• 1kg Mussels weighed with the shells
• 1 clove of garlic
• 500g peeled tomatoes
• Olive oil
• A few sprigs of chopped parsley
• Chilli (optional to taste, can be fresh or dried)
• 320g Spaghetti

1. Sauté the garlic for a few minutes so that it softens, but doesn’t brown.
2. Add the chilli (if fresh, if you are using dry, add it after the tomatoes)
3. Add the tomatoes and cook for a few minutes.
4. Add the mussels and cook uncovered over a medium heat until they are all open
5. Add the parsley and stir
6. Mix with the cooked spaghetti and serve.

Spaghetti with mussels finished dish

Potato Pizza

Pizza di Patate. From Bari.This is another recipe from Nonna Stella. Calling it a pizza is a bit misleading as no bread or flour is involved. It is basically mashed potato baked with a cheese filling. Serves about 6 as a side dish.

Potato pizza ingredients

• 800 g  potatoes
• 150 g scamorza or mozzarella
• 2 eggs
• About 50 g Grana padano or Parmesan
• Butter
• Dry breadcrumbs

1. Boil and mash the potatoes. I prefer to boil them whole and unpeeled, allow them to cool for a few minutes and then peel.
2. Add the eggs and Grana to the potatoes and mix well.
3. Well grease a pizza tin or spring form cake tin with butter. Dust the tin with breadcrumbs.
4. Spread half of the potato mix over the base. Cover with the grated scamorza or mozzarella. Finally add the rest of the potato to form a layer over the cheese.
5. Sprinke the top of the pizza with some more dry breadcrumbs and dot with small knobs of butter.
6. Bake at 200°C for about 30 minutes. The pizza is ready when the top is nicely brown. Allow to cool for a few minutes before removing from the tin.
7. Can be eaten hot, warm or even cold.

Potato pizza finished dish

Stuffed mussels

Cozze ripiene. From Bari. This recipe was given to me by Marilisa – thanks a lot for taking the trouble. They were delicious 🙂 It’s actually her granny’s recipe and Marilisa’s favourite. The recipe seems a bit daunting as you have to open the raw mussels, but it’s really not that difficult. Follow the link below if you want to know how. Serves 4-5

Stuffed mussels ingredients

• 1 kilogram large mussels
• 4 medium eggs
• 1 bread roll — crust removed
• parsley — finely chopped
• 100 grams Pecorino Romano or Parmesan — grated
• milk
• olive oil
• garlic to taste — finely chopped
• salt and pepper
• kitchen string
• 2 bottles passata

• Clean the mussels and open them keeping the shells attached
• Soak the bread roll in a little milk and tear into small pieces.
• Beat the eggs in a bowl and mix with the cheese, garlic, parsley and bread. Season with salt and pepper.
• Add breadcrumbs little by little until you have a fairly dry stuffing mix.
• Stuff the mussels with the mixture and tie them almost closed with kitchen string. Don’t tie them too tightly as the stuffing has to come into contact with the cooking sauce.

Stuffed mussels ready to cook

• Heat some oil in a large pan and add some chopped garlic. When the garlic has coloured add the tomatoes. Cook over a medium heat for about 15 minutes.
• Add the mussels and cook for a further 15 minutes.
• Remove the mussels from the sauce and remove the string.
• Serve the sauce with spaghetti or linguine as a first course.
• The mussels can be served as the second course or as part of an antipasto (hot or cold)

Stuffed mussels finished dish

Stuffed mussels with pasta finished dish

Ragu alla Barese

This is another recipe from Tiziana (many thanks). This one of the most common ‘Sunday lunches’ in Bari. I think it’s known as “Sunday gravy” in the Sates. The recipe doesn’t give very precise measurements as it depends how many people you are cooking for and your personal taste.  As a rough guide allow 2-300g of meat per person. Tiziana usually serves the ragu with orecchiette, but you can use your favourite pasta. Serve the meat separately as the second course.

Ragu alla Barese ingredients

• Thin slices of meat (you can use beef, veal, pork, or horse meat),flattened with meat mallet
• Pieces of lamb (preferably on the bone)
• Lardo(salted lard) or prosciutto fat or fatty pancetta
• Parsley
• Garlic
• Pepper
• Pecorino Romano cheese, grated
• 1 Onion, sliced
• Passata or tomato pulp
• 1/2 glass dry white wine

1. Chop together the lardo, parsley, garlic, pepper and pecorino to make a coarse paste.
2. Place a little of the paste in the middle of each slice of meat. Roll up and secure with a toothpick.
3. Take a large pan(NOT nonstick) and add the onion, some olive oil, the meat rolls, the lamb pieces and half a glass of water.
4. Cook over a high heat making sure that the meat catches on the bottom of the pan but doesn’t burn. Scrape the pan frequently with a wooden spoon. This is an important step as it contributes a lot of the flavour of the sauce.
5. Add the wine and allow to evaporate
6. Add enough passata to cover the meat well
7. Cook over a very low heat until the meat is tender. (A slow cooker would be ideal)
8. A few minutes before the end of cooking, season with salt and pepper.
9. For the best results, allow to cool, refrigerate over night and reheat the next day.
10. When you are ready to serve, remove the meat and keep warm.
11. Serve the sauce with pasta as the first course followed by the meat as the second course.

Ragu alla Barese orecchiette

Ragu alla Barese meat

Tiella of potatoes, rice and mussels – Authentic recipe

Tiella di patate, riso e cozze. Tiella alla Barese. Riso patate cozze. Finally the definitive recipe! This recipe was given to me by Tiziana who is one of the best cooks in Bari (or so her friend Rosa tells me 😉 ) Many thanks Tiziana. It uses mussels which have been opened when they are still raw. My fish monger did this for me, but in the UK you’ll probably have to do this yourself. Here’s a link to show you how. Good luck 🙂
Serves 6

Tiella ingredients

• 1.5kg potatoes, sliced
• 300g risotto rice, soaked in cold water
• 1kg mussels, opened on the half shell – reserve the liquid
• onions, sliced
• olive oil
• garlic, chopped
• parsley, chopped
• tomatoes, chopped
• pecorino Romano, grated
• parmesan, grated
• salt and pepper

1. Assemble the tiella as follows in an ovenproof dish, preferably terracotta
2. A layer of onions drizzled with oil
3. A layer of potatoes seasoned with garlic, tomatoes, parsley, sat and pepper, cheese. Drizzle with oil
4. A layer of mussels seasoned with garlic and parsley. Drizzle with oil
5. Drain the rice and distribute it over the mussels. Season with garlic, tomatoes, parsley, sat and pepper, cheese. Drizzle with oil
6. A layer potatoes.
7. Add the water reserved when you opened the mussels. Add water so that the final layer of potatoes is just covered
8. Cover tightly (maybe with alumnium foil) and bake at 180°C for up to two hours. Test from time to time with a skewer.
9. Uncover for the last 20 minutes of cooking to brown the top.

Tiella finished dish

 

 

Tiella alla Barese

This is another tiella recipe from Bari. It’s not completely traditional as the mussels are not raw when added to the tiella, but if you don’t fancy opening all those mussels it’s a fair approximation. I’ll post the ‘authentic’ recipe later.

Tiella ingredients

• 400 g potatoes, peeeled and thinly sliced
• 200 g risotto rice
• 700 g mussels, cleaned
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• a handful of parsley, finely chopped
• olive oil
• 200 g tomatoes, peeled, deseed and chopped
• pecorino cheese, grated
• pepper

1. Boil the rice until al dente. Reserve some of the cooking liquid.
2. Heat the mussels in a pan with a little oil and the chopped garlic. When they have opened, remove from the pan. Strain and reserve the liquid. Remove the top shell from each mussel.
3. Assemble the tiella in a ovenproof dish. Make layers of the ingredients in the following order – potatoes, rice, onions, tomatoes, a little cheese, parsley. Repeat until all the ingredients have been used up, finishing with a layer of potatoes.
4. Pour the liquid from the mussels over the tiella. Add some of the cooking liquid from the rice so that the level of liquid comes about two thirds of the way up the dish. Season well with pepper (not salt as the mussel liquid will be quite salty). Drizzle olive oil on top.
5. Bake uncovered for around 35 minutes at 180C. Add a layer of mussels in the half shells, drizzle on a little more oil and return to the oven for 10 minutes.

Easy tiella alla barese

Pasta and potatoes

This soup is another classic Bari dish. If you ask a Barese what their favourite dishes are, they’ll usually mention Pasta e Patate. Serves 4

Pasta and potatoes ingredients

• 500g potatoes, peeled and diced
• 200g ditali
• 100g  polpa di pomodoro or tinned chopped tomatoes
• 1 celery heart, chopped
• 1 clove  garlic, peeled and squashed (but still whole)
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

1. Brown the garlic in 4 tablespoons of olive oil. Remove the garlic and discard.
2. Add the potatoes and celery and cook for a couple of minutes.
3. Add the tomatoes and season with salt and pepper
4. Add water so that all the ingredients are covered
5. Cook until the potatoes are starting to fall apart.
6. Half cook the pasta in plenty of salted boiling water
7. Add the pasta to the potato mixture and continue cooking until done.
8. If the soup is too thick, add a little of the pasta cooking liquid.

Orecchiette with braciole and ragu

Don’t panic when I tell you the main ingredient is horsemeat 🙂 It works just as well with beef. Thanks to Antonella for the recipe. If you are wondering why there are more photos than normal, I prepared this dish so I could post the recipe on another forum. If you like you can serve the sauce with the pasta as the first course, and the braciole as the second course.

Ingredients for 4 people

Braciole ingredients

• 400g of pasta
• 400g thinly sliced steak (horse or beef)
• A few cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• A few spigs of parsley, finely chopped
• Some grated Grana or parmesan
• 500g tomatoes – If you can’t get really ripe ones, use tinned.
• 1 carrot, finely chopped
• 1 stick of celery, finely chopped
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• Fresh basil
• Cocktail sticks

And last but not least 🙂

Good red wine

• It can be served with just about any type of pasta, but here they use orecchiette (little ears).
• First peel, deseed and chop the tomatoes. It’s much easier if you cut an x in each one and blanch for about a minute. The skin virtually falls off.
• Then prepare the braciole. Cut the meat into stips about 5cm wide. Put a little garlic, parsley and Grana on each strip. Roll up and fasten with a cocktail stick

Assembling the braciole

1. Brown the braciole in a heavy pot – one that’s good for slow cooking. Remove and put to one side.
2. Add the carrot, onion and celery to the same pot. Fry gently until the onion is well coloured.

1. Return the braciole to the pot and add a good slug of red wine. Cook until the wine has almost reduced to nothing

1. Then add the tomatoes, cover and cook over a very low heat. Cooking time depends on the meat. It should be very tender, but not falling apart. Check every now and again with a sharp knife or a skewer to see when they’re done. Mine took about 3 hours.

1. When they are done, remove the braciole from the sauce. Chuck in a bit of chopped basil. Toss the cooked pasta in a little of the sauce and divide between 4 plates. Remove the cocktail sticks and put 4 or 5 braciole on each plate. Top with more of the sauce, sprinkle on some parmesan and we’re away 🙂 Alternatively, serve the sauce with the pasta as the first course, followed by the braciole as the second course.

I’ve just found out that Tony Soprano’s recipe for ‘Braciole’ (or Brazhool 🙂 )appears in The Soprano Family Cookbook They serve it with ziti though. Would they be the famous ‘Grandma’s ziti’ we were always hearing about 🙂

Nonna Stella’s courgette and mint frittata

I stumbled across  this recipe on youtube. Nonna (granny) Stella has decided to provide us with a video course on ‘la cucina barese’ – the cuisine of Bari. Each episode shows Nonna explaining a recipe to her grandson. It’s really a pleasure to watch this wonderful old lady in action.  Like all the best cooks, Nonna doesn’t give precise measurements. She does it by look and feel. At one point he comments  ‘you’re using a lot of oil’ and Nonna replies ‘ that was 3 tablespoons’. All I can say is that they must have big tablespoons in her house 🙂
This is my attempt at the recipe.

Courgette frittata ingredents

Serves 4

• 6 eggs
• 1 handful fresh mint leaves
• 4 courgettes, diced
• 1 medium  onion
• 4 tbsp  parmesan cheese or grana— grated
• 3 tbsp  olive oil (!?!!)

1. Fry the courgette, onion and mint in a non stick frying pan until the courgette has changed colour.
2. Be careful not to overcook it. (You don’t want mushy courgettes). Season with a little salt.
3. Crack the eggs into a bowl and add the cheese. Mix well.
4. When the courgettes are ready, add the eggs to the pan.
5. Stir for the first minute or so and then wait for the eggs to start to set, shaking the pan from time to time to keep the frittata loose.
6. When the eggs have set, turn the frittata with the aid of a plate, and return it to the pan.
7. After another couple of minutes cooking, the frittata is ready

Courgette and mint frittata finished dish