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

Insalata Caprese – Authentic recipe

Insalata Caprese finished dish

From Campania. This salad is named after the island of Capri, in the Gulf of Naples, near to Sorrento. Versions of this dish can be now be found in “Italian” restaurants all over the world. It is extremely simple, just “mozzarella”, tomatoes and good extra virgin olive oil.

As always, the quality of the ingredients is very important. First the “mozzarella”. The name should technically be reserved for buffalo milk cheese. Cows milk cheese is known as “fior di latte”. The milk used is not as important as the freshness. In fact Accademia Italiana della Cucina recommends using a cow’s milk cheese from Agerola or Sorrento. Most people here insist on eating it on the day it is made. Mozzarella made the day before is only good for pizza. If all you can find is supermarket cheese with a shelf life of up to a month, it wont be worth making this dish, make a pizza instead 🙂 Slice into fairly thin slices, about half a centimetre or a quarter of an inch.

Next, the tomatoes. Again, use the best you can find. Try to find them about the same size as the cheese. This makes the presentation nicer. Slice crossways into slices of about the same size as the cheese.

Arrange them on a plate, alternating the tomato and mozzarella. Add a generous amount of fresh basil and drizzle with olive oil. You can season with a little salt if you like.

The Academia suggests an alternative method where the cheese and tomatoes are diced.

The salad will taste much better if you serve it at room temperature, not straight from the fridge.

Unlike most salads in Italy, this is served as a main course, rather than a side dish.

Insalata Caprese ingredients

 

Inspector Montalbano’s Arancini

Arancini finished dish

Inspector Montalbano is a popular fictional Sicilian police detective, created by Andrea Camilleri. The stories are set in the small town of Vigata , and, being Italian, feature food quite prominently. In the story Inspector Montelbano’s Arancini (Gli arancini di Montalbano), the famous Sicilian dish is used as a plot device. Does the inspector want to leave Sicily to be with his girlfriend in Paris, or does he want to stay and eat his housekeeper Adelina’s arancini. I won’t tell you what he decides, but you can probably guess 😉 My father is a fan of the books, and he is fond of arancini when he visits me, so I decided to recreate this recipe from the book. The main differences between Adelina’s dish, and the more well known version is that she uses béchamel sauce instead of cheese. Also the ragù is made with whole pieces of meat, not mince.

For the ragù

• 150g of reasonably fatty beef in one piece
• 150g of reasonably fatty pork in one piece
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 stalk of celery, chopped
• a sprig of parsley
• a few leaves of basil
• 250ml of passata
• 1 heaped tablespoon of tomato purée
• extra virgin olive oil to taste
• salt and pepper to taste

For the risotto

• 500g risotto rice
• 1 small onion
• oil and butter to taste
• beef stock
• 2 eggs

• 150g of shelled peas (use fresh or frozen depending on the season)
• 80g of spicy salami in a single piece
• béchamel sauce made with 250ml of milk.
• 2 eggs
• breadcrumbs
• oil for deep frying (traditionally olive oil, but you can use peanut oil or similar)
• salt and pepper to taste

Arancini Ragù ingredients

Fry the onion and celery gently in a little oil. Add the two pieces of meat and brown them on all sides.
Add the passata and tomato purée diluted in a little hot water. Season with salt and pepper, cover and cook over a low heat, stirring occasionally, and adding more water if needed. Cook slowly for at least an hour and a half, longer if possible. Add the chopped parsley and basil, and cook for a further half an hour. This sauce can also be made in advance.

Arancini Ragù cooked

Make a classic risotto following the standard recipe, but without wine or cheese. It should be quite dry.  Montalbano is quiet clear that it should be without saffron.  (senza zaffirano, pi carità!)

Arancini cooking risotto

Tip the risotto out onto a marble slab (or a large tray), let it cool a little and then mix with a little of the tomato sauce and stir in the eggs. Let it cool completely. Put it into the fridge for about half an hour.

Arancini risotto cooling

Meanwhile, cook the peas in boiling salted water. Chop the meat with a mezzaluna or a knife. Montalbano forbids the use of a food processor  (nenti frullatore, pi carità di Dio!) 🙂 Mix some of the  béchamel sauce with the peas and salami cut into small cubes. Add enough of the tomato sauce from the meat to make a fairly thick mixture.

Arancini mixed filling

Arancini forming

Slightly dampen your hands and take some of the rice and roll it in the palm of your hand trying to make a sort of bowl. Put a spoonful of the ragù mixture in the middle. Cover with a little more rice and form it into a ball.You are aiming for about tennis ball size. Continue until you run out of rice. You probably won’t need all of the filling.

Arancini ready for coating

Put them in the fridge again for half an hour or so to firm up. Coat with egg, and then roll in bread crumbs.

Arancini ready for cooking

Fry the arancini in hot oil (about 165°C) until they are golden brown. Drain on kitchen towels. They are best eaten hot, but are also good cold.

Arancini cooked

Pettole

Pettole finished dish

From Puglia. Pettole are sweet or savoury doughnuts. In the region of Campania , and I believe the US, they are known as zeppole. Here in Puglia, zeppole refers to a cake traditionally eaten on St Joseph’s day. They are called pettole here in Puglia and some regions of Basilicata. They are traditionally eaten on St Martin’s day in Lecce (Nov 11), St Cecilia’s day in Taranto (Nov 22),  Around the immaculate conception on the 7th and 8th of December in Brindisi, and Christmas Eve in Foggia. They are generally eaten during the Christmas period throughout the region. They can be prepared in two ways, sweet or savoury. The savoury version can be plain, or contain other ingredients, such as olives, cooked cauliflower, salt cod , sundried tomatoes and anchovies. The sweet versions are dredged in sugar and/or dipped in vincotto a sweet, concentrated grape juice produced in Puglia. Honey or jam are also common if you can’t find vincotto.

• 375 ml warm water
• 500 g oo flour
• Half a block of fresh yeast or 3½ g dried
• 2 tsp of salt
• Oil for deep frying
• For the savoury version:- 10 olives, stoned and sliced into rings. Use black or green or a mixture of both.
• For the sweet version:- Granulated sugar, vincotto or honey.

Pettole ingredient

Dissolve the yeast in the water. Mix together the water and flour. Add the salt at the end of mixing. You should have a very wet dough. If you are making the savoury version, stir in the olives.

Pettole mixed dough

Cover with cling film and leave in a warm place to rise for about 2 hours.

Pettole ready to cook

Wet your hands and scoop up about a tablespoon of dough and deep fry until it is lightly brown. You will need to turn them halfway through cooking. Drain on kitchen paper.

Pettole frying

If you are making the sweet version, dredge each pettole in sugar and serve with a dish of vincotto or honey to dip them in.

Pettole sweet version

Swiss chard frittata

Swiss chard frittata finished dish

Frittata di bietole. This is one of the myriad of  recipes for frittate or Italian style omelettes. If you can’t find swiss chard, fresh spinach would be a good substitute.

Swiss chard frittata ingredients

• 6 eggs
• 1 kg of swiss chard, only the green leaves, use the stalks for something else.
• 1 clove  of garlic
• 1 small onion
• A handful of fresh marjoram leaves or about a teaspoon of dried (optional)
• 100g of grated parmesan
• Salt and pepper

Swiss chard frittata prepared

Fry the whole clove of garlic and the finely chopped onion gently in a little olive oil. After a few minutes, when the clove is lightly brown, remove it and discard. Add the chard and marjoram if used. Season with salt and pepper. Cook gently for a few minutes until the chard is completely wilted. You don’t have to add any water, the water left clinging to the leaves after washing should be enough.

Swiss chard frittata wilting chard

Allow to cool and squeeze out as much water as possible. Mix together the lightly beaten eggs, the chard and the cheese.

Swiss chard frittata ready to cook

Heat a large frying pan to a medium. Add a couple of table spoons of oil an add the egg mixture. Fry until the top has started to set.

Swiss chard frittata ready to turn

Flip the frittata by placing a large plate on top. Turn out onto the plate and then slide back into the pan. Finish off for a couple of minutes. Can be eaten hot or cold.

Swiss chard frittata finished dish

Neapolitan mixed fritters

Mixed fritters finished dish

Pasta cresciuta. From Naples. My local pizzaria here in Bari is Neapolitan and cooks what the locals regard as “thick” pizzas. The Barese go there when they want some foreign food 🙂 They also cook a few specialities from Naples, such as arancini and this dish. Pasta cresciuta means “grown dough”, because the batter contains yeast. You can cook them without a filling, or with some of the more  traditional ones such as courgette flowers or anchovies. Alternatively experiment with what you have to hand. The batter will make about 60-80 pieces.

Mixed fritters ingredients

• Sun-dried tomato halves, soaked to soften
• Courgette (Zucchini) flowers picked over to make sure they don’t contain any insects etc.
• Large sage leaves
• Anchovy fillets
• Oil for deep frying (traditionally olive oil, but sunflower oil is acceptable)

For the batter

• 1 cube of fresh yeast
• 320ml lukewarm water
• 300g oo flour
• A pinch of salt

First make the batter. Dissolve the yeast in the water. Sift the flour into a bowl and add the salt. Make a well in the centre and add the yeast mixture. Beat it with a whisk until smooth. Cover and leave in a warm place for 1 – 2 hours to rise. It should about double in size.

Mixed fritters batter

Heat a pan full of oil to a medium heat, about 180°c. If the oil is too hot the fritters will be raw on the inside and burnt on the the outside. If the temperature is too low they will be soggy. A litte experimentation may be needed to get it right.

Mixed fritters cooking

To make plain fritters, drop tablespoons of the batter into the hot oil. Cook until they are lightly browned, turning once. You are aiming to keep a reasonably soft texture. Think savory doughnuts. Drain on kitchen paper. Dip the various fillings into the batter and continue as before.

They are best eaten hot, but may also be eaten cold.

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.

Eggs mimosa

Eggs mimosa finished dish

Hard boiled eggs are of course an important symbol of Easter in Italy. They are often eaten as part of an Easter antipasto. This is one of the simplest, and in my opinion best recipes.

• 6 hardboiled eggs
• 6 anchovy fillets or 2 tablespoons anchovy paste
• 4 tablespoons of olive oil
• chopped parsley or chives
• pepper

Eggs mimosa ingredients

Halve the eggs and put the yolks in a bowl along with the anchovies and pepper to taste. Blend with a blender, adding the olive oil little by little, until you have a smooth paste. Fill the empty halves of the eggs with the mixture, sprinkle with parsley or chives and serve.

Eggs mimosa blending stuffing

Pecorino with broad beans

Pecorino with broad beans

Fave con pecorino. This is not so much a recipe as a serving suggestion. People tend to forget that broad beans (known as fava beans in the US) can be eaten raw. So, for that matter, can peas. Also there is a bit of a misunderstanding about what exactly is pecorino. Any sheep’s milk cheese is a pecorino, from pecora, which means sheep in Italian. The only pecorino commonly available outside of Italy is Pecorino Romano and is usually used grated as a seasoning, in a similar way to parmesan. This recipe calls for a younger, less salty cheese. Of course, you can break with tradition and use a cow’s milk cheese.  When broad beans come into season, this is one of the most popular way to eat them. Some people serve them shelled and the cheese cut into little squares, but most people provide a pile of beans and a lump of cheese and let their guests get on with it. Eat each bean with a small piece of cheese. They are served as an antipasto or at the end of the meal, before the dessert.

Stuffed cabbage leaves

Stuffed cabbage finished dish

Involtini di verza. This is a good winter dish. There are many versions, but I prefer this one because the stuffing is not so heavy as it contains rice and chopped cabbage rather than all meat. It can be served as an antipasto or a second course, but it is quite substantial, so it is probably better as a second course. Serves 6

• 1l vegetable stock
• 30g unsalted butter
• 1 head of savoy cabbage
• 1 small onion
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 80g grated parmesan
• 280g risotto rice
• 350g sausages, skinned
• 1 stick of celery
• 1 carrot
• 200ml white wine

To cook

• 50g butter
• 2 tbsp parmesan

Remove the tough central rib from 12 cabbage leaves.

stuffed cabbage removing stalk

Blanch the leaves in abundant boiling water. Take 150g of the more tender centre of the cabbage and chop finely.

stuffed cabbage cooking filling

Melt the butter in a pan and fry the carrot, celery and onion gently for about 15 minutes. Be careful that they do not brown. Increase the heat and add the rice and “toast” for 2 or 3 minutes. Add the white wine, the sausage and the chopped cabbage. Stirring constantly wait until the liquid has been absorbed. Add a ladle of the hot stock and wait for the liquid to be absorbed. Continue using the standard risotto method until the rice is cooked. Mix in the parmesan.

stuffed cabbage filling rolls

Take a cabbage leaf and place a couple of tablespoons of the mixture on each one.

stuffed cabbage filled roll

Roll the leaf up to make a compact parcel. Hide the open seam underneath.

stuffed cabbage ready for the oven

Cover the base of a casserole with little olive oil and half a ladle stock. Arrange the cabbage rolls in the dish. Cover the dish with melted butter and parmesan.

Stuffed cabbage finished dish

Bake at 200°C for 15 minutes, finish off under the grill for 5 minutes. Let the rolls rest for 10 minutes and the serve.

Bagna cauda

Bagna caoda fished dish

Bagna caôda.From Piemonte. The rough translation of title is “hot bath” , which in my opinion is always preferable to a cold one 🙂 This dish is well known outside of Italy, but as is often the case it often is very different from the original. It is basically a warm anchovy and garlic dip for raw vegetables. These are two of my favourite things, so it’s one of my favourite antipasti. A lot of versions include milk or cream, but these are not found in the original Piemonte version

Bagna caoda ingredients

• About 6 anchovy fillets per person. Salted are best, but tinned in oil will do. Soak them in a little white wine.
• Garlic (from 2 or 3 cloves per person up to a whole head)
• Olive oil, the best you can find, about 1/2 a wine glass per person. Only olive oil will do.
• About 20 g of unsalted butter per person.
• 1 egg per person(optional)

To serve, dip vegetables into the mixture. The recipe I have is very prescriptive and says you can only use vegetables that are in season and grow in Piedmont. I think this is going a bit far though. Some suggestions on what to serve with the Bagna Cauda (raw unless otherwise stated):-

• Fresh bread
• potatoes cooked in their skins and then peeled
• Peppers roasted and peeled or raw
• Onions boiled or baked
• Sliced apples
• Savoy cabbage
• Jerusalem artichokes (raw or cooked))
• Fennel
• Cauliflower (raw or cooked)
• Endive
• Celery
• Courgettes
• Small globe artichoke
• Cardoons
• Cucumber
• Radicchio
• Asparagus
• Carrot sticks
• Cherry tomatoes
• Spring onions
• Small whole mushrooms

Bagna caoda vegetables

Slice the garlic very thinly and soak it in cold water for a couple of hours. Some recipes call for it to be boiled in milk, but I think this is unnecessary.

Add all the ingredients to an earthenware pot along with a small ladle of oil and cook very slowly for about half an hour. Don’t let the garlic brown. Stir it constantly with a wooden spoon. When the anchovies and garlic have dissolved into the sauce, add the rest of the oil.

Bring the pot to the table and keep it warm with some kind heat source.  You can buy special pots for this purpose, but fondue sets work well. Serve it with your selection of vegetables.

When you have had your fill of vegetables you can add a beaten egg to what’s left in the pot.

Rice Croquettes

Rice croquettes finished dish

From Puglia. This is a puglian version of the more well known Sicilian dish arancini. It is very simple to make however. There are versions that use other chesses and cured meats, but this one uses the easily available (abroad I mean) salami, ham and mozzarella. Serves at least 6 as an antipasto.

• 400g risotto rice
• 100g sliced salami (Milanese or similar)
• 100g sliced cooked ham
• 200g mozzarella cut into small cubes
• 40g grated parmesan
• 2 eggs
• 40g buttter
• 1 tsp salt
• A pinch of pepper
• Bread crumbs
• Oil for frying

Rice croquettes ingredients

Boil the rice in plenty of salted water until done, about 10 minutes. Drain and add the butter. You could substitute vegetable stock for the water if you prefer. Allow to cool completely. You can prepare it the day before if you like.

Roughly chop the salami and ham. Combine with the rice, the mozzarella, the parmesan. Season with salt and pepper and finally add the eggs and mix well.

Rice croquettes formed

Form the mixture into cigar shapes, about 50g each. I find it easiest to use my hands.

Rice croquettes ready to fry

Coat them in breadcrumbs and deep fry them in hot oil until golden.

“Caviar” Mousse

Lumpfish mousse finished dish

Mousse con uova di lompo. This dish doesn’t in fact use real caviar, but red lumpfish roe. Lumpfish mousse doesn’t quite have the same ring to it though 🙂 If you can only find black roe, feel free to use that, the taste is exactly the same. This is a very easy antipasto, especially if you use tinned beans, but looks quite impressive. The original recipe used smoked trout, but I found it impossible to find both here and in the UK, so I got very good results when I used smoked salmon. It is worth spending a little extra on the smoked salmon though, as the cheaper varieties tend to be very salty. Be careful when seasoning the beans for this reason. Serves 4.

• 140g smoked salmon
• 600g plain yoghurt
• 400g boiled cannellini beans, canned are fine
• Red lumpfish roe, enough to make a thin layer, 1 jar will probably be enough
• Lemon juice
• A sprig of rosemary
• Olive oil

Lumpfish mousse ingredients

1. Blend the smoked salmon, the yoghurt and a tablespoon of lemon juice in a liquidiser. Keep a little of the smoked salmon aside to use as a garnish.
2. Blend the drained cannellini beans,  the leaves from the rosemary sprig and 4 tablespoons of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Assemble the mousse in 4 wine glasses, a layer of  cannellini beans, a thin layer of lumpfish roe and a layer of the smoked salmon and yoghurt mixture.
4. Garnish with a little chopped smoked salmon.
5. Serve with toast or bread sticks (grissini).

Figs and ham

figs and ham rose

Roselline di prosciutto crudo su fichi. Melon and raw ham is just about ubiquitous in Italian restaurants outside of Italy, and it’s pretty common here too.  When they are in season it is very common in Bari to pair ham with figs. In my opinion it is an even better match than melon. There are two ways to present them.“Little roses” looks very nice and is very easy to do. Cut the figs into four lengthways, but don’t cut all the way through. Take a slice of raw ham and twist it around two fingers to form a nest. Open the nest up and place it in the centre of the fig. The other way is to cut the figs completely into four and wrap each piece in ham. The second way doesn’t look so nice, but is easier to eat. I also use other types of cured meats or salumi , for example I especially like using Mortadella.

A note about prosciutto.

The English language is one of the great borrowers. We have taken words from almost every other language on Earth. They don’t always retain exactly the same meaning as in the original language. One example of this is prosciutto. In Italian it means “ham”. This can be leg of pork, cooked ham or raw ham. In English it has come to mean specifically raw ham, or prosciutto crudo in Italian. So when you see a sign for prosciutto ham you are in fact seeing a sign for ham ham. Another example of this is the panino roll. Shall I go into my local salumeria and ask for some ham ham to put into my roll roll? Oh well, I’m off to do a bit of footing now…

figs and ham wrapped

Baked mussels

Cozze ripiene gratinate. This is quite an unusual mussel recipe. Mussels baked on the half shell are a very common antipasto here, but this recipe treats them a bit like the French scallop dish coquilles saint-jacques. They are baked with white sauce, cheese and wine. Serves 4 as a main course, many more as part of an antipasto.

Baked mussels finished dish

• 2 kg large mussels
• 250 ml bechamel or white sauce
• 50 g grated pecorino romano 
• 2 or 3 tbsp of dry breadcrumbs
• 2 sprigs of parsley
• A clove of garlic
• An egg yolk
• Half a glass of white wine
• Olive oil

Baked mussels ingredients

Clean the mussels well. Place them in a pan along with half the clove of garlic, a sprig of parsley and the wine. Open the mussels by placing the pan over a high heat. Drain the mussels and filter and reserve the cooking liquid. Remove them from their shells.

Baked mussels opened with cooking liquid

Mix the mussel meat with 2 tbsp of olive oil, a chopped sprig of parsley, the rest of the garlic, chopped and a tbsp of the cooking liquid. Season with pepper.

Baked mussels removed from their shells

Place each mussel on a half shell.

Baked mussels on the half shell

Mix together the white sauce, the egg yolk and a couple of tablespoons of the cooking liquid. Top each shell with some of the mixture.

Baked mussels with white sauce

Sprinkle breadcrumbs on the top and bake at 190°c for 15 minutes.