Author Archives: hungryenglishman

zuppa inglese di pandoro, con amaretti, crema di mascarpone e ricotta – pandoro trifle with amaretti, mascarpone and ricotta cream

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I’m surprised myself, to be honest. Two dishes using mascarpone in the space of a month. First pasta, and now this. 2014’s entire mascarpone consumption squeezed into the last couple of weeks of the year. A glance at the main ingredients, not to mention the title (trifle in Italian is zuppa inglese, ‘English soup’, although I have no idea why), will have alerted you to the fact that this is another recipe from outside Sicily, Continue Reading →

cotechino e lenticchie – italian new year’s eve

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New Year’s Eve, and that means cotechino sausage and lentils practically everywhere in Italy. The dish is not Sicilian at all, but then there’s no real Sicilian traditional food for the last day of the year, so like the rest of the country, they borrow this rich, fatty, salty oversize banger from Emilia Romagna. According to tradition, the cotechino represents good health, and the lentils money. While lentils could be seen to resemble coins, how Continue Reading →

ragù bianco di suino nero e porcini, e tutto il resto… – “white” ragù of pork and porcini, and the rest…

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 So, a white-themed Christmas it was, although to be honest this was due to chance rather than design, in the sense that the dishes I chose for Christmas happened to be white, rather than being the result of a conscious decision to find colour-challenged recipes. That would have been much too much like hard work. And in any case, the all-white theme came a cropper, since the original starter of baccalà cream tarts got scuppered Continue Reading →

la calma prima della tempesta – the calm before the storm

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Christmas Eve is the prelude to the chaos of Christmas Day, and so I try and keep things simple. No meat today according to Catholic tradition, and any tradition, Catholic or otherwise, that gives me an excuse to eat oysters and smoked salmon is fine by me. Of course, the original idea was that by way of penance one would not eat meat. Popping down to the fishmonger’s and hauling home a bag crammed full Continue Reading →

pasta bianco natale – white christmas pasta

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I’m not going to pretend this is Sicilian in the sense that it’s part of the Sicilian tradition. Mascarpone and butter are hardly used at all this far south. Mascarpone for tiramisù, butter for arancini al burro. And that’s about it. No, this is Sicilian in the sense that I learnt it here in Sicily and that it was invented by two Sicilians (I can only lay claim to the name). That’s good enough for Continue Reading →

patate “a sticchiu i parrinu” – potato, tomato and onion bake

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How naughty can you get in the kitchen, I ask? Well, pretty naughty, I suppose, as the famous scene from 9½ Weeks proves. Nor should we forget all those famous aphrodisiacs, such as oysters, lobsters, chocolate and champagne. But despite this, let’s face it, unless you’re Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger, although the kitchen is somewhere you may have a good time and even issue frequent sighs of pleasure, it’s not somewhere you’re likely to Continue Reading →

cuccìa – wheat and legume soup for St. Lucy’s Day

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Yesterday was St. Lucy’s Day, and traditionally that means cuccìa here in Sicily. There are two versions – sweet and savoury, although the sweet one is much more widespread, and the savoury version has practically died out (which of course is one of the reasons I decided to cook it, albeit with a rather cavalier approach to the ingredients, as you will see…). Either way, the basis of the recipe is wheat, and wheat berries Continue Reading →