insalata strombolana – stromboli salad

Posted on May 17, 2015 by hungryenglishman — 1 Comment ↓

I have a deep, enduring love for capers. As soon as the weather warms up (in other words, now!), I’ll pull them out of the store cupboard and start adding them to salads, pasta and fish dishes. Capers for me, like apricots, olives and chilli peppers, are an essential foodstuff. Their salty, floral, aromatic kick is addictive, like kissing lips still wet from the sea… Olives and chillis I can (and do) grow myself, but Continue Reading →

macco al finocchietto – fava bean soup with wild fennel

Posted on April 9, 2015 by hungryenglishman — Leave a reply

I won’t even pretend I’m normal, whatever that means. I’m the kind of person who wakes up in the morning and says to himself “I’d love a shepherd’s pie tonight”, and then spends the rest of the day imagining cooking and savouring it, evoking the aromas, picturing the spoon breaking through the crispy potato crust, then watching the rich gravy slowly ooze out to invade the plate like a dark, viscous sea (told you I Continue Reading →

risotto alle arance rosse – blood orange risotto

Posted on April 7, 2015 by hungryenglishman — 3 Comments ↓

Rice is not a great Sicilian ingredient to be honest. There are a couple of notable exceptions, of course, since one of Sicily’s great contributions to English restaurant menus, arancini (or arancine if you’re from Palermo) are about as ricy (did I just invent a new word there?) as you can get. The lack of interest in arborio and carnaroli is also pretty strange, if we think that the introduction of rice on the island Continue Reading →

spaghetti al nero di seppia – spaghetti with cuttlefish ink sauce

Posted on March 3, 2015 by hungryenglishman — 2 Comments ↓

There are foods that we inevitably associate with certain people. If anyone mentions pasta with ragù, for example, I always think of my son, George, who must be one of the world’s leading experts on the dish by now, considering his vast hands-on experience in the field. And lemon meringue pie always brings to mind my sister. I’m not even sure why, although it might just be because her lemon meringue pie is so damn Continue Reading →

occhiata (biata) all’acqua pazza – saddled seabream in spicy tomato broth

Posted on January 12, 2015 by hungryenglishman — Leave a reply

Despite a few problems caused by the fact that the dialect name for this fish here in Messina is biata, I did in the end manage to find the Italian equivalent (occhiata), which led me to the English translation. As a result, I can confidently confirm that the fish I cooked was saddled seabream, also trading under the rather more poetic alias of Oblada melanura. The best way to identify it, I learned, apart from Continue Reading →

cipolle di giarratana al forno – baked giarratana onions

Posted on January 8, 2015 by hungryenglishman — 1 Comment ↓

Onions: you either love ‘em or you hate ‘em. I love ‘em, and for onion lovers, the cipolla di Giarratana is as good as it gets. They originally come from the town of Giarratana up in the hills of south-east Sicily, but are sold in markets all over the island. Whether they arrive further afield I couldn’t say. I sincerely hope so, because I hate to think of you going without. Anyway, these pink-violet beauties Continue Reading →

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

Posted on January 5, 2015 by hungryenglishman — 1 Comment ↓

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 →