la carbonara autentica – the true carbonara

It’s a classic image: a Roman trattoria. Check tablecloth and a carafe of local white wine. A steaming plate of heart-warming yet somehow sinful, sensuous carbonara. So let’s start here, because we need some kind of benchmark, and Rome is the only place qualified to provide that benchmark. This is carbonara heartland. Quite clearly, we are for once outside Sicily. Equally clearly, we are in Rome, but let’s try and be more precise, so … Continue Reading →

salsicce e carciofi – sausages and artichokes

The original plan was to do stuffed baked artichokes, but I have a nasty cold and just couldn’t muster the energy. I wanted something equally tasty but quicker and less fiddly. The solution was to use the ingredients for stuffed artichokes and to simply mix them together to create a one-dish meal. Same flavours, less work. Deconstructed rustic cooking. Could this be the birth of a whole new trend? The breadcrumbs in fact are not Continue Reading →

cotechino e lenticchie – italian new year’s eve

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 →

sugo di maiale – pork and tomato sauce

Go into a Sicilian agriturismo in the mountains in the winter, and there’s a good chance you’ll be given a steaming bowl of maccheroni al sugo di maiale. Washed down with some Sicilian vino locale in front of a blazing log fire, I can imagine no better way to warm myself up, or lift my spirits on a dark winter night, for that matter. This is not food for anyone counting their calories, unless of Continue Reading →