Food Lover's Odyssey

Pignolata - Sweet and Gooey Bites from Sicily

 

These little bites of fried dough slathered in lightly caramelized honey with the name pignolata, because each bite resembles a big pine nut, are special treats made for Carnevale or Christmas.  My cousin's husband, Pino, made them for us on a rainy Saturday.   I had never heard of these before, but the "ooooohs" of encouragement from his daughters when he said he was making them was enough for me to know they would be a special treat.

Fried dough, carmelized honey, and little sprinkles.  (Melted and drizzled chocolate is also optional.)  Originally made for Martedi Grasso (Fat Tuesday), the day everyone splurges before the Lenten fast begins, they are now also a Christmas sweet.  They are popular in the South of Italy.  Neapolitans call them struffoli and the Calabrese also call them pignolata. 

They are easy to make, festive looking and sweet and gooey.  As I shaped the sticky balls into pyramids, it reminded me of shaping popcorn balls.  Shape them quickly because the caramelized honey is hard to manipulate once it cools.  They are best to eat when they have just cooled.  The honey is still soft and creates strings of sweetness as you pull the little dough bites apart. 

 

Pignolata

(adapted from Pino's recipe) 

 Makes 8-10 servings

 

5 cups sifted cake flour, plus more for the work surface

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 pinches of salt

4 eggs plus one egg yolk

2 to 4 tablespoons white wine*

About 6 cups vegetable oil for frying

 

For the syrup:

1 1/2 cups honey

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3 tablespoons water

 

1/3 cup colored sprinkles

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted
 

 

*In Naples they use limoncello as the liquid.

 

Mix the cake flour, sugar, and salt together and place on a work surface.  Make a well and add the eggs and egg yolk in the center of the well.  Break the yolks with a fork, and work the flour into the center.  Add 2 tablespoons of the wine and combine the ingredients with your hands to make a smooth ball.  If you need more liquid, add the other 2 tablespoons of wine.  Do not overwork the dough or you will have tough pignolate.  Cover with a towel and let rest for one hour.

 

Separate the dough into 8-10 small balls the size of an apricot.  Roll the ball into a half-inch thick rope.  Cut the rope into 1/4-inch pignolate (large pine nuts).  Place the cut pieces of dough onto a lightly floured towel and cover them, so they won’t dry out.  Continue until all have been cut.

 

Meanwhile heat the oil in a sauce pot to 350 degrees F.  Fry the dough in the hot oil until they are a light golden brown and cooked all the way through, about 5 minutes.  (Fry about 15 pieces of dough at a time so you don’t overcrowd the pot and cool the oil too much.)  Drain on paper towels and cool.

 

To make the syrup:  Boil the honey, sugar, and water in a sauté pan.  It will start to bubble.  Let the bubbles subside a little, then add the pignolate and continue cooking on medium-high heat until the pignolate start to stick together, 5-7 minutes.

 

Pour onto a buttered surface.  Sprinkle half the colored sprinkles and shape into a dome or individual pyramids, using spoons or heat-resistant gloves.  (You should not use your bare hands with cooked sugar as it will burn quickly and severely.)  Add the the remaining colored sprinkles and drizzle the optional melted chocolate over the top.  Let cool completely before eating.  Enjoy!

Tiramisu and Italian Sweets Week

Tiramisu is one Italian dessert I love to make and to eat.  In Italian it means "Pick me up."  The coffee and alcohol in it gives the eater a bit of energy afterward, or at least it counterbalances that heavy feeling from this deceptively rich and creamy dessert.  The dessert is as much a symbol of Italy as the Leaninig tower of Pisa, pizza or pasta. 

I made my own version of it for my cousins while I was visiting them in Palermo.  It was a hit, and my cousin Salvatore, who "doesn't eat desserts" gobbled up piece after piece and was asking for more.  While we were eating the tiramisu, I mentioned that I thought French pastries were better than Italian pastries. 

What was I thinking, maybe the coffee/sugar rush went straight to my head? Mouths stopped eating and spoons clinked against dessert plates as they contemplated what to do next.   Never tell an Italian that you prefer ANYTHING French. By their expressions, you would think I insulted someone's nonna or their national soccer team.  The only thing that saved me from being kicked out of the house was that they wanted more tiramisu.  After a lecture on all the Italian things that are so much better than the French, including a better national soccer team, they introduced me to many Italian sweets that I had never tasted before and some that I had never even heard of before.  Sometimes sticking your foot in your mouth leads to good things.

In my version, I use chocolate and sugar to sweeten the imbibing syrup.  I also top it with grated chocolate instead of the bitter cacao powder.  I'll share the rest of my sweet discoveries with you this week, which I'm calling Italian Sweet Week.  Next up is pignolata.  In the meantime, I hope you make and enjoy this pick me up of a dessert.

 

Tiramisu

 Makes One 13x9-inch pan

 For the imbibing syrup:

4 cups strong coffee

1 1/2 ounces dark chocolate, cut into small pieces; plus 1 ounce, grated

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup Kahula liqueur 

For the Zabaglione Cream Mixture:

9 egg yolks, at room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup sweet Marsala wine

3 cups mascarpone cheese, at room temperature

2 cups heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks

 

24 savoiardi cookies

To make the imbibing syrup:  Add the coffee, chocolate, sugar and liqueur to a saucepan and heat on low only to melt the chocolate and dissolve the sugar.  Set aside to cool to room temperature.

To make the zabaglione:  Heat about 3 cups water to a simmer in a deep pot.  Place a round-bottomed heat resistant bowl over the simmering pot and add the yolks and sugar, whisking immediately and continuously until the mixture is pale yellow and thickened.  Slowly whisk in the wine and continue whisking until the mixture reaches 160 degrees F and has tripled in volume.  It should take about 10 minutes.  The eggs should not cook too quickly.  You should be able to grip the side of the top portion of the double-boiler without it being too hot.  If the water is too hot, pull the top-portion of the double boiler off the heat to cool a bit, or it will cook the eggs too fast.  Set aside to let cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile, mix the mascarpone to soften the texture.  The secret to a light and smooth cream is to have all three of its components as equal as possible in texture and temperature before combining them.  Add 1/3 of the zabaglione to the mascarpone and stir together to lighten the texture of the mascarpone.  Fold 1/3 of the mascarpone mixture into the remaining zabaglione.  Repeat until all the mascarpone has been added.  Fold 1/3 of the whipped cream into the zabaglione/mascarpone mixture, repeating until you have one cream mixture.

To prepare the tiramisu:  Dip a savoiardi cookie into the imbibing syrup for about 2 seconds. (The cookie should not be soaked through.)  Place the dipped cookie into a 13x9-inch pan and continue, creating two rows of dipped cookies.  Spread half of the cream mixture onto the layer of cookies.  Repeat to create another layer, dipping the cookies, creating two rows and spreading the other half of the cream mixture onto the top.  Top with shaved chocolate and refrigerate for at least 8 hours.  Buon Appetito!

Related Posts:

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Tiramisu Cheesecake - A Delicious Italian-American Combination

Torta Caprese - Flourless Chocolate Cake from Capri

Cassatelle alla Siciliana

Foods Not to Miss in Sicily

Best Ways to Savor Venice

 

Eggplant Caponata and Sicilian Market Etiquette

 

 

Lines don't really exist in Italy. There might seem to be a line, but Italians know all those fools are foreigners. They will walk right by through you and up to the cashier, as if you were invisible. Once during a break from Italian class, we students were in line to pay for our coffee, snacks, etc. Noticing this strange phenomena, the cashier yelled to his colleagues that it was obvious we were stranieri (foreigners) because of the perfect line we had formed.

 

 

 

Street markets are even more chaotic and it's every man, woman, and child for him/herself. If it's crowded and you are timid or polite, forget about ever getting service. I went with my cousin Mariella to the mercatino (little street market) in Palermo. Mariella, barely five feet two, wedged her way through the crowd with her rolling shopping bag behind her. She pushed her way up to the counter and asked, "Chi e l'ultima?" (Who is last?) They politely told her and then each person waited their turn. This happened at each vendor's counter during the day. Imagine my surprise! At one point Mariella asked me why my mouth was agape. There is actually some logic to the chaos of the street market. Who knew?

 

 

 

We shopped for ingredients to make caponata. Caponata is a vegetable dish, mainly eggplant, in an agrodolce sauce. Agrodolce, a sour and sweet sauce, is YUM, YUM YUM!! It's also used with fish, winter squash, and with seafood salads. Here's the thing; it's also easy to make, just 1 part sugar to 2 parts vinegar. (The term agrodolce also describes things that are both sweet and sour at the same time, a movie, a breakup, a graduation or other ending that leads to a beginning. ) The theory with agrodolce is that you need both the sweet and the sour together, each contrasting and accentuating the other, but as a whole the flavor is balanced and harmonious.

Below is Mariella's recipe, with one little additon. I've added some sultanas (golden raisins) to the recipe because I think the sultanas hold the agrodolce sauce and balance the tartness of the capers. Caponata should be served at room temperature---never warm. It's best if served the day after you make it.

 

 

 

 

Mariella's Eggplant Caponata

Makes 8 cups

 

2 pounds of eggplant (about 4)

1/2 cup white wine vinegar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

3 stalks celery, diced

2 cups olive oil

1 onion, finely diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 (15 ounce) can peeled tomatoes, roughly chopped

5 ounces pitted green olives, quartered

4 ounces capers, rinsed

1/4 cup sultanas (golden raisins)

2 1/2 teaspoons salt, plus more to taste

2 pinches of pepper, plus more to taste

Cut the eggplant into one-inch cubes, leaving the skin on. Place in a colander, sprinkling each layer with salt. Cover with a paper towel and weigh down with plates. Leave for one hour, allowing the excess water to drain.

Sweeten the vinegar by adding the sugar and set aside. Blanch the celery in boiling salted water for 2 minutes.

Rinse the eggplant and pat completely dry. Heat 1/4 cup oil in a large sauté pan, and cook one-fourth of the eggplant cubes over high heat for 4 to 5 minutes. Place the cooked eggplant on paper to drain. Continue cooking the eggplant in this way in 3 more stages.

Drain the excess olive oil from the sauté pan used for cooking the eggplant, leaving about 2 tablespoons of oil in the pan. On high heat, sweat the onion and a pinch of salt for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the celery and cook an additional 2 minutes. Add the garlic and cook about 1 minute. Add the tomatoes with the juices, the olives, capers, sultanas, salt and pepper. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes. Add the eggplant and the sweetened vinegar and cook about 5 minutes more. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.

Cool and refrigerate overnight. You can serve it as an appetizer on toasted bread or as a side vegetable. Buon Appetito!

 

 

Related Posts:

Involtini di Melanzane -Stuffed Eggplant Rolls

Foods Not to Miss in Italy

Torta Setteveli - Seven Veils Cake from Palermo

Cassatelle alla Siciliana (Sweet Ricotta Cream Fried Ravioli)

When Life Gives You Lemons - Make Lemon Granita

Pasta con le Sarde and Cooking in Palermo

A Taste of the Sea and Spaghetti Siracusana

Cannoli alla Siciliana

Braciola di Maiale - Braised Pork Roll for a Sicilian Holiday Dinner

Good Views and Good Eats in Taormina

A Weekend in the Aeolian Islands

The Dish from Sicily: Arancino

The Dish from Sicily: Granita

Tiramisu Recipe - And How to Almost Get Thrown Out of the House in Sicily

Pasta Con Le Sarde -- Cooking in Palermo

Ten days in Palermo with other food lovers and a kitchen!   I stayed with my cousins for ten rainy days, which meant staying inside and lots of cooking.  I have three generations of cousins there, and all are as fanatic about food as I am.  We spent the rainy days in the kitchen as they excitedly shared recipes with me.  Many debates family battles were waged over the stove and at the dining table about the correct way of making certain Sicilian dishes.   

Pasta con le sarde  (Pasta with sardines) is one of those dishes that brought about a great debate.  You can find this  dish all over Sicily, but in Palermo toasted breadcrumbs finish it.  To make it truly Palermitano, they told me I MUST use the breadcrumbs. Sicily has been conquered almost as many times as Berlusconi has made one of his famous verbal blunders, and the pine nuts and sultanas add flavors from its Middle Eastern conquerors.   Wild fennel is native to Sicily.  (It looks more like a dark green celery than the bulb we're used to seeing, and the licorice flavor is subtle yet intense.)   I liked the version I had with tomatoes and have added a little bit of the the "new world" to the recipe below.

Palermo is a city set between mountains and the sea, with arabic influences still evident in the buildings and at the local street markets.  Pasta con le Sarde  brings together flavors of land and sea, native and Arabic; it is Palermo on a plate.

 

Pasta con Le Sarde (Pasta with Sardines)

(adapted from La Cucina Siciliana di Mare by Alba Allotta)

 Serves 4

 Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds fresh sardines

1 bulb of fennel (or 1 pound wild fennel, if you can find it)

About 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 onion,  diced

3 anchovies in oil

2 tablespoons tomato paste

3 Roma tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and roughly chopped

salt, to taste

pepper, to taste

1/4 cup sultanas

1/3 cup dry white wine

1/4 cup pine nuts, lightly toasted

1/2 teaspon saffron threads
 

1 pound of bucatini (hollow spaghetti) or spaghetti

 Optional:   2/3 cup breadcrumbs toasted in 3-4 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil

Cut off the heads of the sardines, bone, rinse, then roughly chop them.

Clean the fennel and remove the hard outer parts.  Reserve a few fronds for decoration.  Boil the fennel in salted water until it is fork tender.  Remove it from the water, retaining the water for the pasta.  Finely dice the fennel.

Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan.  Add the onions and sweat them until they are translucent, about 2 minutes.  Add the anchovies, letting them dissolve into the onion mixture.  Add the tomato paste, tomatoes, salt, and pepper, and cook for 2 minutes.  Add the sultanas and sardines, and stir together.  Add the wine and cook on high heat until the alcohol has evaporated.  Lower the heat to simmer and cook for about 20 minutes.  Add the pine nuts for the last 5 minutes of cooking.

 Meanwhile add the saffron to the fennel water, and cook the pasta in the boiling saffron and fennel water until it is al dente. 

 Add the pasta to the sauce, mix together and let the flavors meld for 5 minutes. (If you are using the toasted breadcrumbs, sprinkle them over the top and put under a broiler for 3-5 minutes, until lightly browned.)  Top with the reserved fennel fronds and serve.  Buon Appetito!

    

Good Views and Good Eats in Taormina

Taormina is a beautiful city perched above a curvy coastline which hugs the infinitely blue Mediterranean Sea.  Yet, "Holy tour group!" was the first thing we shouted when we arrived.  The street leading to Taormina's Greek Theater had a daily traffic jam of tour groups steering their way to the Theater.  My friend and I renamed it "Holy Tour Group Street."  It became our meeting point.  "I'll meet you at 7pm on Holy Tour Group Street."  "I'm on Holy Tour Group Street, where are you?"   With so many tourists, I had some concerns about the food.  We immediately looked to the locals for help, asking our cab driver about the food before we even closed the car door.

 

After a morning of rubbing banging elbows with other tourists, we wanted to eat well and started at Da Cateno, a recommendation from our cab driver.  Cateno, a third generation owner of this Roticcerie, made delicious arancini especially for us.  His regulars (all men) quickly jumped all over him because he had just told them the aranicini were sold out for the day. A round of good-natured heckling started. We, the two American girls, were brought right into it, and soon felt like locals ourselves.  Da Cateno became our regular lunch spot, and Cateno had us sampling all of his dishes.  Besides the best arancini on the island, he also made several kinds of lasagne and had a daily meat special.  The food was simple, hearty and cost little; our lunches averaged about 6 euros a person, and the banter between Cateno and his regulars is an added bonus.  Italians have a saying "Spende poco, mangia bene" (spend little, eat well), and we certainly did.

 

After lunch we needed something sweet, and Cateno sent us to Bam Bar for granita.  The bar is not only popular with the locals; the owner has a slideshow of pictures with him and the international celebrities like Michael Douglas, Robert Duvall, Antonio Banderas, etc. that have eaten his granita. My favorite flavors were raspberry, peach, coffee and chocolate.  The flavors were fresh and intense. We watched them puree the fruit right before making the granita.  This granita was on the smoother side, not as icy, allowing the fresh flavors to stand out.

 

Each night I watched the sun set on the coastline from the Piazza IX Aprile, then headed off to dinner on more recommendations from locals.   Ristorante Trocadero, a casual spot near Holy Tour Group Street, has a mix of locals and tourists who dine on traditional Sicillian dishes.  I had Pasta alla Norma (pasta with tomato sauce, sauteed eggplants, and topped with ricotta salata).  The food was rich in flavor and the t-shirt clad staff remembered us with a hardy welcome on our second visit. 

Tiramisu, has linen tableclothes, cushioned seats, waiters in shirts and ties, and beautifully plated seafood dishes.   The antipasto of Tonno in Agradolce was excellent.  The tuna was perfectly cooked, seared around the edges and soft in the center, in a reduced basalmic vinegar sweet & sour sauce (agradolce).  My plate of spaghetti with shrimp and swordfish left me sopping up the remaining sauce with bread.  When the waiter caught me wiping the plate and blushing, he gave me a "Bravo!" of encouragement.

 

Taormina is a city full of flavor, but it's also a city of beauty and history, frequented by many writers and labeled as a "patch of paradise" by Goethe.  The lush public gardens are a perfect place to have a picnic.  Take the funicular down to one of the pebbly beaches, Mazzaro' or Isola Bella or take a bus to the sandy beaches of Giarndini Naxos.  Visit the active volcano Etna.  They also have an Italian language school, Babilonia, in which I might enroll during my next visit.  If anyone has taken classes at this school, please let me know your thoughts about it. 

 

All the locals I met were as beautiful as the land and sea.  Well, there was the "cannoli wench" at Pasticceria D'Amore.  She was not as sweet as her cannoli, but the deliciousness  of the cannoli made up for her sour attitude.  She did warm up to us after our third visit.  This "patch of paradise is now at the top of my list of places to live in Italy."

 

Extra Information on Taormina:

Da Cateno is on Via Cappuccini, 8

Bam Bar is on Via Giovanni, 45

Holy Tour Group Street is really named Via Teatro Greco

 

  

 

  

Arancino - Sicilian Fast Food

 

Yes, I used the dreaded F word when refering to Italian Food.  In the land that founded the slow food movement, there is a fast food that is truly Italian.  It's true.  Arancino is a handful of Italian flavors in one.  There's creamy risotto, dense and beefy ragu, and chewy-gooey cheese encased together with crunchy breadcrumbs and then fried.

Arancini are at their best a few minutes out of the fryer; left to cool only long enough so the cheese won't scorch your mouth. When they are warm, the cheese is still runny and creates a string when pulled.  (On the mainland of Italy these balls are known as "suppli" for short or "suppli di telefono" --telephone lines).  This fast food beats a hamburger any day.  They are also deceptively filling.  One is enough.  After two you will need a pisolino or mezzoretta, as the Italians call their afternoon nap, before you will be able to move again.

These little balls are a cause for great debate arguments in Sicily.  In the Palermo area, they are called arancina (feminine), and the round ones have ragu inside.  According to a Palermitano, it is sacrilege to make a pyramid-shaped aranicinA and use ragu.  These should instead have spinach.  In the Catania area, the pyramid-shaped arancinO are filled with ragu, and the round ones with bechamel or spinach.  And, don't ask for arancinA in Catania or arancinO in Palermo without also receiving a 10 minute lecture on the differences of arancin -a/-o in each region.  In any case, this is an Italian fast-food that should not be missed. 

Taste of the Sea and Spaghetti Siracusana

In Syracuse, I stayed on the island of Ortigia, just at the tip of the Syracuse peninsula.   The island is connected to the main city of Syracuse by three bridges and bordered by the deep blue waters of the Meditterean. 

We spent the first half of the day taking an Ortigia boat tour.  The little boat slipped in and out of the rocky grottos.  One grotto after another with different names; one was named green, one violet, one inammorata (because the opening was the shape of a heart), one coral.  I had a hard time keeping up with the captain as he rattled the names off in a thick Sicilian accent, which chopped off endings of words.  I kept repeating the words in my schoolbook Italian and awful Amercian accent to make sure I was understanding correctly, as if knowing the name of each grotto was necessary to admire its beauty.  Luckily he found me more of an amusement then an annoyance, and he started repeating the names without my asking.   

We stopped a few times so we could "fare un bagno nel mare" (literally meaning--take a bath in the ocean).  With the ocean so blue and clear it's impossible to resist jumping in for a bath.

After a day on the boat, I wanted a dish that tasted of the sea.  The pasta plate named after the city of Siracuse is just that; it's fish and salt and the breadcrumbs  soak up these flavors.  The taste lingers on the tongue like the salty sea on my skin after my bath in the ocean. 

You can find Spaghetti Siracusana on the menu at most of the trattorie in Syracuse.  Each trattoria has its own version, adding tomatoes, raisins, and/or pinenuts to the dish.  All Spaghetti Siracusana have capers, breadcrumbs, and olive oil at the base.  Below is my version of Spaghetti Siracusana.  Let me know how you like it and whether you made changes to make your own version.

 

Spaghetti Siracusana

serves 4

About 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 eggplant, cut into 1-inch cubes

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1/2 pound peeled plum tomatoes, pressed through a mesh strainer

1/2 teaspoon salt

pinch of freshly ground pepper

2 salt-cured anchovies, rinsed and finely chopped

2 tablespoons salt-cured capers, rinsed

1/2 cup green olives, pitted and roughly chopped

8 basil leaves, torn

1 pound spaghetti

1/4 cup breadcrumbs

1/3 cup freshly ground pecorino cheese

 

Heat the olive oil.  Add the eggplant and sauté for about 10 minutes.  Add the garlic and sauté for another 30 seconds.  Add the tomatoes, salt and pepper and let reduce for about 10 minutes.  Add the anchovies, capers, olives and basil and heat through.

 

Meanwhile, boil two quarts of lightly salted water.  Cook the spaghetti until al dente.  Drain and add to the sauce, tossing the mixtures together.  Off the heat, sprinkle with breadcrumbs and pecorino cheese and serve.