When I posted the recipe for Pumpkin Ravioli, I was reminded of this but I hesitated to publish something we only make once a year.

My wife’s family migrated from Santa Marina di Salina in the Eolian Islands, north of Sicily about 120 years ago. Obviously, they brought some of their recipes with them. One of them is for sfingi, sfinge or sfince.

St. Joseph’s day is marked on March 19 throughout Italy. Apparently, there is a special celebration of the Feast of San Giuseppe held in Salina. The tradition was that in 1835 some islanders, who traded in food with Naples, survived a shipwreck through prayers to the saint. Safely home, they decided to set up a feast-table to share with all including the sick and the poor. Sfince, as I describe it here, is one of the sweet cornerstones (dolci) of the festive board.

If you search the web, you should find recipes for Sfince or Sfingi di San Giuseppe but they differ from what I describe here. You may find them called zeppole and you may find the recipes call for ricotta, perhaps like the recipe in the next video.

The ingredients we use are:

1 lb. more or less of pumpkin, peeled, cut into small pieces
1 lb. plain flour
2 eggs, beaten
Salt
2 teaspoons of bakers yeast
Fresh rosemary, optional
Raisins, optional, plumped in Malvasia wine (you could use sweet sherry or Malmsey or Madeira)
Olive oil

The pumpkin is boiled in a little salted water until tender and then added to the eggs, flour and yeast. The dough is worked by hand until smooth. The raisins and/or rosemary can be added at this stage. The dough is set aside in a covered bowl for an hour or so to let it rise.

While the dough is rising, you can get your deep fryer ready, or add oil to a deep pan, if you don’t.

Using two dessert spoons, make an ‘egg’ of dough and slide it into the hot oil, or you can be more rustic and just use one spoon to get a more irregular shape. Remove from the oil when darkish golden brown but not burnt! Repeat until all the dough is used.

Keep warm and serve on a large platter, dusting the sfince first with cinnamon and then generously with caster sugar.

Footnote: sfingi translates as sphinx, which we might take as meaning an enigma. Are these Italian doughnuts so enigmatic?

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Image: Nathalie Dulex http://www.sxc.hu

I am a fan of Rick Stein, the well-known English chef with several television series under his belt. He operates a number of fish restaurants in Padstow, Cornwall, UK, http://www.rickstein.com. He has cooked for the local folk and the high and mighty including the British Royals, the Prime Minister, and French President, and is probably the most famous and most awarded seafood chef in Britain. I recently caught one of his TV shows in re-run and it reminded me of this recipe, which is a little surprising as it is for ravioli with neither fish, nor seafood in sight. It will fill four small plates or two dinner plates and will take less than a hour cooking time and less than half an hour preparation time.

This could be done as ravioli, cappellacci, tortelli or tortellini, or any variant of stuffed pasta. You need to make the pasta which is quite straightforward. You need neither a pasta machine (though it’s easier to roll the pasta thin if you do have one), nor a ravioli tray, though life is very easy if you have one. Incidentally, you could get a serviceable pasta machine for as little as about $30 and a ravioli tray for the same or less depending on size and shape. You may browse a selection of suitable machines and trays in our online store.

Pasta dough

The ingredients are:
1 lb general purpose flour, (Italians use tipo doppio zero or ’00′ – 00 flours are available in the US if you are really keen)
4 large eggs
sea salt to taste
1 teaspoon of olive oil

Mix all the ingredients in a food processor or by hand until mixture forms crumbs. Turn out onto a floured board, marble slab or work surface. Knead for a few minutes to make a dough and wrap in cling wrap. Put it into the refrigerator to rest.

Pumpkin Stuffing

Any type of pumpkin will do – butternut is a favorite.
The ingredients are:
2 lbs pumpkin
2 tbsp olive oil
4 oz Parmesan cheese, finely grated, reserve ½ oz for service or make fresh shavings then
½ tsp nutmeg, fresh grated
5 or 6 amaretti cookies, crushed
sea salt to taste
black pepper, fresh ground to taste
breadcrumbs if necessary

(I have seen a recipe also including some Mostarda di Cremona but I have not tried it).

Preheat the oven to 375° F. Cut the pumpkin in slices, leave the skin on but scrape out the seeds with a spoon, brush with oil and bake in the oven for about 45 minutes until soft. When done, scrape the flesh off the skin. Mix the other ingredients and 3 or 4 of the crushed amaretti cookies into the pumpkin. If it looks or feels too moist, you can add a few breadcrumbs to firm up the mixture, which should then be cooled in the refrigerator.

Assembly

The ingredients are:
2 eggs, beaten

I describe this on the assumption that neither pasta machine nor ravioli tray is available. If you have them, you probably know how to use them. In the alternative, you may have a ravioli wheel and know how to use that.

Image: Silvia Cosimini www.sxc.hu

Suffice it to say, you want the pasta rolled thin and you want to make little pillows of pasta with a teaspoon of stuffing in each. Do this on a floured work surface or slab and flour your hands.

If you think about this, you can roll out a sheet of pasta, distribute the stuffing with military precision, paint beaten egg around the stuffing, top with another sheet of pasta, press down to seal each parcel of stuffing and cut into separate entities.

Or you could roll out some pasta and use a cookie cutter of the right size, add stuffing to each disk of pasta, egg wash the rim and top with another disk and seal, (perhaps with a fork).

Or you could add stuffing to each disk of pasta, egg wash the rim and fold the disk over into a half-moon shape and seal (again, perhaps with a fork).

Whatever you do you will end up with a number of stuffed pasta parcels which need to be cooked in a large pan of simmering, salted water for two or three minutes, (fresh pasta cooks quickly).

Sage and Butter Sauce

The ingredients are:
4 oz butter, unsalted for preference
a small bunch of fresh sage leaves

While the pasta is simmering, melt the butter in a small pan and add the leaves and stir until the butter has colored somewhat. This is up to you – some people do little more than melt the butter, add the leaves and serve. Others prefer the classic nut-brown butter sauce.

Plating up (as they say in the trade)

Serve the ravioli onto suitable plates, sprinkle with a little freshly grated nutmeg (optional), add the butter-sage sauce and a sprinkling of parmesan and the reserved amaretti crumbs.

Some recipes have the additional flourish of some deep fried sage leaves and/or crushed toasted hazelnuts to garnish.

Buon appetito!

P.S. If you can’t be bothered with making pasta dough, you could try won ton wrappers from the supermarket or an Asian market and easily find an internet how-to via a search engine.

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Image: Aaron Weeks www.sxc.hu

After I wrote out my method for making tahini sauce a couple of days ago, I thought now would be a good time to give my recipe for the quintessential middle eastern dip or paste, usually called hummus (with various spelling variations) which is shortened from hummus bi tahini (translating as chickpeas with tahini). You will need to have some garbanzo beans, Indian peas or chickpeas (all the same thing), ready to use, which may mean opening a can or two, or soaking overnight and then cooking some dried chickpeas.

The ingredients are:
2 cups of prepared chickpeas
1 to 2 tablespoons of Tahini paste (but see below)
3 to 5 tablespoons of lemon juice
2 or 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
½ teaspoon of salt
2 tablespoons of olive oil
¼ cup of water, (could be the cooking liquor from the chickpeas)

Variations and serving:
See the tahini sauce recipe for suggestions.

All the ingredients except the water can be blended together in a processor, blender or the hard way! Then the water is added and blending continued until the desired consistency is achieved.

But suppose you had some ready-made tahini sauce, what then? Well, you’ll note that the ingredients have much in common, so you can blend the chickpeas with some tahini sauce, and as much water as may be needed, while holding back on the garlic, salt, lemon juice and oil. When the consistency is right, taste your hummus and adjust with garlic, salt, lemon juice and oil, (you may need none).

Put the hummus in a bowl, pour a puddle of oil in the middle, scatter with parsley, and optionally with cayenne or sumac. Serve with warmed/crisped triangles of Lebanese flat bread.

Hummus can be refrigerated for a few days or frozen for a month or so.

If you would like to know more about the chickpea or garbanzo bean, Wikipedia has a very informative article about this legume.

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Image: Suat Eman www.freedigitalphotos.net

Half-a-lifetime ago, I knew a girl who grew up in Cyprus, part of the considerable British ex-patriate community there. If I recall correctly she had a family friend who was from Beirut. From him she learned the original of this recipe which I, in turn, acquired. When shopping two weeks ago my eye was caught by a new range of organic nut and seed products including pure unadulterated peanut butters, hazelnut spreads and unhulled and hulled tahini. This last item reminded me of this recipe, which I made last week.

Tahini is made from sesame seeds ground to produce a paste. Tahini can be eaten as is, spread as a butter substitute, used to make hummus, baba ghanouj, halvah and other traditional and not so traditional recipes. Tahini sauce is easily made and can be stored in a jar or airtight container in the refrigerator for 2 perhaps 3 weeks.

The ingredients are:
2 cups (about 500 ml), tahini paste
3 to 5 gloves garlic (to taste), crushed
1 teaspoon sea salt, flakes or ground (may be used to crush the garlic to a paste)
4 tablespoons olive oil (more or less)
half a cup (125 ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice (more or less to taste)
2 teaspoons flat leaf parsley, finely chopped (can be omitted)
Tepid water to adjust consistency (you may find equal parts water
and lemon juice gives a consistency you’ll like)
Sumac (lightly sprinkled over the tahini sauce in the serving bowl)

Variations include:
up to a teaspoon of cumin and/or
up to a teaspoon of ground coriander (cilantro) seed
cayenne pepper or ground chili to taste
paprika to taste
More sumac (sprinkle onto oiled flat bread before crisping)
Fresh coriander/cilantro, chopped (instead of parsley or half and half)
Lime Juice instead of lemon juice

You can use a mortar and pestle, a wooden spoon and elbow grease, or a food processor.

Crush the garlic on a board or work surface with a heavy chef’s knife and some salt to achieve a paste. When done, blend into the tahini paste in a bowl, then stir in the olive oil, lemon juice and adjust with water if necessary. Adjust the seasoning. If using, blend in the parsley.

Serve the tahini sauce with warm, and/or crisped, Lebanese bread triangles. Or use your favorite flat bread, or crisp bread or cracker.

In the serving bowl, you can pour a puddle of olive oil in the middle, scatter chopped parsley and sprinkle with sumac, paprika, chili or cayenne, according to taste. See the photograph above which happens to be of a bowl of hummus but conveys the idea.

If you are not going to use the Tahini Sauce immediately, pour into a screw-top jar or other airtight container and refrigerate.

Enjoy!

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It’s no coincidence that the maker of the film available below shares my surname. He is my cousin’s son. The film is entitled Life Tastes Good and was shot at Green String Farm in Sonoma County last year. The soundtrack is by celebrated Cornish musician, Joe Francis. You can Google him or visit http://www.myspace.com/joefrancisandtheammunition.

The film is entered into a competition for films one minute long. You can visit the competition site and view the other entries and you can vote for your favorite and maybe win a little something yourself in the process using the following link, http://www.dorsetcereals.co.uk/simple-pleasures-film-festival/gallery/1/entry/139.

* from If by Rudyard Kipling

The rationale for this dish in our table of preferences is that it combines all those vegetables – onion, capsicum, aubergine, courgette, garlic, tomato – that remind us of Southern European climes that we love so much. It can be a dish standing alone, eaten with good rustic bread, or an accompaniment.

The photograph nearby, quickly snapped on our kitchen worktop, shows what I bought at the farmers’ market – all small varieties but it does not have to be so. I just loved the visual appeal of the small peppers, finger-sized yellow and green zucchini, small Spanish onion, baby aubergine and larger, red tomatoes. I also bought some small Kipfler potatoes which were steamed. The ratatouille and Kipflers accompanied simply seared breast fillets of chicken.

Farmers' Market Selection

The ingredients:
olive oil, perhaps two tablespoons
two cloves garlic, chopped fine
spanish onion, chopped
aubergine (egg plant), cubed
green and red bell peppers (capsicum), coarsely chopped
ripe tomatoes, chopped, or 2 cans diced Italian tomatoes
several small courgettes (zucchini), sliced or cubed
basil (fresh or a teaspoonful dried)
oregano (fresh or half a teaspoonful dried)
thyme (fresh or half a teaspoonful dried)
fresh parsley, chopped

Wash and prepare the vegetables, and in a large pan, heat the oil in which the onion and garlic should be gently sweated over a medium heat.

After five to 10 minutes add the aubergine and stir to ensure all of it is coated in oil. Then you can add the peppers and stir them in. You can cover the pan and let things cook for about ten minutes, stirring several times.

Lastly, add the tomatoes and courgettes and stir in the herbs. Re-cover and cook on low for perhaps 15 minutes. Check the aubergine. If it is tender but not collapsed then all should be ready to season and serve.

If you wish, you can experiment with the addition of a few chilli flakes or some smoked paprika. The result may no longer be ratatouille but you may enjoy the deviation!

Bon appetit!

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Elsewhere in this blog, you may have read our roast chicken recipe, and the method to make stock from the leftovers. If so, this is one of my favorite ways of using that stock. Risotto alla Milanese may have started life among the Arabic and Jewish populations of Sicily in the Middle Ages, and if so, perhaps, should have been called Risotto alla Siciliana, but the naming rights have long gone to the north! What follows is my take on Risotto alla Milanese and may not be for the purists, but I like the consistent results I get.

The ingredients are:

about four cups chicken stock;

a good pinch of saffron threads, steeped in a little warm water;

a little olive oil, perhaps one or two tablespoons (extra virgin if you like but this is not essential), and you can use butter if you prefer;

a knob of butter, (you may use butter and no oil for sweating the onion, etc);

a brown onion, very finely chopped;

two garlic cloves or more to taste (crushed);

one and a half cups of arborio rice (but vialone nano or carnaroli are other suitable rices);

one cup dry white wine;

one cup cooked fresh garden peas or frozen baby peas (may be omitted);

half a cup grated parmesan cheese and some Parmesan shavings for presentation, (use Romano if you prefer);

a dash of extra virgin olive oil, to serve; and

a quarter cup of chopped Italian/broadleaf/continental parsley to garnish.

You need two suitable pans – one for the simmering stock, and one for the rice. You can grind the saffron in a pestle and mortar or use the threads as they come, and add to a little warm water in a glass or cup, and let stand a few minutes. Pour the saffron water into the heated stock, which should then be kept at a gentle simmer.

Heat the oil and/or butter in a large saucepan over moderate heat until the butter (if used), has melted. Sweat the diced onion and garlic in the oil/butter until soft and translucent. Add the rice and stir with a wooden spoon or paddle until the grains are coated and glossy and tendiing towards translucency. Prepare to stir constantly for the rest of this recipe!

Pour in the wine and cook while stirring until all liquid is absorbed. Using a good-sized ladle holding perhaps half a cup, add stock to the rice and stir until the liquid is absorbed. Repeat this process, ladle by ladle. Each time, cook out until absorbed, stirring all the time with your wooden spoon or paddle.

This is likely to take about 20 minutes, by which time, the rice should be cooked through, al dente and not soft, and the risotto should be creamy in appearance. If you need more cooking time add more liquid – more home-made stock, or commercial stock, or a dissolved stock cube – brought to temperature before use, a ladle at a time, cooked out while stirring constantly.

When you have achieved the desired creamy and al dente state, it is time to add the peas if you so choose. Frozen baby peas work well for this and do not need to be thawed first. A couple of minutes should be enough. Keep stirring.

I normally use oil only up to this point and then add some butter to the risotto to add shine. When the peas are ready the pan should be removed from the heat and the grated cheese stirred in.

Next, check for seasoning, adding sea salt and pepper to taste. Freshly ground black pepper is fine but freshly ground white pepper adds a flavor all its own, and does not show against the golden yellow of the saffron-colored rice.

Serve in bowls or plates. If you wish, you can add a swirl of oil (extra virgin), some cheese shavings and a scatter of parsley. This risotto is classically served with osso buco, but goes well with pollo alla cacciatora and many other dishes, and is a popular standalone starter course.

Buon appetito!

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If you read our recipe for Everyday Roast Chicken you may recall that the last thing we said was to keep all the leftovers. This chicken stock recipe is the reason.

Classically, there are two methods of creating chicken stock. The one involves fresh, raw chicken and some vegetables, herbs and seasoning and perhaps an hour cooking time. The other (this one), takes a lot longer but makes the cook feel thrifty and righteous!

The ingredients are:

Chicken leftovers
Water
Carrot
Onion
Celery
Parsley stalks
Black peppercorns
Sea salt
Bay leaf
Bouquet garni

Put the leftover carcasses, skin and bones and any meat into a large stockpot and cover with cold water. Add a carrot, stick of celery, an onion, and parsley stalks. Add a dozen pepper corns and a good grind of sea salt. If you have made a fresh bouquet garni or have a dried one, you can put that in as well with a bay leaf or two.

Bring to a boil and then back off to a bare simmer for the next four or five hours. Skim the surface to remove any ‘scum’ as (if) it develops.

Remove from the heat and strain the stock through a sieve to remove the bones and vegetables. If you wish, you can further strain and re-strain the liquid through muslin to obtain a stock which is as clear as possible. It is possible to put the liquid back over heat to reduce and concentrate the result.

Generally speaking chicken stock is safe for a couple of days in the coldest part of the refrigerator, but it also freezes well. Some people fill ice cube trays to freeze stock and then transfer the cubes to freezer bags for convenience of use later on.

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We don’t mean to infer that this recipe is not good, simply that we are not going to join the internet recipe bandwagon claiming to have the perfect or best roast chicken recipe. By ‘everyday’, we do not infer that we cook chicken everyday, only that this is how we cook chicken if we are not going to follow a particular recipe for roast chicken e.g., pollo alla diavolo or pollo al mattone.

We like to use local free range birds. Sometimes we use a number of small birds which present very well at table. There is no magic to this. For good results use good poultry. I think we get the best results when we roast the birds in a kettle barbecue over charcoal (we use a Weber), without any added smoke wood like hickory, but you may disagree.

The ingredients are:

Chicken(s)
Onions
Lemons
Garlic
Herbs
Extra Virgin Olive Oil or butter
Sea salt and fresh ground black pepper
Rocket

Weigh your dressed poultry. Rinse the chicken under running water and dry with kitchen paper. Rub the chicken inside and out with the olive oil and salt and pepper.

At the same time, take a head of garlic and slice it through horizontally. Do not remove the skin. Place a half head of garlic in each bird’s cavity. Quarter your lemons and place one or two wedges in each chicken. In addition, or instead, you can use onion wedges. We really pack the birds. You might do this ahead of time and keep the bird(s) refrigerated. We also like to insert a fresh Rosemary sprig in each bird. Thyme also works well as does Tarragon.

When you are ready to cook the bird(s) make sure the skin is well oiled or buttered and place in a suitable roasting tray, on a trivet, breast side down. Generally, chicken is cooked at 20 minutes per pound with 20 more for luck! We give it an initial blast as hot as the Weber or oven can get for 15 minutes, then cook at 350F or so according to weight and until done, but be pro-active and keep an eye on the Weber or oven and adjust the cooking time or temperature to suit. We turn the bird(s) breast side up for the last 10 or so minutes to color and crisp the skin.

Remember, if things are going too fast you can protect parts of the bird(s) with foil. Have a metal meat skewer or bamboo satay stick handy. If the juices run clear when the chicken is tested by pricking, all should be well. If you have one, a cooking thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the leg should show about 160F.

If we are serving the chicken with roast vegetables, we might dispense with the trivet and roast the bird(s) on top of e.g., carrots and potatoes. However that may be, assuming the chicken is cooked, we remove it from the oven, empty the cavity, and rest it, covered with foil, in a warm place, for say, 15 minutes.

We might simply carve at the table, or joint the chicken for presentation with roast vegetables. With small birds, a handful of arugula/rocket/roquette/rucola/ruchetta/rughetta in the cavity looks well. Roast chicken can be wonderful on a bed of fresh-as-possible watercress.

You can use all that is left over to make chicken stock.

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