Sgombro con Salmariglio

Summer in Sicily is normally soooo hot but not this week. Enjoying sun and cool breezes. 

Lunch's main course this day was mackerel, a bluefish perfect for a light meal. My sister in law met up with the fishmonger and he recommended making it into a cold dish. Easy and tasty. We accompanied it with sautéed green pepper strips, eggplant, and cherry tomatoes, and a salad. Ended with bread and cheese. Fantastic. 

Whole mackerel here are tiny fish, about 6-8" long, and our fishmonger cleans them. Of course they shouldn't smell at all or be slimy.  Mackerel have skin and no scales so are perfect for quick cooking. 

Lay the fishes in a pan and barely cover with water. Add a teaspoon of salt, a little dried or fresh mint, a few fennel seeds, and bring to a soft boil. Reduce and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove the fish, let cool a bit, and gently split into filets and remove bones. Place fillets on serving platter. 

Salmariglio is the standarddressing for   Italian meats and fish.  Chop a large bunch of fresh parsley, add to this the juice of a lemon, a little zest as well, about 1/4 c of olive oil, a teaspoon salt and a couple cloves of crushed garlic. Mix well and gently dress fish. Let sit while you prepare your side dishes and serve room temp. Decorate with a few sliced cherry tomatoes. 

This made for the perfect meal to eat with the balcony doors open wide and the breeze keeping us cool, and a little naturally effervescent water from the tap, bubbly thanks to our local volcano. Perfect. 

Peach Cobbler a la italiana

Ok ok so peach cobbler isn't Italian. It should be. It has all the required characteristics of an Italian dessert. Not too sweet. Fresh fruit. A lemon. Oh and gelato. I made some last night. And now all my sisters in law are making it. 

This cobbler was really easy and I eyeballed most of the ingredients. So here's the eyeball method. 

Preheat oven to 425F or 200C. 

Take a round 9" cake pan and fill it with chunked up fresh peaches. Here, if you want fruit, it had better be in season. Besides bananas and pineapples, the only fruit around is in season and local. Right now it's cherries, fist sized figs, and peaches. The flat ones. I had never used them since in the states they're unripened and smell nasty where I live. Here they're perfect. Of course, because they're in season. 

I filled the pan with about 8 large flat peaches. I just cut them in wedges about 1/2" or less thick. 

Add 1/3 cup sugar

A heaping teaspoon cornstarch

The zest of one large lemon and its juice 

1/2 tsp vanilla or almond extract. Or none if you don't have any. No big deal. 

By the way, I have a new zest theory. We waste so much wonderful lemon zest using that little zesting tool. I use a sharp knife and just cut off the yellow. Make sure what comes off is yellow on both sides. Then cut in tiny zester looking strips. You get a TON of lemon zest, and because its cooked in sugar, it's a pleasure to find a piece now and then. Just my two euros worth of opinion. 

Ok so put this pan in the oven for 12 minutes. Or 15. Doesn't matter. Meanwhile make your dough. So easy. 

Mix a cup flour

Half a cup sugar

A heaping tsp baking powder

Two BIG pinches salt. Blend a little with your fingers. 

Add a stick of cold butter that you've cut in little pieces. Smoosh now into the flour over and over bit by bit until its all flaky. 

Now this is the weird part. Heat some water till really hot. Drizzle it into the flour, about a tbsp at a time, and fluff with a fork. Keep adding just until the dough comes together. Stir a tad to

Wet everything, and then dollop on top of the hot peaches. It'll probably cover it but don't worry if it doesn't. 

Pop back in the oven about 30 minutes or until brown and bubbly. Done!  This needs to be warm or hot even when served. And must be with ice cream. Over here vanilla is rare so we use fior di latte (the flower of the milk I.e. cream), or panna (cream). Any which way it works. Last night the little ones were asking for seconds. Should've know better than to make one pan for 11 people...

Italian Street Food

I'm sure many things come to mind if you imagine Italian street food. Particularly from a food truck. Well, what we imagine probably is nothing like what they serve up in Catania. 

They are sandwich trucks. Behind the counter you see rotisseries with golden chickens, trays of potatoes roasting underneath them, catching all those food juices, ... And a grill for hamburgers and hot dogs. 

They love hotdogs. Theirs don't have all the nastiness that comes to mind when we think of hotdog ingredients. They're so tasty. 

They're split down the middle, grilled,  and lain on a split Italian hard roll. Then you have your choice of toppings. 

Those are behind the glass. Behind the glass are probably twenty different toppings in shiny flat oval shaped plates. You have no idea what they are but it's really interesting watching a 9 year old boy point out all the unusual vegetable and meat toppings he wants on his hotdog. 

The standard though is:

Bread, hotdog, a pile of French fries, a good squirt of mayonnaise, and a good squirt of ketchup. Set in a paper boat, or wrapped in foil, and there you go. Yum. Take a bite with all those things in it. Messy and good. 

Better still is my nephew's favorite: 

Bread, hot dog, mustard, salsa capricciosa (pickled julienne carrots and cabbage in a mayonnaise sauce), whole kernel corn, French fries and sometimes ketchup or barbecue sauce. (Pictured here)

Other toppings (yes, ON the hot dog) include: eggplant Parmesan, tuna sauce, shrimp sauce with baby shrimp, aurora sauce, grilled steak rolls with provolone, and of course lettuce tomato and onion. 

The sky is the limit here. Grab a coke or an aranciata (fizzy orange juice...NOT a Fanta) and you're set for an evening out, maybe by the Mediterranean with the lights shining on the cobblestones. 

Linguine with Wild Fennel Weed

This is one seriously Sicilian dish. Wild fennel weed that must be picked wild, preferably off a mountain like the volcano Etna.....then a quick run by the fish market to get some little fish. Almost any kind will do. The most used would be a blue fish. You could use mackerel, or fresh sardines too. Best bet is go to a Chinese market and find some fresh or frozen tiny fish. They love fish as much as Sicilians do. 

These two ingredients make for the perfect summer pasta dish. Light and nutrient rich, with a nice crunch to boot.

1 lb linguine

A fist full of dill weed with stalks

An onion

2 salted anchovy fillets finely chopped

1/2 c pine nuts

1/2 c raisins

4 peeled tomatoes or 1 c diced tomatoes

1 1/2 c breadcrumbs

1 lb little fishes

Fill a pasta pot with water and salt as for boiling pasta. Take your fennel weed and put it right in there. Let it boil 20 min. I think we could substitute fresh dill weed. Has to be fresh and not dried. Put a whole bunch in. Let it blanch and then pick it out and let drain. Keep that dilly water for the pasta. 

Chop the dill up nicely and add to a skillet with one grated onion and 2 tbsp or so of olive oil. Sauté all that for a bit. Throw in some everything else including  pine nuts and / or raisins if you have them and sauté together. Add a bit of dilly water to make saucy. Squish the tomatoes and they'll disappear. Sauce shouldn't be red. 

Your little fishes should be cleaned and have no scales but still probably have bones. It's up to you to decide whether to filet or not. However you decide, toss in the fish and sauté away. When the fish is done, set it aside. They might fall apart and it's ok. Salt to taste. 

In another skillet toast some plain breadcrumbs. Put a bit of olive oil in with a crushed garlic clove and sauté. Add the breadcrumbs a with a little Parmesan. 

Like 1/3 cup per person. Make them nice and golden. Just set the skillet on medium high and stir every so often. Put them in a bowl for the table. 

Now boil your pasta in the dilly salted water, and strain, saving some pasta water for the table.  Toss in with the fish sauce and add pasta water as needed to make it come together. 

Serve each plate with a nice sprinkling of breadcrumbs and some Parmesan if desired.  It's crunchy and fresh and healthful. Dill weed is well known for its healthful properties and so are tiny fish :)

**In our family we actually fry the little fish fillets separately and put on top of the pasta. It's a little drier to eat but we like it. Just dredge the fillets in breadcrumbs and fry in a little olive oil. Salt to taste. 

Caffè al bar

Having time to kill in the Italian airports means coffee at the bar. Sidle up to the cashregister  and state your preference... In Naples today for me it was a caffè macchiato...espresso with a little stain of lightly steamed whole milk. 1€. I hand him a €5, slide my coins out of the change dish, which is a beautiful custom made Italian ceramic plate with the bar's name painted in royal blue with gold flourishes, along with the required receipt. Proof you have a right to that caffè.  

Now to maneuver to the bar somehow. If you're Italian, coffee drinking isn't the long sipping and chatting exercise we participate in. Your job is to produce the receipt, order your drink, drink it and leave a space for the next person. Sounds simple. It isn't.  

A spot vacates and I move in. Casually holding my receipt just above the counter level, not to seem too anxious, I wait for the barista's glance. He's wearing a traditional uniform, short sleeved white cotton dress shirt, a vest in royal blue, a red bowtie, and a royal blue hat that reminds me of the ice cream scoopers from the '50s. His eyes glance at me and he smiles from down the bar, and when he is halfway to me I mutter, "macchiato". 

He grins, swiftly grabs three stylish, tall, thin glasses with three of his fingers, runs them under the bar sink faucet and fills them halfway with water from the sink. It's a fizzy water, naturally, as we are in a volcanic area. He puts a glass before a flight attendant, a pilot, and then flips it upside down and places one in front of me without spilling a drop.  "Bella signora, vorrebbe qualcosa da mangiare oggi?" ...pretty lady, would you care for  something to eat? He smiles again, flashing those black neopolitan eyes, and starts making our espressos. 

Why the water? To clean your palate, of course! I drink mine, tasting the minerals and feeling the amazingly fine bubbles clean my mouth. By the time I'm done, so are the coffees. 

It's served in a warm cup, with the name of the coffee in the ceramic. I add one bag of sugar, it floats for a second or two and falls through. Yes it's a good coffee. I stir, then pass the back of the tiny spoon over the rim where il'l drink, to flavor the cup. Who wants to taste a ceramic cup? Then take it in, usually in three or four good sips. Done. Before I can put the cup back, my barista is back asking if it was buono... It's coffee at a bar in italy. How could it not be anything but incredible? And for me it was much more. I was 'commossa''. Moved...it was like they'd been waiting for me to come home. 

Get Ready...

Coming soon, as in beginning Wednesday, ill be posting a plethora of fantastic Italian dishes. I leave then for a month of reminding my palate of what we all strive for in our kitchens...easy, whole food, healthy, fantastic dishes that are created in response and conjunction with the weather, the health of the family, and the other meals of the day, to create optimum health and satisfaction. Yes, it can happen in your kitchen, and yes it's not really that difficult. 

Stop by this month and see how it's done.