What I have eaten in Sicily

We are now back from Sicily. The weather was great, beautiful sunny day every day, hot but not too humid, food and wine were excellent and people were really nice.

Before we left for Sicily, I made a list of food I wanted to eat in Sicily (see my earlier blog - what I want to eat in Sicily). Here are what I have managed to cross off.

• brioche con gelato - sweet brioche bun cut open and filled with gelato. Well, I sort of have had this but with granita instead of gelato inside - see my earlier blog "Be cool in Sicily". The combination of nice soft warm brioche roll and head-freezing lemon granita works very well, especially in Sicilian summer!

Lemon granita with a soft warm brioche roll.

• caponata - one of my favorite; sweet and sour eggplant dish, served cold or at room temperature. Alfina, the chef at Hotel Feudo Vagliasindi, has made a delightful caponata for starter.

Sweet and sour caponata - Alfina made it delicate and rather refreshing taste

• pasta alla Norma - pasta with tomato sauce, diced fried eggplant (aubergine) and grated salted ricotta. According to legend, Sicilian composer from Catania, Vincenzo Bellini suggested the name of this dish to the chef of a restaurant near the opera house where he was rehearsing his famous opera "Norma". Alfina made it really tasty. My husband does not like aubergine but even he really enjoyed this dish. She used strozzapreti pasta instead of spaghetti, which was cooked to perfect al dante! Apparently the name of pasta strozzapreti associated with the word 'strangle' as it looks like taut rope!

Alfine made this dish with strozzapreti pasta coating the tasty sauce really well.

• pasta con le sarde - saffron-coloured pasta with fresh sardines, wild fennel leaves and a small dollop of sun-dried tomato. I had this at Restaurant Dino in Taormina. It was a very tasty dish but I was rather disappointed by the way they cooked this as it did not resemble to what I have always imagined from having read different Sicilian cooking books and TV programmes I have seen! I did not like the past they used - don't know what is called -  although I admit it did pick up anchovy sauce rather well, and also there were lots of anchovies in the sauce but there was no fillet of fried anchovies to top the dish and no currants used. I had also imagined the pasta to be more yellow - orangish colour to reflect saffron. Maybe I shall try making this by following George Locatelli's 'Made in Sicily' book to see how this would turn out to be. I shall let you know of the result but I don't know how or where I can get fresh sardines around here....???

Restaurant Dino's version of Pasta with Sardine - Taormina, Sicily.

• pesto di pistacchio - pistachio pesto. Well, Sicilians', especially area around Mt Etna where we stayed uses pistachio a lot! They use it for gelato, sweets, coating fish fillets like breadcrumbs and also for pasta sauce. Alfina at the hotel made this wonderful ribbon pasta with pistachio pesto sauce with ground pistachio nuts as decorations. This was a lovely dish, which was nutty and creamy but not too strong. I have also bought a jar of pistachio pesto from a wine shop in Randazzo so that I can make this at home. I wish I had also bought pistachio flakes whilst in Sicily but my husband says that we can buy this at any local supermarket - have you seen this in Tesco or Sainsbury's????

Alfina's delightful pistachio pasta!

Well, that's all! Unfortunately I could not cross off all of my list but I have tried dishes I otherwise would not have tried so I am happy with this. Don't know when we would go back to Sicily or if we ever go back at all but it was an interesting food experience, and I get to come back home with lots of pastry di mandola (Almond cakes) which is my favourite.  I shall eat it reminiscing a lovely time we had in Sicily, especially the lovely view of Mt Etna from our terrace of our hotel.....