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.....

Be cool in Sicily

It's late September yet the temperature in Sicily during the day is still very hot. We were in Taormina the other day and it was 27c during the day! Where we are just now, near Randazzo, it is around 24c during the day but in the evening it can be quite cool. You get a lovely breeze during the day without much humidity, you almost forget how strong the sun is and you end up getting sunburn if you forget to use sun cream like I have just done!

Anyway, great treat to have if you want to be cool in such a sunny and hot day is granita, Sicilian Ice, which is made by slowly mixing ripe seasonal fruits, sugar and water to a coarser, more crystalline texture. I like granita di limone (Lemon Granita), which is very nice and refreshing.

Granita di Limone at a cafe in Taormina.

Karen Landes in her book, In Etna's Shadow, explains how to make this refreshing ice treat. In a metal bowl, mix the juice of 3 lemons, 1/3 cup super-fine sugar, and 1 cup water. Place the bowl with the liquid into the freezer and stir every 30 minutes with a fork to break-up the ice crystals. Continue stirring until the liquid becomes granular but still slightly slushy, about 3 to 4 hours.

We were in Randazzo yesterday. It was about 11.30am and it was starting to get really warm. We went into a pasticcerie. My husband ordered an espresso and a small strawberry pasty. I ordered a granita di limone and the proprietor asked if I wanted it with a brioche. Yes, I have heard about gelati with a brioche in Sicily, which is on my list (see my earlier blog - what I want to eat in Sicily), so without any hesitation, I nodded my head for yes. Apparently Sicilians eat gelato in a soft warm brioche roll in a sandwich style, while granita into which pieces of brioche are dunked for breakfast! I looked around and yes, I did indeed see some locals eating ice cream or granita with brioche. This is a very interesting combination happening in my mouth - nice soft, sweet and warm brioche roll and cool and refreshing granita at the same time. It does really work, but you got to be in Sicily to really appreciate it.

Granita di limone and a soft warm brioche roll.

Italy is famous for gelato. According to Blue Guide - Sicily (2012 edition), it is quite possible that ice cream was invented in Sicily. The Romans brought down snow from Mt. Etna during the winter, stored it in pits dug in cool cellars, covering it with a thick layer of straw or sawdust to keep it fresh until summer. It was then recovered and mixed with wine, honey and spices and sold as a great luxury to the riches. The Arabs in Sicily then used sugar instead of honey and fruit juice instead of wine, calling it sherbet (hence sorbet). Then 17c Sicilian confectioner added cream to the mixture, which became the origin of what we have for gelato today.

Gelato is however mainly made with milk, which means less fat and has no air added (aside from what occurs naturally during the churning process), so it has more intense, dense and creamier flavour that normal ice cream. When you go to gelaterie (ice cream parlors), you see so many different flavours to choose from, usually as many as 30 - 40 choices!

Orange flavour gelati - this meant to be the smallest size!!!

The hotel where we are staying serves semifreddo for dessert, which is a semi-frozen dessert made with a base similar to gelato but with cream added. Being near Mt Etna, they serve pistachio flavoured semifreddo, with grated pistachio nuts. 

Semifreddo al pistacchio.

In fact here in Mt Etna region, they use pistachio as well as almonds for food extensively and imaginatively, which is another story for another day.