Mediterranean Summer Salad

This dish falls under the category of antipasti (pre-meal) but if you do not feel like cooking and want to eat light, this can be a very filling meal.
Almost all of the ingredients are ready made and go straight from the jar to the plate.
I purchase them at Costco but I am sure you can find them at any store, maybe except for the Greek olives.

Roasted sweet red peppers
Kalamata Greek olives pickled in red wine and olive oil
hearty chokes hearts pickled in oil
Fresh mozzarella cheese drizzled with extra virgin olive oil
Rustic Italian bread or french baguette toasted lightly in the oven

Enjoy!!

Healthy salad

Baked chicken and potatoes

Childhood memories resurface every time I make this dish. The wonderful smell of baked garlic and rosemary combined with the chicken and potatoes is so heavenly that as we say in Italy "it could bring back the dead."
I will give approximate amounts as I do not measure my ingredients.

 How easy is this recipe? Very easy:) here we go!

Chicken (white or dark meat, or both)
Six-seven medium size potatoes
Extra virgin olive oil
Dry or fresh rosemary
Several cloves of pealed garlic
Sea salt
Half a cup of water
Black pepper

Rinse the chicken and place it in a large deep pan.
Peal, cut and wash the potatoes (see the photo for size) and place them in the pan with the chicken.
Mince the garlic and place it in the pan, add the rosemary, the salt, an abundant drizzle of olive oil and the half cup of water. Lastly, grind fresh pepper on it. With a wooden spoon, mix it well so that the salt and other ingredients have the chance to be uniformly distributed. Remember to salt this dish well, otherwise your potatoes will remain bland.  

Bake uncovered at 375 degrees for about one and a half hour. Remember to stir the potatoes  every 20 to 30 minutes to avoid sticking. This dish is ready when the chicken has baked into a pretty golden color.

Nero D'Avola a wine with spunk!

I have a close connection with wine as my father used to be a vineyard expert.  Grapes and wine were an intimate part of our life, and the only wine on our table was exclusively home made or at least of local origin.  Nero D'Avola is a type of grape indigenous of my area, the eastern part of Sicily, later also grown in other parts of the island. The wine Nero D'Avola is named after the grapes it is made with. This grapes produce a wine with fruity flavors. Purity is maintained during the vinification process by exclusively using Nero D'Avola grapes, making this wine one of the great wines of Italy.

 Qualities:

structure and character, vibrant ruby red with purplish reflections if young, and of a darker red color when aged.
Its aroma is complex, with hints of spices (liquorish, all cloves), cherries, berries, chocolate and tobacco are only a few of the characteristics of the wines produced with Nero DAvola grapes.

Perfect with red meats, spicy foods and red sauces. You can find the Nero D'Avola  Cusumano brand at the local Price chopper here in KC for less then $15.00, also Trader Joe's carries Nero D' Avola of other brands for a price as low as $6.00 .

Easter is almost here

                                                    Pasturieddu (little canister)

Easter is a very important holiday in Italy, it is a national holiday celebrated with many culinary traditions that vary throughout the territory. The traditional Easter dishes made in Ragusa and throughout its provinces, are the impanati, a pot pie type of dish filled with lamb that is first seared and browned in garlic and olive oil, and then sealed in the pie crust to then be baked. The pasturieddi (little canisters) also made with lamb meet or beef,made in a similar way, and scaccie which is a calzoni like dish, filled with different vegetables,or ricotta cheese and sausage.

Update:will be posting recipes to the aforementioned dishes around Easter time of next year. Sorry, this are lengthy recipes, I did not have enough time to prepare them and post them before the holiday.

                                                             Pasturieddi
         

 

Impanati   

Sicilian Matalughia

                                         

This fried flat bread is made in the eastern side of Sicily, it is not sold in stores but made exclusively at home. The origin is uncertain, but is very plausible that it arrived to Sicily with the Jewish Diaspora. The name of the Jewish Yemenite fried flat bread is Malawach, which closely resembles in pronunciation our Sicilian Matalughia. Below are the steps on how to make this delicious flat bread. I will do my best to list the amounts of some of the ingredients, since I do not usually measure them. There is really no way to mess up this recipe unless you add too much water, therefore, this is the step you really need to be cautious with.

I made Mataluggia to celebrate the beginning of Passover, therefore I did not use any yeast. 

You will need the following ingredients:

2 cups of Bread flour (I use gold medal, better quality and easier to roll)
Warm water
1/2 teaspoon of Salt
Extra Virgin olive oil
Oregano
1 teaspoon dry Yeast


This will yield about 4-5 Matalugghias of a diameter of 5" each

In a large bowl mix the flour  with the salt while still dry, taste to check for salt and add more if needed.

 Create a crater in the center of the flour, and add some of the water and the yeast. This is when the fun begins! Get your hands in the dough and start mixing it.
You want to obtain a dough that is firm and not wet, carefully add the water in increments.

Knead until the dough is nice and smooth, this recipe does not call for the dough to raise, therefore you can start rolling your flat breads right away.

Pour three-four tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet, when it gets hot, sprinkle in some oregano and now you can fry your first Matalughia. Wait until it turns golden brown, now is time to flip it but your skillet may have dried and needs more oil in order to fry the other side, lift the matalughia off of the skillet and pour a little olive oil in it, as soon as it gets hot sprinkle some oregano and lay your bread on it to fry the other side. That's it! Continue rolling and frying the rest of your dough. Enjoy!

                          

Mediterranean Broccoli soup

 This very basic soup comes from the culinary traditions of the town of Comiso which happens to be my hometown. This is purely simple Mediterranean food,  where not many ingredients are needed, just a cold winter day, fresh broccoli florets, pasta, salt, extra virgin olive oil.

I use spring water to make my soups. Bring the water to a boil and add your cleaned and cut up broccoli. Add sea salt to taste. Let it cook at a medium flame until the broccoli have softened up, about 30-40 minutes. At this point I mash them still in the pot with a potato masher. Add more water if needed, and bring again to a boil, add the pasta, any kind of pasta for soup will do. However it is a must that you use high quality pasta, 100% durum wheat semolina. Make sure to do a quality check :) to see that the soup has enough salt, the salt will heighten the broccoli flavor.

When your pasta is cooked, of course not overcooked but al dente :), fill your bowls and drizzle with extra Virgin olive oil, I always add good Caciocavallo cheese, but this type of cheese is hard to find in the USA, maybe more available on the east coast. If you don't have caciocavallo you can use pecorino or Romano, enjoy!