Although the dishes in this chapter are predominantly made with vegetables, this is the food of Sicily, so it is inevitable that anchovies manage to find their way into many of the recipes!
Insalata di olive verdi schiacciate
Salad of crushed olives
When you look at the ingredients of this salad, you will probably think, as I did, that it is too simple to be very exciting, but it is unbelievable the way the celery takes up the flavours and combines with the olives and mint, so that the whole thing tastes really fresh and fantastic.
Serves 4–6
450g good whole green olives in brine
about 6 celery stalks, with leaves if possible, all finely chopped
the leaves from about 10–12 stalks of mint, finely chopped
40ml Giorgio’s dressing
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Drain the olives and pat dry. With a sharp knife, make three or four cuts in each olive from end to end, then cut each segment away from the stone as carefully as you can. Put the pieces into a bowl and add the celery, the celery leaves, and the mint leaves. Toss with the dressing, season and serve.
Menta Mint
‘A herb that people would love forever’
Mint is a very Sicilian herb, and something you rarely see in other regions of Italy. The story is that Mentha was a Greek nymph who was loved by the god Pluto. His wife, Persephone, was so jealous of Mentha that she crushed her into the ground, but Pluto turned her into a herb that people would love forever.
There is an incredible number of different mint varieties, but the one that is most often found in Sicily is Mentha viridis (spearmint), which grows everywhere. It is one of the herbs that is said to stimulate the appetite, so it is often used in dishes that appear with the antipasti: in an olive salad (Insalata di olive verdi schiacciate), or with fresh peas and artichokes. Coming from the north of Italy, where basil is the beloved herb, I have been surprised and entranced by the way a few leaves of mint can change the whole nature of a simple salad; and whenever I am in Sicily, I also make tea out of it. The important thing to remember with mint, though, is that it must always be freshly picked and used immediately, as it is a herb that loses its flavour the moment it is cut.
Sicilian chickpea fritters
Panelle is the quintessential street food. In Palermo you see vendors frying the thin fritters of chickpea flour in oil on street corners, or in the Vucciria market, and in the smaller towns and villages you see guys driving around in their little three-wheeled Ape Piaggios, with a gas burner on the back. They stop where they feel like it, fire up the burner underneath a big wok-like pot of olive oil, and start frying.
Serves 4
250g chickpea flour
a pinch of salt
a handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves, finely chopped
a little olive oil
vegetable oil for deep-frying
sea salt
Pour 500ml of cold water into a heavy pan, then add the chickpea flour in a steady stream, whisking constantly to avoid lumps.
Add the salt and cook over a medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the mixture thickens and pulls away from the sides of the pan. Add the parsley.
Rub a cold surface (marble if possible) with olive oil, spoon out the mixture, and spread it out thinly (about 3mm) with a rolling pin or spatula. When it cools down, cut it into squares or triangles.
Heat the vegetable oil in a deep pan, making sure it comes no higher than a third of the way up the pan. It should be 180°C. If you don’t have a thermometer, put in a few breadcrumbs, and if they sizzle straight away the oil is ready. Deep-fry the fritters until golden, about 1–2 minutes. Drain on kitchen paper, sprinkle with sea salt and serve warm.
Finocchietto selvatico Wild fennel
‘A flavour that feels only Sicilian’
If I had to identify a flavour that feels only Sicilian, then it is wild fennel. If basil represents the north of Italy, then wild fennel represents Sicily.
There are three types of fennel: the bulb, or Florence fennel, that Sicilians use in caponata and raw in salads; then there is the sativa, which is the intensely flavoured one that makes the seeds that Americans put in everything Italian. You go to America and you have to say, ‘Can I have something to eat that is without fennel seeds, because not all Italian food has fennel seeds in it!’ In Sicily the seeds are used in some sauces and breads. But mostly, they use wild fennel, because it grows everywhere.
Sometimes it is called finocchietto di montagna, fennel of the mountains, but you don’t need to go near a mountain to see it. When I walk out of the house where we stay in Sicily near the sea, it is growing all along the path. So I might go into the village and buy a big fish, maybe a branzino (sea bass), or a gilt-head bream, then I will take some sliced potato, a couple of slices of lemon, put in some wild fennel, and maybe some mint, with the fish on top, add a little olive oil and bake it in the oven. When it cooks the fish takes on the fantastic aniseed flavour, which is more aromatic and grassy and less overpowering than the seeds can be: it just seems to produce a very fine note in the background to whatever you are cooking. It is a key ingredient in one of the island’s most famous dishes, pasta con le sarde (pasta with sardines, pasta con le sarde), it is put into the cooking water for broad beans, and picked fresh, it really helps the flavour of a tomato sauce and gives it another dimension, if you put it in at the last minute.
You can’t come back from Sicily without big bunches of wild fennel. It is impossible. The boys in the kitchen at Locanda would never forgive me. On the road towards the airport it grows all along the verges, so the last thing you do before you come home is get out of the car and pick some, and when you arrive to check in you see you are not the only one with the idea!
Broad bean fritters
These are similar to the panelle made with chickpea flour, but this time they are made with dried broad beans. Broad beans have a big significance in Sicily. The ancient Greeks believed the souls of the dead lived in fava beans, and they are still associated with All Souls’ Day on 2 November, when special biscuits are made in the shape of the beans. They are also meant to be a good omen, especially on Good Friday. When I was in Ragusa over the Easter holiday, we ate at a restaurant and we were each given three cooked (dried) beans, with a little salt and olive oil, to represent the Trinity, before the start of the meal.
The best are the beans of Leonforte, now supported by a Slow Food Presidium. When the young beans are harvested they are eaten fresh with spring