Made in Sicily. Giorgio Locatelli

whole with the skins on, or already skinned and split, in Turkish and Jewish stores. If they are whole, once cooked put them through a sieve to lose the rough skins.

      The beans are cooked with wild fennel (Finocchietto selvatico), but you could use a teaspoonful of fennel seeds, soaked for an hour or two in a tiny bit of water.

      Serves 4

      900g dried broad beans

      ½ medium onion, sliced

      a few fronds of wild fennel, or 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds soaked in water

      a pinch of dried chilli flakes (optional)

      a little olive oil

      vegetable oil for deep-frying

      sea salt

      Soak the dried beans in water overnight, then drain. The next morning put them into a pan with the onion and fennel, and the chilli flakes, if using. Add enough unsalted water to cover and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and cook gently for 2–3 hours, adding a little water if necessary until the beans break down to form a very thick purée, then season to taste with salt. Keep stirring to avoid sticking, then pass through a sieve. Grease a work surface, preferably marble, with olive oil and pour the mixture on to it. Roll out to a thickness of about 5mm and allow to cool. Cut into 5cm strips.

      Heat a few inches of vegetable oil in a pan, making sure it comes no higher than a third of the way up. It should be 180°C. If you don’t have a thermometer, put in a few breadcrumbs and if they sizzle the oil is ready. Deep-fry the strips until golden, about 1–2 minutes. Drain on kitchen paper and serve warm.

Maccheroni nel ‘maccu’ fritto

      Pasta and fava (broad bean) cubes

      This is another of those surprisingly delicious dishes born out of cucina povera. Maccu comes from the old Italian word maccare (to crush) and this is a simple purée of dried fava beans that you would make to eat on its own, with pasta or thinned down with water, to make a soup. If any purée was left over, you could leave it to harden, then cut it up and fry it the next day. In Palermo they traditionally mixed the purée with cooked squash, instead of fennel, and in the Madonie mountains, south-east of the city, they would add chopped tomato.

      I also like the purée just served with onions, sautéed in olive oil, then mixed with a little salt, sugar and vinegar, on top, or some chicory, blanched quickly in boiling water, drained, then sautéed gently in olive oil with a little chopped garlic and chilli. The sweet and sour of the onions, or the bitterness of the chicory, make a great contrast with the maccu, which is quite sweet.

      Serves 4

      360g dried fava or broad beans

      1 sprig of wild fennel or 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds, soaked in a little water

      400g small macaroni

      sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

      extra virgin olive oil

      4 tablespoons plain flour

      vegetable oil for deep-frying

      Soak the dried beans overnight. Next day, drain and put them into a pan with enough unsalted water to cover, bring to the boil, then turn down the heat, add the fennel and cook gently for 2–3 hours, stirring regularly to stop the beans from sticking, until they form a thick purée. Season with salt.

      Cook the macaroni in plenty of boiling salted water for about 6 minutes, or until al dente. Drain and season generously with pepper. Mix with the broad bean purée. Grease a rectangular baking tray with extra virgin olive oil and spread the bean and macaroni mixture in a layer no more than 1.5cm thick. Put into the fridge overnight to solidify.

      Next day, slice the maccu into small squares and dip them into the flour, shaking off any excess. Heat 2.5cm of 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 the oil is ready. Deep-fry the squares until golden on all sides. They can be eaten hot or cold.

Carciofi Artichokes

      ‘Black from the ashes, smoky, tender, delicious …’

      The truly Sicilian way with artichokes is to bury them in the ash of a wood-burning stove after the bread has been made, or in the embers of the barbecue, and roast them slowly until they are black on the outside from the ashes, but smoky, tender and delicious inside.

      In Sicily there is a big production of artichokes. It is not unusual for me to drop into Vittorio’s restaurant and find him and his wife, Francesca, or one of the women who helps him, working their way through five boxes of them, brought in that morning.

      In spring and summer, if you buy artichokes from the local guys or in the stalls in the market, they come in bunches, some big, some small, usually with one or two baby artichokes attached. They are put into everything from frittedda and spring stews (Stufato di verdure primavera), made with fresh peas and broad beans, to caponata (Caponata), or they are simply blanched, then put under oil, perhaps with a little chilli, as an antipasto; or chopped and tossed in a salad with some olives and slices of lemon.

      But my favourite way is this roasting in the ashes, usually of olive branches. There is even a special kind of graticola, an iron grill, enclosing a series of ‘cones’ for the purpose. Instead of peeling the tough outer leaves as you would normally do before cooking the artichokes, what you do is lay each artichoke on its side on a table and roll it, pressing down gently, to loosen the leaves; then you hold it by its stalk and press the tips down on the table, just enough to open out the leaves a little, so that the hot air can circulate through the artichokes as they cook.

      Next you put them, stalk first, into the iron cones and push the grill into the ashes, leaving the tops of the artichokes showing, sprinkle them with salt and oil, and leave them for about forty minutes, so they boil from the inside, but char on the outside. Then you simply peel off the blackened leaves and eat them just as they are.