Sicily : Sicilian Cooking: It Ain’t Heavy

Imagine the grumbling if French foodies started saying that American cooking was all just hamburgers and hot dogs covered with catsup. Hey, we’d say, what about our Texas barbecue? Our New Orleans gumbo? Our Carolina she-crab soup?

Ten years ago a bunch of Italian chefs--miffed at the perception that Italian food was all pasta drenched in red sauce--came to Los Angeles, opened a lot of restaurants and started changing people’s minds. Look, they said, we’ve got polenta from Venice, herb-stuffed chicken from Tuscany, roast pork from Rome, white truffles from Piedmont. What they didn’t talk much about was food from Italy’s South. The fashion was Northern Italian--sophisticated, light food that could be presented as the antithesis of heavy-handed Southern food. For the time being, it didn’t matter that true Sicilian and Neapolitan food had barely been given a chance in this country. Tackling the red-sauce reputation of the Italian South would have to wait.

“So,” wrote Carlo Middione in his book “The Food of Southern Italy,” “yet another stereotype (had) been produced: Northern Italian is the best Italian or the national Italian or the only Italian cooking.”

In the foreword to Middione’s book, Angelo Pellegrini called for “the righting of wrong inflicted on the people of Southern Italy and endured by them with patience for centuries.”

In Los Angeles, at least, a few of the wrongs are starting to right.

Two of the city’s most prominent restaurateurs, Celestino Drago (he founded Celestino, but now cooks exclusively at Drago) and Piero Selvaggio (he runs Valentino, Primi and Posto) were born in Sicily. Yet both generally ignored the food of their home region until recently.

“To be honest,” Selvaggio says, “I didn’t want to open a Sicilian restaurant--especially in the beginning. There was so much confusion about Italian food. I felt that the restaurant would have been called a mafia joint, or I would have been addressed with that kind of look that says, ‘Here is another greasy, tomato-and-meatball restaurant.’ For a while I called what we served ‘Northern Italian.’ But today I feel much more comfortable. Now, it’s just Italian food--I feel I can range freely from region to region, including Sicily.”

“Let’s face it,” Drago says, “until a few years ago it was all Tuscany, Tuscany, Tuscany. That’s what I really learned to sell. But the image of Sicilian food really bothered me. When I opened Drago a year ago I decided I had to put Sicilian food on the plate. I want to change what people think. I want to show them what Sicilian cuisine really is.”

What it really isn’t is heavy. “I’d never heard of manicotti or spaghetti with meatballs until I came to America,” says Drago, who trained to be a chef in Tuscany. “Sicily has the best produce, the best fish. Fruits, particularly oranges and lemons, are better than anywhere else because of the sun. The cooking is about quality and simplicity and freshness. It’s a natural cuisine, rich with flavor.”

When food writer Waverly Root asked Dr. Guido Carnera, the Sicilian representative of the Italian Accademia della Cucina, to differentiate Sicilian cooking from mainland Italian cooking, the professor said: “There is no such thing as a Sicilian cuisine. There are at least three distinct schools of cooking in Sicily: eastern, central and western. Sicilian cooking is more indigenous than is generally realized.”

“Sicily really is a melting pot,” Drago says. “Every town’s local specialty depends on who landed there through the years. You get couscous in Trapani, but not in Messina. The food has been influenced by Greece, Morocco, Spain, the Arabs. That’s also why some of the food is on the sweet side.”

Some of the ingredients that give Sicilian food its distinctive smack include giant capers, tomatoes that burst with flavor, salt cod (a habit learned from the Normans), and bread crumbs, which get mixed into several dishes. There are olives and eggplant, cinnamon and cloves, sesame seeds and almonds, raisins and wild fennel, swordfish and tuna, anchovies and sardines.

The hardest part about making Sicilian food in Los Angeles is getting the ingredients. “It’s gotten easier since I’ve been here,” Drago says. “The change is amazing.”

Even so, Drago rarely makes cannoli because he can’t get ricotta that meets his standards. But he does make timballo di melanzane, little souffles of eggplant with a clean, pure flavor; spaghetti alla bottarga , tossed with dried, cured tuna roe and bread crumbs; pasta con le sarde , spaghetti with fresh sardines and wild fennel; and rabbit roasted with olives and pepper. His Sicilian specialties are some of his most successful dishes.

“Back when I first started cooking in Los Angeles, at Orlando Orsini,” Drago says, “I made rabbit one night as a special and people left the restaurant because we were serving bunny. One lady even screamed. But now, 10 years later it’s my best-seller. I can’t take it off the menu.”

Farsumagru--it’s Sicilian for “false lean”--is steak stuffed with meats, cheeses, eggs and vegetables and then rolled to look like a roast. When sliced it’s absolutely beautiful. It’s most commonly seen on buffet tables, served at room temperature, but it’s terrific hot out of the roasting pan, the delicious meat juices drizzled over the slices. This recipe comes from Carlo Middione’s “The Food of Southern Italy.” Have a butcher butterfly the steak you buy (to facilitate pounding). If a large slice of meat in one piece is not available, get two slices of equal weight and proceed as described. There will then be two smaller rolls of meat, which many find more manageable than a single roll.

FARSUMAGRU (Rolled Steak, Stuffed Sicilian Style)

1 bunch spinach or Swiss chard

7 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 small onion, finely diced

2 pounds round steak, or similar cut of beef, cut into single slice not more than 1/2-inch thick and butterflied

1/4 cup grated pecorino cheese

1/4 cup bread crumbs

1/4 pound ground veal, beef or pork

1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley

Salt, pepper

2 large eggs

3 hard-cooked eggs

1 pound equal amounts of various cold cuts and cheeses: salami, prosciutto, provolone or caciocavallo cheeses, cut in medium dice or julienne strips

1/2 cup fresh or frozen peas

2 to 3 ounces pork fat, finely chopped

1 cup dry red wine

1 cup veal, beef or chicken broth, homemade preferred

2 tablespoons tomato paste

Remove hard stems from spinach, wash well and drain. Place spinach, with only wash water clinging to leaves, in medium saucepan. Gently cook over medium heat about 10 minutes, or until tender. Remove pan from heat and let spinach cool. Drain and squeeze to remove as much water as possible, then set aside. (Use water in soup, or as desired.)

Heat 3 tablespoons olive oil in saute pan. Add onion and saute until just golden. Remove from heat. Place in large bowl (must hold all filling later on).

Pound out steak slice (or slices) to 1/4-inch thick with mallet or flat side of heavy cleaver. Do not tear meat.

Mix pecorino cheese, bread crumbs, ground veal and parsley in bowl with sauteed onion. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Add raw eggs and mix again. Spread mixture evenly on pounded meat. Place hard-cooked eggs lengthwise, in row, on meat mixture. Scatter cold cuts, cheeses, peas, chopped pork fat and spinach evenly on top of ground-meat mixture and hard-cooked eggs. Roll meat tightly over stuffing into shape of log and tie with string in several places to secure during cooking.

Brown meat roll in large skillet in remaining 4 tablespoons olive oil, turning often. When meat is browned, place in flame-proof casserole dish. Pour in wine and broth. Add tomato paste and stir liquids well to disperse paste. Bring liquid to boil, then immediately reduce to simmer. Finish cooking meat on top of stove at simmer, or in 350-degree oven, 1 1/2 to 2 hours, turning meat often to baste with liquid. There should be about 1 cup liquid to use as sauce in dish, left in pan when meat is done.

Remove meat from casserole, let stand in warm place about 10 minutes, then remove string. Cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices and serve on heated plates. Spoon on remaining pan juices. Makes 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

870 calories; 1,528 mg sodium; 319 mg cholesterol; 60 grams fat; 18 grams carbohydrates; 57 grams protein; 0.56 gram fiber.

In his book “The Food of Southern Italy,” Carlo Middione writes that there is a dish “without which no Southern Italian could live: Sfinci di San Giuseppe.” As the name implies, the fritters, filled with ricotta, are traditionally served on St. Joseph’s Day. But they’re so delicious they make good eating any day of the year.

SFINCI DI SAN GIUSEPPE (St. Joseph’s Day Fritters)

1 quart olive oil

Cream Puff Pastry

Powdered sugar

Ricotta Filling

Heat olive oil to 350 degrees. Carefully drop Cream Puff Pastry batter, by tablespoonfuls, into hot oil, using finger or another spoon to dislodge dough. Fry small batches or oil will cool off and fritters will be soggy. Fritters will turn themselves over (as bottom of fritter cooks it expands and becomes lighter than top, which keeps fritters turning). If fritters don’t turn, turn with spoon. Fritters should almost triple in volume. When fritters are golden brown, remove with slotted spoon to dish lined with paper towels to drain excess oil.

Or tear open fritters and fill with Ricotta Filling and dust with powdered sugar. Serve immediately. Fritters are best hot; they do not keep well and cannot be reheated successfully. Heap on plate and serve. Makes about 25 fritters.

Note: Fritters may be eaten unfilled. After frying, simply dust fritters generously with powdered sugar.

Each serving contains about:

150 calories; 69 mg sodium; 56 mg cholesterol; 10 grams fat; 11 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams protein; 0.12 gram fiber.

Cream Puff Pastry

1 cup water

1/2 cup butter, or 1/2 cup unsalted butter with 1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1 cup flour

4 eggs, at room temperature

Place water, butter and sugar in heavy saucepan and bring to boil over high heat. Add flour all at once, lower heat, and stir vigorously with wooden spoon until batter makes soft cohesive mass that does not stick to sides of saucepan. Keep stirring batter over low heat about 2 minutes. When dough is quite cohesive and maintains ball shape as you spin it around pan, remove pan from heat.

Transfer mass of dough to bowl to cool about 10 minutes. When tepid, add 1 egg at time, beating in thoroughly. Batter should be firm enough to stand up in peaks. More eggs will increase fluffiness. Do not make dough too soft. Dough must hold shape readily when pushed around with spoon. Before adding last egg, test batter in hot oil.

Dough is best used just after making. Dough can be stored, covered, in refrigerator up to 2 days. Let dough come slowly to room temperature before using and re-beat dough.

Ricotta Filling

1 pound ricotta

1/4 cup semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

1/3 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons mixed glaceed fruit, or citron or orange, finely chopped

1/4 cup chopped pistachio nuts and/or toasted almonds

1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

Combine ricotta, chocolate, powdered sugar, vanilla, fruit and nuts in bowl and mix well. Whip cream until thick and fold into other ingredients in bowl. Filling can be made up to 1 day ahead and stored in refrigerator.

Drago serves these individual souffles as appetizers at his restaurant. It’s a wonderful use of eggplant, one of the most commonly used vegetables in Sicily. It’s essential that you use good Parmesan--the cheese is what rounds out the flavor.

IL TIMBALLO DI MELANZANE CON PUREA DI POMODORO (Drago’s Eggplant Souffle in Tomato-Basil Sauce)

7 Japanese eggplants

1 zucchini

1 sweet red pepper

1/4 cup olive oil

1 medium potato, thinly sliced

1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced

3 to 4 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

1 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano

Salt

1 tomato, seeded and peeled

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons bread crumbs

2 eggs

1 tablespoon butter

Tomato-Basil Sauce

Peel eggplants, cut into cubes and set aside. Cut whole zucchini into quarters. Remove centers and discard. Cut remaining zucchini into cubes and set aside. Repeat process with pepper and set aside.

Heat oil in saute pan, add eggplant cubes, potato, onion, basil and oregano and season to taste with salt. Saute until golden. Add tomato and cook approximately 10 minutes.

Pour eggplant mixture into food processor and blend until smooth. Add Parmesan cheese, bread crumbs and eggs into processor and blend 5 seconds.

Lace 8 (6-ounce) timbals with butter. Cover bottom of cup with chopped zucchini and pepper and fill rest of cup with processed eggplant mixture. Cook in bain marie at 350 degrees 40 minutes.

Remove timbals from oven and let stand in warm place 15 minutes.

When ready to serve, spoon small amount Tomato-Basil Sauce on individual serving plates, then flip souffle cups onto top of each plate. Serve warm. Makes 8 servings.

Each serving contains about:

250 calories; 401 mg sodium; 70 mg cholesterol; 18 grams fat; 14 grams carbohydrates; 9 grams protein; 1.1 grams fiber.

Tomato-Basil Sauce

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 tablespoon chopped onion

3 cups diced tomatoes

1 bunch basil

Salt

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon flour

Place olive oil and onion in saucepan and saute until golden. Add tomatoes, basil and season to taste with salt. Cook 10 minutes on low heat.

Melt butter in separate pan, add flour and mix well. Add butter-flour mixture to tomato sauce and cook few more minutes. Remove basil leaves from sauce and blend sauce in blender until smooth and creamy. Makes 2 cups.

Patience is rewarded with this cheesecake--it tastes better if you wait to eat it after it’s chilled overnight. Drago serves the orange-zest-flavored cheesecake at his restaurant--it reminds him of the Sicilian oranges of his home.

DRAGO’S ORANGE RICOTTA CHEESECAKE

6 egg yolks

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 pound or 1 (15-ounce) carton ricotta cheese

Chopped zest of 2 to 3 oranges

1 tablespoon cornmeal

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1 teaspoon flour

6 egg whites

Pate Sucre

Beat egg yolks and 1/2 cup sugar to ribbon stage.

Add vanilla, ricotta, orange zest, cornmeal, cornstarch and flour. Beat until smooth. Set aside.

Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add remaining 1/2 cup sugar and continue beating until stiff.

Fold ricotta and egg-white mixtures together and pour into precooked Pate Sucre. Bake at 400 degrees 15 minutes, then lower temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking approximately 3 minutes longer or until center of cake sets up. Chill cake overnight to set. Makes 1 (10-inch) cake, 16 servings.

Each serving contains about:

227 calories; 117 mg sodium; 146 mg cholesterol; 11 grams fat; 25 grams carbohydrates; 7 grams protein; 0.04 gram fiber.

Pate Sucre

1 1/3 cups flour

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter, cold and cubed

1 egg yolks

2 tablespoons whipping cream

Combine flour and sugar in mixer bowl.

Add cold butter and beat with mixer or by hand to cornmeal consistency.

Combine egg yolks and cream, then add to dough while mixing. Do not overheat dough.

Chill dough for ease in handling. Roll dough on lightly floured surface to fit round 10-inch cake pan. Bake at 325 degrees about 20 minutes, until lightly brown.

A lot of swordfish is eaten in Sicily, especially in Messina. There are many ways to prepare it; at his restaurant, Drago marinates the fish in salmoriglio, a delicious and simple sauce of olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, parsley and oregano. Then he sautes it and tops it with a little more salmoriglio, which is so good you may find yourself using it with other fish, with chicken, even pasta. Drago suggests serving the fish with grilled zucchini, eggplant and sweet peppers.

PESCE SPADA AL SALMORIGLIO (Drago’s Sicilian-Style Swordfish)

4 slices swordfish, each 1/2-inch thick

Salmoriglio

Bread crumbs

Olive oil

Marinate swordfish with 1/2 Salmoriglio (about 1/2 cup) 1 hour. Remove swordfish and lightly coat with bread crumbs.

Saute swordfish in hot olive oil about 2 minutes on each side. Remove fish and place on dry towel to absorb excess oil.

Place fish on individual serving plates and cover each serving with 1 tablespoon remaining Salmoriglio. Makes 4 servings.

Each serving contains about:

356 calories; 156 mg sodium; 35 mg cholesterol; 31 grams fat; 2 grams carbohydrates; 18 grams protein; 0.06 gram fiber.

Salmoriglio

1 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Juice 2 lemons

4 cloves garlic, finely sliced

1 tablespoon chopped Italian parsley

1 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano

Salt, pepper

Combine olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, parsley and oregano in bowl. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Whisk well. Makes about 1 cup.

Macco, a soup made from dried fava beans, is traditional in many regions of Italy, but Sicily makes its own version, called maccu, which is different from most others because it includes either fennel or celery heart. Like the Venetian bean soup pasta e fagioli, the pasta is secondary to the beans, which are delicious sopped up on a piece of crusty bread. Be sure to get good-sized fava beans, which are easier to work with; the skins should slip right off after soaking. Dried fava beans are a little hard to find, but many Italian and Middle Eastern markets, including Sorrento Market in Culver City , stock the beans.

MACCU (Dry Fava Bean Soup)

2 pounds dry fava beans

Water

1 onion, finely chopped

1 celery heart, finely chopped

3 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped

Salt

12 ounces spaghetti, broken into 1-inch pieces

Grated pecorino cheese

Extra-virgin olive oil

Soak fava beans in water to cover at least 24 hours. Or use quick-boil method. Cover fava beans with water and bring to boil. Simmer 2 minutes. Then cover and let stand 1 hour.

Drain fava beans and remove skins. In pot with 4 quarts water, add fava beans, onion, celery heart and tomatoes. Add salt to taste, cover and cook over low heat about 2 hours until beans start to fall apart.

In separate pot with boiling salted water cook spaghetti al dente. Drain and add to fava beans. Serve in individual soup bowls and garnish to taste with cheese and oil. Makes 12 servings.

Note: Soup also can be served at room temperature.

Each serving, without cheese or olive oil garnish, contains about:

374 calories; 50 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 2 grams fat; 68 grams carbohydrates; 24 grams protein; 2.68 grams fiber.

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