Category: recipes of Italian cuisine

Sicilian breading: you should always have an escort – Italian Cuisine

A breadcrumb with an unmistakable aroma, to be used in a thousand different ways to bring some Sicilian air into our homes

The scent of this one breading it is also a little the scent of Sicily. After all, one of the iconic dishes of Sicilian cuisine is precisely the ca'muddica pasta, that can be declined in many different recipes with an irresistible detail that unites them: the bread crumbs. It is not just a final touch to be given to the spaghetti dish, but a simple idea to be exploited with a lot of imagination.

This flavored breadcrumbs is also a symbol oflove: Claudia from Sciacca, in the province of Agrigento, sends ready-made bags to her daughter Sofia, who lives in Milan. You can to preserve and to pull out in the most opportune moment: it takes just a little to transform simple ingredients and savor a bit of Sicily. Claudia was our mother too, telling us about her recipe.

The Sicilian breading recipe

To prepare this breading you need the following ingredients: bread, garlic, wild fennel, caciocavallo, parsley, salt and pepper. The ideal is to recover the stale bread: once hard, it must be grated and combined with parsley chopped, thegarlic reduced to small pieces, the cheese grated and finally seasoned with salt and pepper. There is no need to weigh, you can go to the eye, even according to your preferences. It can be prepared in abundance, as it is possible freeze and keep it as an escort.

How to use Sicilian breading in the kitchen

This Sicilian breading is suitable for many different preparations: you can use it first for breading e to fry the classics cutlets, le vegetables, le meatballs and omelettes.
If you don't prefer frying, you can use breading also for to roast the chosen ingredient. A very simple one grilled chicken breast can become really greedy: before roasting, it will be enough to pass the slice in the oil and then in the breading.
Rolls, zucchini is sliced aubergines, stuffed tomatoes… the possibilities are endless! Toasting in the pan or baking in the oven, the breading will give off an aroma that will make your mouth water.

You can also prepare simple ones meatballs: beat the eggs and mix them with the breadcrumbs, add a little milk if the mixture is too dry, take a tablespoon of the mixture and fry the meatballs in the boiling oil.

Careful, the stock doesn't last long because it's too good.

The peppers are not all the same: choice guide – Italian Cuisine

Colorful, tasty fruits – or rather berries! – in the warm season, we learned the 5 tricks to prepare and above all to digest the peppers. Protagonists of tables, recipes and grills, even if i pepperoni they are on sale all year round, it is in the maturity of the summer season that they should be parted and enjoyed – as with all fruit and vegetables, seasonality is important.

The pepper is normally grown in flat, silty and sandy lands. Sowing takes place between December and early April, while it is harvested, strictly by hand, from the end of July. In August the apotheosis begins and it is then in September that we can still buy those nostrani, grown in open fields in the regions of our South, more tasty. In the other months of the year, peppers grown in greenhouses are marketed, or they come from abroad. In Italy, in fact, lately the imports have exceeded the exports, due to the constant reduction of the cultivated surfaces.

How to proceed with their choice and purchase, then?

The choice

At the time of purchase, choose the peppers with the shiny and well stretched peel, with the firm pulp to the touch, without roughness and dents, with the cut of the peduncle quite fresh. If you do not use them right away, you can keep them in the lower part of the refrigerator even for a week.

The varieties

There are many types of peppers, also because each year new varieties or selected hybrids are added to the traditional ones. Commercially sweet peppers are distinguished by their shape ("long" or "square") and color (green, red or yellow). In general, the red peppers have thick and crunchy pulp, the yellow ones are more tender and juicy, the green ones have a more herbaceous flavor. The Slow Food presidium watches over the Lungo, renamed Corno di Bue: intense yellow or bright red, conical shape and dimensions that exceed 20 centimeters.

Square of Asti: it can be red or yellow, it has a very fleshy and sweet pulp and is recognized by the typical shape that gives it its name, with four lobes at the base. For this reason it is an ideal "basket" for stuffed rice or meat, to be cooked baked. In Piedmont, its territory of origin, it is eaten raw in pinzimonio or with the typical bagna cauda.

Pepper of Carmagnola: it is cultivated with traditional methods on about 200 hectares in the territories of the province of Turin and Cuneo and harvested from the end of July to the end of October. There are four types, but the most common are the "Corno" or "Lungo" and the "Quadrato", both yellow or red. These too can be tasted raw, but they are also excellent roasted in the oven or in the classic combination of Piedmontese cuisine with rabbit.

Pepper of Pontecorvo Dop: cultivated in the province of Frosinone, where it is harvested until the end of October, it has an elongated shape and a bright red color, but can have green streaks up to 40% of its surface. With an intense and slightly spicy flavor, it is characterized by a particularly thin skin, which makes it more digestible. Excellent consumed fresh (in salads or in pinzimonio), but also cooked (for peperonata and caponata).

Friggitello: small (about 10 cm), of an intense green color and tapered, its production is concentrated in the South, mainly in Campania, as well as in Puglia and Basilicata, where it is harvested as it matures until the end of September. Characterized by a sweet taste, it can be used raw in mixed salads, or in the classic peperonata. Traditionally, in the Neapolitan cuisine comes fried in a pan (hence the name): those young, particularly sweet, can be fried whole, without eliminating seeds and peduncle.

Cornelius: it's a new variety of pepper, selected from the traditional "corna di toro", with which it has in common the elongated shape and the intense and brilliant color: yellow, red or red with green streaks. The peel is thin, so that it is not necessary to peel it, the flesh is meaty, crunchy and very sweet. Characteristics that make it ideal both for raw consumption, for greater digestibility, and in the kitchen, for the simplicity of preparation. It is produced in Sicily, with the integrated production method.

How to clean

The internal white seeds must be eliminated, as are the more fibrous ribs. Also the petiole must be eliminated, unless it is used to lift the cap in the filled versions. If the peel is thick, remove it with a potato peeler: the peppers will turn out more digestible. Another method is to put them on the plate lined with wet and squeezed baking paper and toast them (180 °) for about 40 minutes, turning them often. Let them cool in a bag, then peel them: you will get perfect and well-cooked layers.

Paola Mancuso
September 2016
updated August 2019
from Emanuela Di Pasqua

DISCOVER THE COOKING COURSES OF SALT & PEPE

Gratinated Vongole – 's Vongole Recipe – Italian Cuisine

aubergines au gratin in the oven they are perfect for a summer dinner and, if you want to have the maximum expression of this dish, use true clams!

First let the clams soak for at least a couple of hours to remove the sand residues.
Drain, rinse them thoroughly and place them on the fire in a large pan, with a lid: they will open in a few minutes.
As soon as they are open, remove them from the heat, strain the cooking liquid with a narrow mesh strainer and leave it aside.

Season the breadcrumbs with chopped garlic and parsley and a pinch of salt.
Open the clams and remove the half empty shell, then arrange them on the oven tray.
Fill the shells with the breadcrumbs and sprinkle with a little oil, then cook at 250 ° C in a preheated ventilated oven for 4-5 minutes or until they are well gratinated.

The gratin clams are ready: serve immediately.