I’m sure that right now you’re saying, either aloud and making all your work-mates turn to look at you, or more sensibly, in your head so that nobody knows that you’re not working, “What the heck is Ciceri e Tria??!!!”.  Well, that’s what I said when I first heard of these words when we were in Puglia a few weeks ago.  Ciceri e tria simply means chickpeas and tagliatelle in the Puglese dialect.  I ate it for the first time at a marvelous  family-run restaurant in Lecce called Alle Due Corti .  Rosalba de Carlo, the matriarch of the family and restaurant founder, oversees all the diners from a table in the corner of the restaurant.  You have the feeling that if you don’t eat everything on your plate, she will come over and tell you off.  🙂 The menu there full of traditional Salento dishes. Salento is the stunning region in the “heel of the boot” full of  white-sand beaches, and beautiful ancient towns that still have their medieval walls.

Lecce is a beautiful, mainly pedestrian, wonderfully ornate Baroque town. It was founded when the Greeks lived there, so that means a loooong time ago.  Around the area there are villages in which they still speak a dialect which is very close to ancient Greek.  Amazing that it hasn’t changed over the last thousand-odd years!  I say that the town is “mainly pedestrian” as you still have to watch out for the ubiquitous Fiat Pandas driving down “roads” scarcely wide enough for three people to walk abreast in, but mainly it’s a peaceful place to wander around in.

For ciceri e tria you use fresh tagliatelle made without eggs.  I’m not sure what would happen if you used tagliatelle with eggs, but it may mess up the important part of the dish in which you fry part of the pasta in olive oil until it’s crispy.  I haven’t done a test yet to see what happens if eggs are involved.  If anyone tries it, please let me know how it goes!  Just an aside here: the fried tagliatelle turn into something a little like chips.  Just add a little salt and you have a delicious snack without making the rest of the dish!!

The tagliatelle are easy to make even without a pasta machine and a standing mixer.  You just need a bit of muscle to knead the dough (or someone to do it for you!), and a good rolling pin. I used dried chickpeas to make this, but you could cut the process time a lot and use canned ones.  Just drop the cooking time you need to make the sauce.  Oh, and one more thing about the sauce: go look at the photo at the top of the page, and then remember, it should have MORE broth.  I didn’t leave enough of the broth.  It still tasted good, but it should be almost “soupy”.  Just add more water if the chickpea mixture is drying out while cooking.

Ciceri e tria takes a bit of work to make, but it’s totally worth it!  You can make the sauce the day before to cut down some of the labour on the actual day, and just heat it up again before you throw the pasta on to boil. Be courageous, take the bull by the horns, take the plunge, grab the golden ring, or just forget all those metaphors and go try to make it.  It’s not as tricky as you think! (Oh, actually I don’t know if the golden ring one is actually a saying, but I like the sound of it!).  It’s almost as good as going to Puglia (well, it’s not really but I wanted to make you feel better!).

By Lisa Watson

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Prep Time 2 hours hours

Cook Time 1 hour hour

Total Time 3 hours hours

Servings 4 or 5 people

Ingredients

• 200 g 7oz All-purpose flour
• 200 g 7oz Durum wheat flour
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 200 ml 4/5 cup Water
• 300 g 2 cups Dried chickpeas
• 1 Onion
• 1 Carrot
• 1 stalk Celery
• 1 medium - large Tomato
• to taste Salt and pepper

Instructions

The night before:

• Put the chickpeas in a large bowl filled with water and leave them to soak overnight.
• On the day:

The Sauce

• Peel the carrot and onion.  Chop them into small pieces. 
• Slice the celery stalk. Chop the tomato.
• Put all the vegetables in a large pot.  Drain the chickpeas and add them as well.  Cover with fresh water.
• Bring the mixture to the boil and scrape off any foam with a spoon.
• Lower the heat and leave to simmer until the chickpeas are tender, but not mushy.  This can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour depending on their age.  Stir every so often and check the water level isn't dropping too much.
• Add about 1 tsp of salt in the last few minutes of the cooking.

Eggless Pasta:

• Combine the flours and salt in the standing mixer (or on a clean kitchen benchtop).
• As the flours are being mixed add the water in a steady, slow stream until it becomes incorporated into the mixture (or try to knead the dough by hand and add a steady stream of water at the same time. You may need an assistant for this one!).
• Take the dough out of the standing mixer and continue to knead it by hand for 15 minutes until the dough becomes elastic and smooth.
• Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and leave it to rest for 30 minutes.
• Make tagliatelle with your pasta maker, or roll the dough out with a rolling pin until it is quite thin, then cut it into long narrow strips.
• Sprinkle flour all over the pasta so that it doesn't stick together and leave it on a tray covered with a tea-towel until ready to use.
• Boil a large pot of salted water.  While it is coming to the boil, heat a few Tbsp of olive oil in a frying pan.  Fry about a quarter of the pasta in the oil until it is brown and crispy.  Keep a close eye on it, as it can burn quickly.
• When the water is boiling, add the rest of the pasta to the water and cook for 1 -2 minutes.  Drain it and add it to the chickpea mixture.  Add the fried pasta and mix it all together.
• Now, enjoy it!  you've earned it after all that work!!

Every now and then when I’m feeling especially energetic, I make a big batch of ragù and then freeze it in portions so that I have a impressive tasting, good-for-you pasta sauce to pull out of the freezer at the last minute if we have unexpected guests, or if I just don’t know what to cook that night.  I use my beloved pressure cooker to cook it (yes, I’m talking about that again……!), but you can easily make it without.  It just takes a little longer to cook.  So, while I’m finished and off having a swim, or drinking a Spritz (more on those later!!), you poor non-pressure cooker people will be sitting in the kitchen waiting for the ragù to finish cooking. Don’t worry, as it’s still worth it in the end! 🙂

There are nearly as many recipes for ragù as there are Italians in Italy.  Everyone has their own variations, and of course, insist that their version is the best. Some words of advice if you go to Italy: If you’re in a restaurant, NEVER ask for pasta with “bolognaise/bolognese” sauce.  That is an American invention, and doesn’t exist in Italy. It enters into the category with spaghetti with meatballs, deep-dish pizzas and garlic bread: these things are like Tex-Mex is to real Mexican food.  The dishes may taste good, but they’re an on-steroids reincarnation of the real deal that have never graced a table-top in their life back in the home country.

My husband’s 95 year old grandmother makes and bottles ragù from scratch. She goes to the market, buys 25kg of tomatoes andthen bottles huge amounts of ragû.  I hardly have the motivation to make one batch that I freeze! I really should be ashamed of myself….. 🙂  I have to admit that this is not her recipe as she holds her cards very tight to her chest about the actual ingredients and method she uses.  I think she’d make a very good spy – no matter what torture she underwent, she would never give up her secrets to anyone. The government doesn’t know what they’re missing out on!  Anyway, the recipe below is very tasty, though, according to my family, nothing….. but nothing (!), is as good as Nonna P’s sauce.

You can use pretty much any pasta with ragu, but shorter pasta (i.e. not spaghetti) is better.  I personally like to use fusilli or penne riagate. The pasta shown in the photo at the beginning of the post is a speciality one called Armoniche Giganti Tricolori, which means giant coloured harmonicas…….sounds more edible in Italian really……..

Travel Photo of the Week

This one comes from the home of ragù sauce: Bologna.  This may give you an idea of why pasta with a meat and tomato sauce has become to be known as “bolognaise” sauce, since it comes from here originally. We were here for a weekend in the middle of Winter, so unfortunately, this is the best photo I can show you.  It’s a beautiful town and the food (just like everywhere in Italy!) is to die for!

To find out how to cook pasta like an Italian does, check out my handy guide.

By Lisa Watson

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Ragù

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour

Total Time 1 hour hour 15 minutes minutes

Ingredients

• 1 Onion
• 1 Carrot
• 1 Garlic clove
• 500 g 1.1lb Beef mince
• 1 Bay-leaf
• Rosemary oregano
• 150 ml 1/2 cup Red wine
• 1 L 4 cups Tomato puree
• to cover Water
• Salt and pepper
• 1 Bouillion cube

Instructions

• Chop the onion and carrot finely and saute them with the clove of garlic on a medium heat in olive oil. You can also add 1 stalk of chopped celery if you like.
• Add the mince and herbs and saute them until the mince is browned.
• Add the wine and let it boil off.
• Add the tomato puree and enough water to cover the minced meat. Add the bouillion cube and salt and pepper.
• If using a pressure cooker, put on the lid and let it cook for 30 minutes from the first whistle. Take the lid off and let it simmer until it thickens a little in consistency.
• If you are being more traditional, let the mixture simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Make sure the ragu doesn't get too dry, adding water if necessary.
• Now you can decide what pasta you want with it. Maybe you will be able to impress a 95 year old grandma with your sauce!

All the good foods in Sicily

Ahhhhhh…..Sicily, I miss you already, and I’ve only been home a day.  The food, the people, the food, the scenery, the food……..oh, and did I mention that the food was good?! I was amazed to find all sorts of specialties that I’d never even heard of, and couldn’t get enough of.  I came back with my hand-luggage crammed with wild oregano, giant cheeses, dried chilies (peperoncini), pistachios, and capers until my poor bag groaned and puffed itself up so much that I was worried that it might explode in protest in a cloud of peperoncino powder while I was going through security at the airport. (And you can imagine the chaos that would’ve caused if you’ve ever put your finger on your tongue or eye after touching chilies…..)

Discover delicious and versatile Caponata

While I was there, I found the super-hero of dishes: is it an aperitif? Is it a main dish? Is it a side?  Or, is it a pasta sauce? It’s everything!  You can’t beat that….maybe if you add enough sugar, or some whipped cream, it could also become a strange nouvelle cusine dessert. This plate-of-all-trades is called Caponata. It’s a fabulous mixture of aubergine (eggplant), capsicum, onions, olives, and capers that can be nearly any part of a menu you want it to be. You can eat caponata hot, tepid or cold. You can add more of one ingredient and less of others, depending on your tastes.  Caponata‘s so forgiving that it sounds like the perfect partner to spend your life with!

Everything else you need to know about making Caponata

While staying in a wonderful agriturismo called Sant’Elia near Siracusa, Maria, the mother of the owner, Cristina told us how to make caponata.  As soon as we arrived home I feverishly rushed to the supermarket and bought everything I needed.  She vows and declares that you should only make it with Sicilian olives, but unfortunately, they’re hard to come by here, so I threw in some local green olives.  I can attest that it still tasted marvelous!

The only downside with making caponata is that you need to cook everything separately, so it takes a little time, but it’s worth it in the end.  So, here are the quantities I used for the recipe. You can vary the ingredients, depending on what you have in the fridge, or if you hate celery. 🙂  The constants are aubergines, olives, pine-nuts, capers and red-wine vinegar.  The rest is up to you!

Travel photo of the week

This photo was taken in Aci Trezza, on the east coast of Sicily.  This small coastal town is famous for the three pointed sea-stacks sitting just offshore from the beach. These rocks were meant to have been thrown by the cyclops, Polythemus, when he was trying sink the boats of Ulysses as he was sailing away.  Why did the giant do this?  Well, he was in a rage as Ulysses had purposefully blinded him in his single eye after getting him drunk.  All for a good reason though.  Ulysses was meant to be Polythemus’s dinner. Ulysses and his boats got away, but the rocks still stand there as a testament to the bad aim of Polythemus.

By Lisa Watson

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Caponata from Sicily

Course Appetizer, buffet, first course, Main Course

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 45 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour

Ingredients

• 800 g Aubergines approximately 3 large
• 3 Capsicum red and/or yellow
• 3 Tbsp Capers
• 500 g Tomatoes approximately 3 large
• 2 Onions
• 60 g Pinenuts 1/3 cup
• 200 g Black or Green pitted olives 1 1/3 cups - good quality a must!
• 250 g Celery 1 bunch
• 250 ml Red wine vinegar 1 cup
• 50 g Sugar 3 Tbsp
• Large grained salt

Instructions

• Chop the aubergine into medium-size cubes, then sprinkle it with 3-4 Tbsp of large salt,  Mix together, then place in a sieve.  Place the sieve in a bowl or in the sink.  Put a plate on top of the aubergine chunks and then something heavy on top of the plate.  Leave it to release its water for about 2 hours.  This allows the aubergines to brown well and not suck up as much oil.
• Roast the capsicums in the oven for 40 minutes at 180 degrees C (350F).  Take them out and put them in a paper bag to allow the skins to be peeled off easily.  Now, this is what I did as I like them very cooked, but you can also cut them into slices raw and cook them with the aubergines in one of the later steps if you prefer.
• Peel the tomatoes and chop them into chunks. If the capers are packed in salt, rinse them.
• Boil the celery for 3 minutes, then saute it in olive oil for 5 minutes.  Pour it into a sieve and let the oil drain off while cooking everything else to make the caponata a little lighter.
• Slice the onions into medium/fine slices, then saute them in a separate pan at a low heat from 15 minutes, stirring often. Then should become translucent, but not browned.
• Add the capers, pine-nuts and olives and stir.
• Add the tomatoes, and cook uncovered on a low heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
• Rinse the aubergine chunks and pat them dry.  Fry them in another pan until they are browned. (If using raw capsicum, this is the time to cook them).
• Add everything together and mix.
• Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar and pour it over the mixture.  Stir then leave it on the heat for 3 or 4 minutes until the vinegar smell has gone.

Notes

If you have some fresh basil, sprinkle some leaves over the top.  The dish generally doesn't need salting because of the capers and aubergines that have been sitting in salt.

Caponata will keep in the fridge for at least 5 days.

It is best eaten at room temperature.