Baked Sausage, Sicilian-Style

Oct 27, 2010

Here’s a good chilly-weather recipe. It takes only minutes to prepare (plus an hour in the oven). Light a crackling fire, pour a tumbler of wine, and cozy up.

The recipe comes from Giovanna Bellia La Marca’s Sicilian Feasts, chock-full of simple home-style recipes. This one may remind you of something from Northern Italy or Bavaria, but I can vouch that baked sausage and potatoes is a very typical dish in southeast Sicily.

Sicilian Feasts by Giovanna Bellia La Marca

Ingredients (for 6-8)

2 pounds Italian hot or sweet sausage, or a combination

6 baking potatoes cut in wedges (I used fingerlings instead)

2 bell peppers (red or yellow) cut in wedges

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

sprinkle of dried oregano

salt and pepper to taste

xxxxxx

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Separate the sausage links. Place the sausages, potatoes, and peppers in a large baking pan. Add the olive oil, oregano, salt, and pepper, and mix well. Bake for an hour, stirring the contents of the pan twice during baking to be sure nothing sticks to the pan. Serve with a good crusty bread.

Sicilian baked sausage, copyright Jann Huizenga

Click to comment.

Click to subscribe.

O, Sweet Danger

October 23, 2010

Forests of prickly pears glitter with sunset-colored fruit: burning orange and deepest pink. The fall crop is so abundant in Sicily that most of it plops down onto roadways to rot in the sun—roadkill for nectar-seeking wasps and honeybees.

Sicilian prickly pears, copyright Jann Huizenga

I gave the prickly pear, called fico d’india—literally, fig of India—the cold shoulder for quite a while after my first experience peeling one. Who knew to put on gloves? The invisible barbs lodged deep into my fingertips. I spend hours armed with tweezers squinting on my sunlit balcony, extracting them one by one.

But now I’ve found a happy solution: I drink my prickly pears.

Either in liqueur form …

Sicilian prickly pear liqueur, copyright Jann Huizenga

… Or in sweet granita—seeds and all. It tastes like watermelon juice imbued with banana-y blood oranges. Of course I worried that a prickly pear plant would sprout in my stomach after this granita, but so far so good.

Sicilian prickly pear granita, copyright Jann Huizenga

Have you tried the prickly creatures? Discovered a danger-free way to eat them?

***

Click to comment.

Click to subscribe.

Blessed Bread

October 18, 2010

I once saw my friend Giò drop a heel of bread on the floor. She scooped it up like it was a newborn chick and tenderly kissed it.

“That’s what we do here in Sicily,” she laughed. “Bread is everything for us. Jesus is in the bread. It must always sit on its bottom, for example. And we never toss it away. That’s a sin.”

“Well, what if it gets old?”

“We make breadcrumbs from it. If it’s turning green with mold, we kiss it and apologize to Jesus.”

Collecting Bread in Palazzolo Acreide, Sicily, Copyright Jann Huizenga

I once made Easter breads with an 86-year-old woman who’s never been off the island. She said a prayer as she popped the bread into the oven.

To Saint Anthony, handsome and good.

The angel passes and leaves his blessing, the angel passed and left his blessing.

May the Ragusan bread rise as big as a field, may the country bread rise as big as a mountain.

Saint Anthony is not the only person Sicilian women turn to for help with baking. Some pray to Saint Clement (“Let the bread not have a bubble!”) or directly to Mary and Jesus themselves.

I didn’t dare tell my friend  Giò that as kids we made spitballs with bread, or that as an adult I’ve carelessly trashed scores of half-eaten loaves. That would be the ultimate blasphemy here.

***

What food do you revere?

***

Click to comment.

Click to subscribe.

10 More of My Favorite (Sicilian) Things

October 11, 2010

In a former blogpost I listed 10 of my favorite Sicilian things. Here are some more:

xxx

11. The  festa

Festa at Palazzolo Acreide, Sicily, copyright Jann Huizenga12. The flora

Sicilian Wild Orchid, copyright Jann Huizenga13. The friendship

Friends in Sicily, copyright Jann Huizenga14. The fun

Wedding Balloons in Fiat 500 in Sicily, Copyright Jann Huizenga15. The footwear

Bridal Footwear in Sicily, copyright Jann Huizenga16. The frutta

Peaches in Sicily, copyright Jann Huizenga17. The flavor

Ice Creams Flavors in Sicily, copyright Jann Huizenga18. The fish

Sicilian Scorfani Fish, copyright Jann Huizenga19. The face

Sicilian Puppets, copyright Jann Huizenga20. The family

Family in Sicily, copyright Jann Huizenga

Click to comment.

Click to subscribe.

Mr. No Money

October 5, 2010

I meet Mister No Money on the streets of Giarratana—a small town known for its big onions—under a canopy of goose-down clouds. He doffs his hat and blinks eyes round and red as sun-dried tomatoes. “I am Giuseppe Scarso. In Sicilian my name means No Money.” His face cracks open into a bright smile. “And I really have no money!”

Nomen est omen.

His pal is Mister Happy (Signor Felice).

Two Sicilian Men Against Pink Wall, copyright Jann Huizenga

Mister No Money & Mister Happy

My plumber is Mister Horse (Cavallo); my neighbor Ms. Painted Eyes (Occhipinti); my ex-landlord Hector the Onion (Ettore Cippola); my hunky banker Mister Love (Amore).

Names lifted from some fairy tale.

***

Click to comment.

Click to subscribe.

Site Meter BlogItalia.it - La directory italiana dei blog