We have had a long wet winter and spring. I recently returned from two weeks in Sicily and was glad I had brought a sweater as well as an umbrella. We actually were pretty lucky to only be rained on one day of touring. But the hills are such a vibrant green and everything is so lush, it is worth it.
Driving along the highway, these hills were amazing. Fields of wheat and the red Sulla plants, Vetch in English. Used for feed and also bees make a delicious honey.
Nature is amazing, while we were on the west coast, Etna erupted. Nothing too big, but it closed down the airport for a day. We arrived the day after. You could see the black ash on the streets. Life goes on. I do think the energy of Etna is what makes the food and wine so delicious. Volcanic soil. The tomatoes are intense! You really haven’t had a tomato if you haven’t had one in Sicily or Naples. CANDY! Picking tomatoes when they are ripe, eating them on site. They are both grown in volcanic soil. It should be on your bucket list.
The last night we were in Catania, we had a mind-blowing pasta sauce. So few ingredients, so delicious. The secrets of wonderful cooking are using the best seasonal ingredients and letting them shine. ExtraVirgin olive oil and sea salt are the base of bringing out the flavors and complementhing them, not covering them.
This simple dish of pasta was the highlight of our 10 days in Sicily for those on our tour. I asked for the recipe and it was so simple. But many secrets lie in the simplicity and respecting the tomato.
Over the years, I have worked with many chefs who do a similar process to use ALL that the tomato can give us.
To make this sauce, you need to break down the tomato into it’s essence. These are my notes, I will be trying to make it with the tomatoes I can get here and see if I come close to how delicious it was.
- Make tomato water. Cook the pasta in the tomato water.
- Use red pachino tomatoes and yellow sun gold. They provide a balance of sweet and acidic.
- Peel the tomatoes first and dry the peel to use as a dust to top the tomatoes when serving.
- Cook the tomatoes with garlic, EVO and salt. Puree to remove the seeds.
- After cooking the pasta in the tomato water, place in a pan with the tomato sauce and let finish cooking.
- Top with the tomato dust.
I have been documenting the Markets of Italy on my substack members newsletter every month. When you sign up as a paying member, you get access as well to all the past info on the newsletter.
I just finished posting the Palermo guide and recipes for May.
June will feature Catania. Each month has a guide I have created the Thatch app, which you can download for free and then save my guides. The guides are also on sale without signing up for my newletter membership.
Sicily feeds my soul.
The caos, the beauty, the people. Have you ever been?
It should be on your bucket list. Also do hire a city guide or join a tour when you are there. The history is so deep.
Don’t forget the cannoli. On the west coast they use sheep’s milk ricotta and on the east coast cow’s milk. Both are delicious, to me, it’s all about the cannoli shell and not oversweetening the ricotta.
To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything.
-Goethe
