This is a classic simple side dish from Calabria, traditionally made with the oblong sweet red onions of Tropea, on the southwest coast not too far from the Straits of Messina.
The onions are sliced thinly and then braised in a mix of red wine and red wine vinegar with water until they are soft and mild.
This was yummy and simple, just pan-fried fish served with tender cooked thinly-sliced leeks. The mild flavors complemented each other nicely.
In the photo here, the leeks are closer to you, and the red onion beyond is Cipollata Calabrese, which made a nice contrast both visually and in flavor, while staying in harmony.
Here's a wonderful dish suitable for company and a beautiful table. The halibut sits on a bed of pureed seasoned potatoes and is surrounded by littlenecks and dressed with a savory saffron sauce. It's exquisite!
There's a lot to this recipe, both ingredients and steps, but none of it is particularly rare or difficult; you can make this any time that halibut is available, and after the first time it is really not hard.
Salmoriglio is a classic Sicilian sauce for grilled fish and meats. It showcases flavors typical of Sicily and Greece (2500 years ago, Sicily was a major part of Magna Graeca).
This is great with strong flavors like grilled beef and oily fish like swordfish (shown here). In the fridge, it solidifies to a spreadable consistency, but then it melts into seasoned olive oil when spread on hot food.
Messina is in northeast Sicily, at the point closest to the boot of mainland Italy; that's where the ferries come in from Reggio di Calabria.
Swordfish alla Messina is a classic local dish. Every summer when the swordfish pass through the Strait of Messina, the local fishermen go out in specially-modified boats called feluccas to bring them to the table fresh daily.
When we went to Italy in 2018, we stayed a night in Chianalea, a fishing village along the waterfront of Scilla, on the east bank of the Strait of Messina. The village is built on the swordfish fishery, and you get the freshest fish there. I enjoyed a very memorable Pistachio-Crusted Swordfish that night!
This dish brings together some of the classic flavors of Sicily: almonds, capers, and tomatoes. If you were in southern Italy or Sicily, you would use the celebrated oblong sweet red onions of Tropea, just north of the toe of the boot, but regular red onions work OK too.
I found some beautiful green cauliflower at Beth's Farm Market in Warren, Maine, so I knew that it was time to make this interesting and delicious veggie pasta dish that I'd had my eye on. It includes golden raisins and pine nuts, and a little bit of saffron, like many Venetian recipes.
This is a Sicilian recipe, and Sicily produces some enormous cauliflowers in purple, green, and golden colors. At Beth's the green one looked the best, so that's what I used for dinner for the two of us, but if I were making a bigger batch I'd like to mix colors and see how that looks.
The original Italian recipe called for John Dory or Pomfret, but we don't find that in our local fish markets so I tried it with haddock, and I recommend it.
This recipe is a little different from most fish recipes here so far because the haddock is pan-fried. Haddock around New England is traditionally sold with the skin on, but you don't really have to skin it as long as you remember to tell your diners which side is up!
This should work equally well with cod.
These braised onions from the northwestern foothills of the Alps are simple and delicious, especially since perfectly good pearl onions are available frozen year round.
Serve this with any meaty dish, especially those from the Piedmont and Lombardy regions, and substitute appropriate stock for the vegetable stock. On the other hand, you can make this vegan by following it as written and substitute the more oil for the butter.
This is a logical variation on a nineteenth century recipe, recognized by Enrica at the delightful A Small Kitchen in Genoa blog.
In the photo, the whole mussels are just a garnish; the real point of this recipe is the sauce, made from seasoned finely chopped cooked mussels. It was delicious, and not at all difficult to make!
One of the tricky things about trying to cook Italian recipes in New England is that many of the ingredients are different, especially with regard to seafood. Most of Italy is far closer to where the crops are grown than New England is to California's Central Valley, so their produce tends to be fresher all year round. But for seafood, the fish and shellfish in our waters are in most cases very different from Mediterranean waters.
This recipe calls for Maine shrimp, the delicious little cold-water shrimp from the Bay of Fundy that are not the same as "salad shrimp" that you can get at some food service outlets. Italy has shrimp of all sizes, including little shrimp like these, but I doubt that they are the same species in those warmer waters. Nevertheless, they get us closer to the way this recipe would be made in Venice or Genoa.
