Italians are partial to hard cookies (biscotti).  They enjoy dunking them in coffee and wine.  Although technically not a cookie, these rustic, savory biscotti are meant to be enjoyed with wine and cheese.  They are spiced with black pepper, anise, and sesame seeds.  Italian Wine Taralli, which are shaped and boiled briefly before baking, are […]

The rosticerria (rotisserie) is a popular snack-food eatery throughout Italy.  In Sicily, the word “rosticceria” refers to a place but also a type of cuisine.  Restaurants or bars offer a large array of finger foods such as pizzas, calzones, and other stuffed delicacies.  It’s the Italian version of fast food.  The Sicilian rosticceria (rosticceria Siciliana) […]

Whenever my mother had leftover pizza dough she would make pasta fritta (fried dough).  The thinly rolled out pieces of the dough would puff up as they fried in olive oil.  The fried breads where fragrantly yeasty, soft on the inside, and lightly crisp on the outside.  She would sprinkle them with powdered sugar.  But […]

Mafalda is a durum wheat based bread.  The name also refers to its classic serpentine shape.  This rustic sesame seed encrusted bread can be formed into other shapes as well, such as baguettes (bastone) or the popular scrolled eyes of Saint Lucy (occhi di Santa Lucia).  You can make the dough into larger loaves or […]

Infigghiulata (Nfigghiulata), impanate, and scacciate are just a few names for popular snack foods in Sicily that are made with focaccia/pizza dough and stuffed with various fillings.  They are considered rustic forms of pizza or pizze, such as a calzone.  Each of these breads is basically the same except they vary in shape and form.  […]

My mother comes from the town of Castelvetrano, Sicily.  Castelvetrano is famous throughout Italy for its black bread – pane nero, or pane nivuru as they say in the dialect.  While living in Sicily, I couldn’t get enough of this stuff.  The bread was addicting, and I had withdrawals upon coming back home to the […]

                      This rustic pie is made with pizza dough and filled with spinach, sausage, and ricotta cheese.  It’s similar to a calzone or stromboli. Sicilians also call it a scacciata which means squashed or flattened because of its shape.  I rated this recipe as difficult […]

A Sfincione is a thick Sicilian pizza that is essentially a focaccia (in Italian) when not made with a tomato sauce topping. Just like focaccia, the dough is lightly crusty and soft on the inside. This sfincione is made with sundried tomatoes, black olives, cacio cheese, anchovies, and oregano. Sicilians love anchovies in their sfincione. […]

My Nonna (grandmother) Vincenza made bread just about every week.  She had to learn to make her own bread out of necessity during the war (WWII) when both bread and pasta were precious commodities.  When she came the United States she adapted her recipe for all-purpose flour – the only flour that was available at […]

Pane Cunzatu or Pane Cunzato means seasoned bread.  It’s the original Sicilian sandwich. There is nothing like Pane Cunzatu when made with a freshly baked loaf of bread just out of the oven.  The piping hot loaf is drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil, studded with anchovies, sprinkled with oregano, and topped with thin slices of […]