The Food Of Italy: Sicily and Sardinia

Ciao Darlings!

We have reached the end of our Italy tour of all of the foods of each region. I still have two more posts to do regarding previous regions, but as of today, this was my last cooking class. Next week is our written final and the week after that is our practical final. Tears! Sicily and Sardenia are two big islands of Italy and our menu today is Pane Carasau and Cannoli.

My cooking professor and I

Pane Carasau:

Ingredients 

400gr buffalo mozzarella

4 bell peppers

Rosemary

2 garlic cloves

4 green olives

4 black olives

4 slices pane carasa

Oil, salt, pepepr



Slice the buffalo mozzarella, and put it in a colander to drain for 20 minutes. Roast the bell pepper in the oven until soft and browned then remove the peppers from the oven, and put them in a ziplock bag for a few minutes to steam. Peel the peppers, take out the seeds, and cut the peppers into big strips. Salt them and add quite a bit of chopped rosemary, chopped garlic, and oil. Take out the seeds from the olives, and cut the olives in big pieces. Place two pieces of pane carasau on a big sheet of foil. Top it with about a third of the mozzarella, bell pepper, and olives. Place another piece of pane carasau on top, more toppings, then the last pane carasau, and the rest of the toppings. Close the edges of the dish with foil, and bake for 15 minutes at 200 degrees C.

Before

After

Cannoli:

Ingredients

150gr flour

10gr sugar

1 egg white

2 tablespoons marsala liquor

Pinch of salt

30gr Crisco

250gr ricotta

100gr powdered sugar

30gr mini chocolate chips

Chopped pistachios

Powdered sugar

Carefully melt the Crisco in a pan over low heat, and immediately remove from heat to let cool. Place flour out on the table and make a hole in the middle for the sugar, salt, egg white, marsala liquor, and melted Crisco. Mix it all together with your hands until you've made a ball and leave to rest for an hour. Wipe the cannoli molds with crisco. Take a little piece of dough. Roll it very thin, as thin as possible and cut it in a circle. Roll the dough around the cannoli mold and make sure to close the edges very well, otherwise it'll open up when you fry it. Deep fry the cannoli forms in very hot oil. Dry them on paper towels. Take out the molds when cool. Be careful; they break easily. Mix ricotta with powdered sugar and chocolate chips (or candied fruit) until just mixed. Put it in a pastry bag and pipe the filling into the cannoli. Dip the ends into chopped pistacchios (or put a candied cherry on each end), and then sprinkle with powdered sugar, and serve!

 

I'm off to my final destination of my weekends traveling. I'm going to the city I have dreamed about for forever: Paris! I'm extremely nervous about traveling by myself, but can't wait to explore the city :)

Eternally yours,
Stephanie

Photo Credit:
Katie S. blogspot