Arancini

Arancini probably originated in 10th-century Sicily when the island was under Arab rule.  In Palermo and Trapani, arancini are a traditional food for the feast of Santa Lucia on December 13th when Sicilians don't eat bread or pasta. This commemorates arrival of a grain ship on Santa Lucia's day in 1646, relieving a severe famine.  Today arancini are found year round at Sicilian cafés and special arancini shops, particularly in Palermo.  The most common arancini are con ragù with a filling of ragù, a piece of boiled egg, and a few cubes of ragusano. The dish is often made using rice from leftover risotto.  The rice originated as short grain rice imported from Japan and is known as riso originario of which arborio is a superfino hybrid.

So let's make 4 arancini.  Starting with the rice, for 400g of rice you will need 50g butter, 4g saffron, 1 small onion minced, and 1/2  cup grated caciocavallo or parmesan cheese.  Cook as for a risotto, I really don't need to tell you how to do this, and spread the rice out on a sheet pan to cool.  

Now for the ragù, for 100 g each of ground beef and pork, you will need a small onion, 1 carrot, 1 rib of celery, 3 Tbs. olive oil, 1/2 cup of red wine, 100 g peas, 100 g tomato sauce, and 1 Tbs. tomato paste. Finely chop the onion, carrot and celery.  Sauté the onion in the oil for a couple of minutes just to soften the onions.  Add the meats and continue to sauté until the meat changes color.  Add the tomato paste and briefly sauté.  Add the wine and cook until the alcohol has evaporated.  Add the tomato sauce and salt and pepper to taste.  Cook on a moderate fire for 10 minutes then add the peas and cook for another 20 minutes.  If you're using frozen peas add them 5 minutes from the end of cooking.  Let the ragù cool. 

Now it's time to assemble the arancini.  You will need 100 g fresh ragusano or provolone cut into 1 cm cubes and 1 hard-boiled egg cut into 4 pieces. We also need some pastella made from 2 T water mixed with 1 T flour and fine dry breadcrumbs.  Take 1/4 of the rice in your hand and form it into a shallow cup.  

Add a spoon of the sauce, a piece of egg, and 2 or 3 cubes of cheese.  Be careful to not over fill it.  Now close it up with both hands forming a ball.  Coat the ball with the pastella.  This helps the breadcrumbs stick.  Now liberally coat the arancini in breadcrumbs.  Fry them a few at a time in hot (375º F) oil until they turn a rich golden brown.  There must be enough oil so that they are completely covered.  Set them in a warm oven for about 10 minutes to dry before serving.  Mangia bene!

Ston

Today one visits Ston to walk the Ston wall and have a slice of Stonska Torta (makaruli cake), which is a pie shell filled with sweetened macaroni and custard.  At this point in the trip we have now entered the territory controlled by Dubrovnik.  The maritime Republic of Ragusa, or Republic of Dubrovnik, centered on the city of Dubrovnik (Ragusa in Italian and Latin), existed from 1358 to 1808.  It reached its commercial peak in the 15th and the 16th centuries.  In 1205, the Republic of Venice invaded Dalmatia with the forces of the Fourth Crusade, Ragusa was forced to pay a tribute and became a source of supplies for Venice but the city retained most of its independence. The people, however, resented the ever growing tribute and an almost epic hatred between Ragusa and Venice began to grow.  After the Treaty of Zadar in 1358, Venice was forced to yield all claims to Dalmatia and Dubrovnik became a major trading rival of Venice.  Things happened fast as in 1453 the Ottomans encircle and conquer Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire and ten years later had almost completed conquest of Bosnia so in 1458, the Republic signed a treaty with the Ottoman Empire which made it a tributary of the sultan.  By 1481 the city passed into Ottoman protection but for all other purposes it was virtually independent.  It could enter into relations with foreign powers and make treaties with them, and its ships sailed under its own flag.  Ottoman vassalage also conferred special rights in trade that extended within the Empire.  Dubrovnik handled the Adriatic trade on behalf of the Ottomans, and its merchants received special tax exemptions and trading benefits.  Dubrovnik merchants could enter the Black Sea, otherwise closed to non-Ottoman shipping. They paid less in customs duties than other foreign merchants, and the city-state enjoyed diplomatic support from the Ottoman administration in trade disputes with the Venetians.  For their part, Ottomans regarded Dubrovnik as a port of major importance, since most of the traffic between Florence and the Ottoman Empire (an Ottoman port in northwestern Anatolia) was carried out via Dubrovnik.  For a bit of extra reading Cameron Hewitt, a Rick Steves guide, has written an excellent overview to the Balkans, Understanding Yugoslavia.

Now back to Ston, Ston and Mali Ston or 'little' Ston lie on either side of the isthmus of the Pelješac peninsula, about a third of the landmass of the Republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik).  Most important were saltpans of Ston.  The Ston wall was built from Ston to Mali Ston to defend the peninsula.  I suspect the wall was built of Stonska Torta, it being rather heavy.  Better in the afternoon if your having a late dinner, it would be a bit much for dessert.  There are several recipes for it online, some include chocolate, some don't, but all use cinnamon and ground almonds.  Some throw in a bit of coffee.  

Mali Ston might make a better stop, as there is access to the wall, Stonska Torta and Oysters.  Blow up Google earth on Mali Ston and you can see the oyster beds.  Blow up Ston and you can see the saltpans still in use.

Stonska Torta recipe, makes one 9-inch cake

For the dough:

500 g (16 ounces) unbleached all purpose flour

1 teaspoon fine salt

3 large eggs (150 g or 5.25 ounces)

1/3 cup olive oil (8 cl)

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1-3 tablespoons water

For the filling:

1 pound dried penne or ziti pasta

Zest and juice of one lemon.

3 tablespoons rum

1 tablespoon olive oil

250 g (8 1/2 ounces) sugar

2 cups (9 ounces) ground almonds

1 cup (4.5 ounces) finely chopped walnuts

1/2 cup (2 ounces) fine bread crumbs

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

6 large eggs

Zest of half lemon

1 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 1/4-inch cubes

For the garnish:

2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

Preheat oven to 175 C (350 F).

In a large mixing bowl or food processor mix the flour and salt.  In a small bowl whisk the eggs, olive oil and vinegar.  Slowly add the olive oil mixture to the flour.  Do not over-work the mixture.  Add water, one tablespoon at a time, until the mixture loosely comes together. Let it rest covered with a slightly damp kitchen towel.

Cook the pasta in boiling water to al dente, then drain and mix with olive oil, lemon juice and rum.

Meanwhile, in a small mixing bowl, combine the sugar, ground almonds, walnuts, breadcrumbs, and cinnamon.  If using either coffee or chocolate add it into the nut mixture.  I'd suggest a tablespoon of fine ground expresso roast and/or 100 g of finely chopped semi sweet chocolate (85% cacao).  In another small bowl, beat the eggs slightly with the lemon zest and almond extract.

Rub a 9-inch spring form pan with olive oil and dust with a spoonful of flour.

Roll out dough to 20-inch circle and nestle it into the pan, letting the extra dough drape over the sides of the pan.

Spread a handful of pasta across the bottom.  Sprinkle two handfuls of the nut mixture over the pasta.  Pour 1/2 cup of the egg mixture over the top and top with 1/3 of the butter.  Repeat more layers to the top or until the ingredients are used up.  After each layer, tap the pan gently in order to settle the filling.  Fold the excess dough from the sides over the top.

Bake for about 45 minutes to an hour, until crust is slightly brown. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack.  Remove the sides of the pan and invert it onto a serving platter.

Dust with sugar.  Slice and decorate with leftover nut mixture.

Wangechi Mutu: The End of Carrying It All

Wangechi Mutu, born 22 June 1972 in Kenya, is an artist and sculptor living in Brooklyn, NY.   Considered to be one of the most important contemporary African artists, much of her work has been concerned with the myriad forms of violence and misrepresentation visited upon women, especially black women, in the contemporary world.  Mutu came to art as a second career.  At first she went to England and studied anthropology, which influenced her art in several ways, causing her to think in terms of the ways human relationships rest within the larger social structures and to the ways Europeans and Americans thought about Africans and African artistic expression.  Born in Nairobi, her upbringing was a modern and urban one, and she was puzzled by the Western tendency to think of Africa in terms of its rural, traditional cultures. "There's this constant movement toward historicizing Africa, turning it into this archaic place," she explained, "Being that I was raised there, and that I came from the city, it was really weird for me. I was like, 'It's actually a really modern place like everywhere else. It happened and is happening right now.'"  

While Mutu employs a variety of mediums including video, installation, and sculpture, she is best known for her large-scale collages on pieces of Mylar.  Her works often make the female body central, and confront the viewer with "plant-like or animal-like elements and intertwined abstract patterns" that merge the organic and the surreal with human forms.  These hybrid creatures have bodies made of a combination of machine, animal, human and monster parts.  She constructs figures out of magazine cutouts, sculpted and painted surfaces, and found materials. The sources her collage images range from a variety of media, including commercial fashion, lifestyle, pornography, and automobile, and motorcycle magazines. These distorted but elegant figures that she creates are based on her observation that, "Females carry the marks, language and nuances of their culture more than the male. Anything that is desired or despised is always placed on the female body.  Her work has been called "Afrofuturist," an aesthetic that uses the imagination of science fiction to envision alternate realities for Africa and people of African descent.

Projected on a three panel screen in the background was her video The End of Carrying It All.  I have been unable to find it online, probably because it is in three separate panels.  There is another video called On the End of Eating Everything.

 on vimeo, On the End of Eating Everything, which merges her collage with video.  Graphically the two are very different but the themes are similar.  For a nice description of the exhibition including more photography visit iam-africa.  There are numerous interviews with the artist on line, below are some I found interesting.

  

All these images with the hair in braids made me think of calamari.  Calamari can be cooked briefly, think frito, or long simmered.  A classic long simmered stew such as Spezzatino di Calamari con Piselli, Calamari stew with peas, has a richer sea flavor that Venetians prefer.  This dish while not specifically Venetian is popular all down the Adriatic coast.

This is a meal in a bowl, start with some antipasto, have lots of good bread for sopping  up the sauce, and finish with fruit for dessert.  For something to drink there lots of options from a Valpolicella or Bardolino to a crisp white from the Veneto.

For two servings you'll need a half kilo of calamari, you can use pre cleaned tubes but you'll loose the connection to Wangechi Mutu's art without the tentacles.  One inner rib of celery, minced, just a bit more minced onion or scallion than the celery, a couple of cloves of garlic, pealed and cut in half lengthwise, one dry red chile, a couple tablespoons of olive oil, 1/4 cup of dry white wine, several tomatoes pealed, seeded and diced, a cup of tomato sauce (or more tomatoes), an anchovy fillet minced, minced parsley, and a cup or so of peas, frozen work fine here.  Start by frying the chile and garlic in oil until the garlic is nicely browned then discard the chile and garlic and add the onion, celery, and anchovy to the flavored oil.  After a couple of minutes add the wine and cook until it evaporates, then add the tomatoes, tomato sauce and squid.  Simmer covered for at least a half hour to 45 minutes.  Add the parsley and peas and cook ten minutes more.