A very Sicilian stuffing

Slices of aubergine sizzling....

 Day 3 of the chest infection and I am at a very low ebb. I staggered out for a bottle of Benylin earlier and the effort half killed me, so nothing else for it but to cook very slowly and ponderously.

When I was getting the cough mixture I picked up some sardine fillets on offer and thought I might make Beccafico - these are sardine fillets stuffed with a rich mix of nuts, sultanas, herbs, spices and cheese. The same stuffing can be used for aubergine involtini, or stuffed rolls.

These are both great examples of Sicilian "cucina povera" - the cuisine of the poor. The Sicilians have the most amazing tradition of making exceptionally sophisticated and complex meals from very cheap ingredients. Breadcrumbs, chilli, garlic, fennel, tomatoes, raisins, spices and lemons feature strongly. The original Beccafico were little game birds who fed on figs and which, roasted and stuffed with a sweet and spicy breadcrumb mix, were a great delicacy amongst Sicilian noblemen. The working class used the same stuffing to fill sardines and in doing so created a dish even better than the original. They are like a very rich and exotic version of rollmops and indeed I'm sure you could treat herring the same way.

I spent one of the best holidays of my life in Sicily about ten years ago, touring the island with my new partner. We returned a few years later for our honeymoon in Taormina and the island holds a very special place in my heart. So no surprise that when I'm feeling a bit down and need cheering up with some cheap and sunny food that I turn to Sicily.

Involtini & Beccafico happily co-existing

The involtini are every bit as good as the sardines and both can be cooked together in the same dish if needed (though you may find they need separated if you have a vegetarian to feed). I'm scarfing the lot so I don't care. You can use the same stuffing for chicken or pork escalopes or very thin slices of swordfish or tuna too.


Involtini stuffing
6 slices of bread from a pan loaf made into breadcrumbs
1 onion, finely chopped or grated
25g sultanas
15g each fresh mint, parsley & dill, finely chopped
Either 2 tablespoons of Muhamarah or 1 tbsp toasted pine nuts, 2 cloves of garlic (mashed), 1tsp chilli powder and 1 tsp garam masala or similar mixed together with olive oil to bind.
75g Parmesan or Pecorino
Olive oil
Salt & Pepper


Fry the breadcrumbs,onion, sultanas and herbs in a very little olive oil on a medium heat until the mixture is golden - about 15 minutes. Cool, add other ingredients and use to stuff vegetables, fish or meat of your choice. Sardine fillets just need stuffed and baked for half an hour. Aubergines need cut lengthwise and griddled first, then drained on kitchen towel to remove as much oil as possible. The stuffing recipe above filled nine sardine fillets and two large aubergines cut lengthways into 13 slices. The whole lot packed neatly into a standard lasagne dish. Excess stuffing was sprinkled on the top and it was baked at 180oC for 30 mins. Sprinkle the Beccafico with lemon juice before devouring. These were all extremely delicious and rich and this amount would feed six people as part of a Sicilian menu with some salad, bread and a pasta dish. As it is the two of us will be wading through them for a few days.

Haddock Plaki

This is another of those gorgeous Greek braised dishes, full of olive oil. Please don't stint, it makes all the difference.
Ingredients
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
1 oz butter
Juice of 1 lemon
2 medium onions, finely sliced
coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 tsp Aleppo pepper
8 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried Greek oregano
1 glass white wine
1 cup of chicken stock (or more wine)
4 tomatoes, each cut into 8 pieces
6 medium red potatoes, peeled, thinly sliced and boiled for 2 mins then drained into a colander
4 large skinless haddock fillets

Preheat the oven to 200oC. Heat the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the butter and when it begins to foam, add the onions along with a pinch of salt, stirring to coat well. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes. Raise the heat to medium and cook for 4 to 6 minutes longer, or until the onions are golden brown. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the garlic and saute for 1 minute. Add the oregano and stir to combine. Add the wine & lemon juice and bring to a boil. Boil for about 5 minutes, or until the pan is almost dry.

Stir in the tomatoes, the stock, and a pinch of salt. Return to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer, cook for about 10 minutes, season and remove from the heat and set aside.

Heat a large frying pan to medium-high. When hot, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Sear the fish for 1 min each side, only one or 2 at a time. Don't crowd the pan. Drain them on kitchen towel.

Mix the potatoes with about 2/3 of the sauce and spread it into a lasagne dish. Put the fillets on top and pour the remaining sauce over the whole thing. Bake for about 12 minutes, or until the fish is opaque and cooked through.

Bulgur today means mango milkshakes tomorrow...

What a lucky, lucky girl I am! As you know I need my three holidays per year and the most important one in terms of my mental health is definitely the January one. The old Seasonal Affective Disorder hits nobody harder than poor oul Funkyknuckles and the long, hard stretch of dark days between Christmas (yay!) and Birthdays (woo!) is impossible to countenance without a little winter sun to break it up.

Two years ago I spent a surprisingly lovely week in Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife, but it bore no comparison to last year's holiday in Dahab. It's a little hippy enclave about an hour's drive north of Sharm el Sheikh and it couldn't be more different from the all-inclusive griefhole that Sharm has apparently become. Dahab is a laidback paradise with a lovely lazy bedouin vibe. The thing to do in Dahab is do nothing. And the very best place to do nothing is in the Dahab Paradise Hotel.

Dahab's got its own little rash of AI hotels too but they are well away from the fun, down at the Laguna. The way to go here is to choose a boutique hotel and the best one is the Paradise. I so wanted to go here last year with my aunt but the funds weren't up to it, so we ended up in the Dahab Plaza - a brilliant backpackers motel with free tea, coffee, shisha, wifi and laundry! And of course Emad, the incredibly hospitable hotel manager.

We spent the most wonderfully relaxed week there - listening to George Harrison and Nouvelle Vague, drinking good coffee by day and lovely local wine by night...I read so much, ate so well and met so many lovely, friendly people while all the time the Arab Spring was hotting up in Cairo... I really wanted to bring my husband to Dahab this winter to show him what a beautiful place it was, but the bank manager would not allow me to do it in the style required and I knew that for all the Plaza's charms it's not what you'd call romantic. No point travelling all that way for a week unless you're going to do it right.

This is where my luck came in - the Dahab Paradise Facebook page runs a monthly draw for a week's stay for two, and guess who this month's lucky winner is? I nearly died of excitement when I got the email as I never win anything. My prize is a week's B&B for two with transfers, a bottle of Aida (Egyptian "champagne" and not at all bad!), a day's snorkelling and a candlelit dinner for two in the desert. How fantastic does that sound? The only drawback is that Thomas Cook stopped doing direct charters between Belfast & Sharm last year and the Dublin flights are over €500 each! Skyscanner came to my rescue though with a not-too-complicated bit of hopping around allowing us to leave Belfast and arrive in Sharm on the same day (no mean feat) for half that price. Don't let me down, Easyjet, don't let me down.

Dahab lobster is a good incentive - this was dinner
last January......

So tickets are bought, arrangements are made and I need to make only a few extra economies to ensure complete happiness at the end of January. I'm spending too much on not-very-pleasant tuna sandwiches and actively nasty coffee in our canteen. So in the interests of taste and economy I've switched to karkady (a delicious hibiscus flower tea from Aswan which tastes like spicy Ribena) and bulgur salads, which I never get bored of and which cost half nothing to make. This one features lovely roasted peppers and mint and was so easy to put together and so delicious you'd never think it cost about a pound to make (thanks to a glut of reduced peppers at Tesco) and I got 4 lunches out of it. Every canteen coffee I avoid here will magically transform itself into a mango milkshake in Dahab, while five soggy tuna sarnies equal one lobster dinner. I am powerfully incentivised, as they say.

Bulgur salad with peppers and mint

8oz coarse bulgur
16 fl oz boiling stock (I used Marigold)
2 nests of vermicelli or 1oz orzo (optional but really adds to the texture)
1 tbsp olive oil
small bunch of mint chopped finely
3 large peppers, roasted, skinned and cut up
2 tsp any warm spice mix (I went for a Turkish one this time but Ras el Hanout or Garam Masala would be good too)
1/2tsp aleppo pepper (or other chilli flakes)
1 tsp soy sauce
Salt & pepper to taste.


Fry the vermicelli in the oil on a medium high heat till it colours, then add the bulgur and stir and fry till it's golden brown (about 2-3 more mins). Add the hot stock and cover immediately, turning the heat down to medium. After 10 minutes turn the heat off completely but don't lift the lid! When it's cold toss through all the other ingredients.

Fasolakia ladera (Braised runner beans)

Sheba modelling her new woolly jumper.

It's getting cold, but I don't want to give up on summer foods just yet. There's a great collection of recipes at Symi Visitor and their Fasolakia recipe was just the ticket for using up 1lb of runner beans and feeling a bit more cheerful about having to button little Sheba into her winter woollies for the first time this year.

For those of you who have an interest in such things, Sheba's jumper was made by a lady called Valerie Charman at Greyhounds4me.

This recipe is a ladera, which is just a generic Greek term for vegetables braised in olive oil. You can do any wintery vegetables like carrots, peas, spuds and beans in a ladera and any herbs such as parsley, mint, thyme or dill. Your constants are sauteed onion, tomato, garlic, good olive oil and a looooooooong slow cook. Fasolakia ladera is the perfect dish to remind you of Greek summers but it will also insulate you against a Belfast autumn evening.

Fasolakia Ladera (inspired by Symi Visitor)

1lb runner beans, topped, tailed and cut into 1" chunks.
1 tin flageolet beans, drained and rinsed
2 medium sized potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks.
3-4 ripe tomatoes, diced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tsp dried thyme
2-3 finely chopped onions,
1 ½ cups olive oil
Salt and pepper

Heat the olive oil in a heavy pan and add the onions. Cook gently until soft, around 20 minutes. Add the runner beans and cook for 5 minutes. Finally add the flageolet beans, potatoes, tomato, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper and a scant mug of water. Simmer over medium heat for 15 mins and then turn right down low until the beans are tender. I took the husband and the dog to the pub for two hours and that was perfect timing. It should all be velvety and unctuous, you are not looking for bite here. Traditionally served warm or at room temperature with feta cheese, bread and a squeeze of lemon to taste. I had mine with pork chops, wheaten bread and overripe brie and it was great.

PS I did this again without the flageolet beans and potatoes and it was extremely good with a cheesy mushroom, ham & tomato omelette!