Sicilian Home Cooking: Family Recipes from Gangivecchio

There are great vegetable "recipes" (really no more than a few lines)using mint, anchovy, etc. that will give you a flair for Sicilian cooking: asparagus, potato and mushroom cake, cauliflower pizza, fennel and artichoke salad, cucumber and caper salad, white bean salad. The pasta recipes are also nice, slightly different takes on what most people have already had: fettucine carbonara with vegetables, lemon spaghtetti, ruote with radicchio and gorgonzola, fettucine with yellow peppers, and about a dozen more. I think the appetizers are the best part: sicilian sweet and sour meatballs(don't think pink), bruschetta with swordfish and mint, caponata, artichoke tart with sardines and ricotta (I think its similar to the american artichoke and mayonaisse recipe going around), olive marinades, gorgonzola and pear tart. Good book, but yes, you need to have some experience in the kitchen to know when they've left some steps out. For instance the preparation of artichokes requires baby artichokes. Some dishes are very heavy, like baked eggs with bechamel sauce. You have to know what will be appropriate to serve as an appetizer, etc. Chicken's probably easiest prepared by using bone-in, skin-on pieces rather than cutting up a whole chicken. But there's a lot of inspiration and a lot to learn from these women. I definitely think it's worth buying if you know your way around a kitchen, regardless of what cuisine you're most familiar with.

The authors, Wanda Tornabene and her daughter, Giovanna Tornabene, are co-owners of Gangivecchio, a restaurant housed in a thirteenth-century abbey in Sicily's Madonie Mountains. In addition to providing scrumptious, authentic Sicilian recipes, this cookbook is great fun to read, because these two world-class chefs also offer many funny stories of their colorful relatives, friends and pets.Their detailed table of contents, thorough index, and menu plans guide you easily through the book, and the recipes are divided into these convenient sections: appetizers, soups, egg dishes, pizza and focaccia, pasta, couscous, rice, meat main-course dishes, fish and seafood main-course dishes, vegetables, salads, desserts, wines and liqueurs.I, personally, am on a high-protein diet, and one might wonder what someone like me could possibly get from a cookbook whose recipes all hail from the land of pasta. Actually, quite a lot. The vegetable, meat and seafood dishes are delicious, low-carb, and not horribly time consuming to make. And it is crucial on a special diet to, as much as possible, find things that taste good to eat our you won't stay on it. All of these recipes are packed with flavor. Here are some examples of my personal favorites from the vegetable-dishes section: Syracuse-Style Peppers (olive oil, salt, mint leaves, garlic, and vinegar for seasoning), Country-Style Eggplant (olive oil, vinegar, oregano, mint, and hot pepper flakes for seasoning), Gangi-Style Artichokes (onions, green olives, capers, celery hearts, vinegar, and pepper for seasoning).In addition, even those of us on a high-protein diet can occasionally have bread. And, as for me, if I am going to indulge, I much prefer to eat really great bread, such as the terrific focaccia in this cookbook. The authors furnish a basic focaccia dough recipe from which you can spring off into many variations such as broccoli focaccia, focaccia with onions and tomatoes, spinach focaccia, and focaccia stuffed with arugula, sun-dried tomatoes and/or cheese.I highly recommend this cookbook for inexperienced as well as seasoned cooks, whether cooking for themselves alone, or for their families and friends. If you love Italian cooking, you'll adore these Sicilian recipes!