Tomato sauce

In past times it was use and custom to prepare, with the home grown summer fruits, the preserves for the winter. The tomato, for example, was transformed in: "chiappe[1]"; peeled tomatos; "strattu" (tomato paste home-made) and naturally in sauce. It could not miss in the pantry a consistent stockpile of the tasty sauce of the juicy and red vegetable.

Today some willing housewife still prepares "a sarsa[2]". I am among these, so much that many my friends believe I am nut.

Well, perhaps I also will be also so a little, but the taste of this sauce is hardly comparable to that of the commercial tomato purée.

The recipe that I write you I have learned from the mother of my mother, the Nonna Nella[3] - which called Francesca Margherita in truth, but in the large families is accustomed to give some nicknames to differentiate the cousins, that often had the same name of baptism - polished woman, delicate drawer and great cook.

Not you must necessarily cook a lot quantity of it to make preserve. You can do few quantity of it and serve it with the spaghetti or with the shape of pasta that more you like, even adding fried dices eggplants, basil and the salt-cured ricotta cheese. So you will realize one of the first more famous Sicilian dishes, a real artwork: the "Pasta alla Norma"[4].

With the ingredients indicated in the recipe you will realize around two bottles of 800 ml each one.

"Anelletti al forno" a special oven-baked pasta timbale

When in Palermo it is said oven-baked pasta it is not able whether to think about the anelletti, a pasta shape like little rings that they remembers the earrings of the African women.

It is a cult of the palermitan kitchen and it doesn't have "season", it can be all right to Christmas, for Easter, for the country outing of on April 25 or on May 1, but also in Feast of the assumption under the parasol in front of the sea. It is a transversal dish that satisfies the palates of whom is rich and of whom is not it, of the intellectual and of the easy-minded, of men, women, old men and picciriddi (children, in Sicilian language).

The history "rù pasticciu ri sustanza" (timbale of substance) it goes once more connected to the Arabs, leaders and master in the pies. In the past it was realized recycling what it remained in the pantry, habit that somehow remains also today, considering that often we cafuddiamo (throw in) inside there what we have in the kitchen. A lot of people, for example, add to the hard-boiled eggs firm and charcuterie and cheeses of different type. Only a thing cannot miss "’u ragù c’a carni capuliata" (the ragoût with the minced meat), possibly enriched with the peas.

Another characteristic of the Sicilian oven-baked pasta is the quantity: it never does it for few people and, also if it remains, pan-fried in the evening or the day after it has "its because".

As for all the other recipes of the Sicilian cuisine also of this doesn't exist an unique version but so many of it how many the families are in Sicily.

I prefer it in "simple version" (just kidding).