Nonna's fritole

This afternoon I went with my sister Birdie and her boyfriend to visit our gorgeous Nonna, Livia, for (Grand)Mother's Day. When we arrived, we discovered to our delight that she was making fritole for us.

Fritole (depending on the dialect, sometimes known as frittelle) are a kind of doughnut from the North-East of Italy (my Nonna had them when she was growing up in a small village near Treviso, in the Veneto). In Venice they're traditionally eaten during Carnevale. Sometimes they're made with rice (yuk) or ricotta and pine nuts, but Nonna makes them with sultanas swollen with grappa.

The fritole I see out and about in Melbourne always look greasy and gluggy (same goes for most of the ones in Italy), but Nonna's are always beautifully light and fluffy. She used to make them for us as a treat when we were children, but before today she hadn't made them in over three years. Along with her crostoli, they're just about my favourite Italian sweet treats, so I grabbed a pen and paper and did my best to take down the recipe (sorry about its imprecise quantities and vague method!).


Before you start be sure to grab a jar, fill it with sultanas, cover the sultanas with grappa, and leave them to soak in the fridge. Actually, you should soak some sultanas in grappa even if you're NOT going to make this recipe - you never know when they're going to come in handy. Every household should have a jar of drunken sultanas in the fridge.

Fritole della Nonna Livia
4-6 tablespoons self-raising flour
4 tablespoons white sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
approx half a glass of milk
dash of vanilla extract
finely grated zest of one orange
finely grated zest of half a lemon
1 apple, peeled and roughly grated (granny smith or pink lady)
handful of sultanas pre-soaked in grappa
olive oil for deep frying
icing sugar to serve



Mix the flour and sugar. Lightly beat together the eggs and the milk. Make a well in the flour and add the egg mixture, stirring to obtain a smooth batter that is not too thick, with a consistency like wet porridge. If it's too dry, add more milk. If it's too runny, add more flour.

Add the vanilla extract, orange zest, lemon zest, grated apple and sultanas. Stir until smooth.


In a small pan, add about 6-7cm olive oil for deep frying. Heat the oil slowly and gently on a medium-low heat, making sure it doesn't burn. When the oil is hot, use an ice cream scoop or largeish spoon to carefully add dollops of batter into the pan.

Deep fry 'em in batches, turning them occasionally with a spoon (heat the spoon briefly in the oil before touching the dollops of batter, or the batter will adhere to the spoon).


When the fritole have turned a deep golden brown, fish them out and onto a plate covered in a few sheets of kitchen paper. Press them with kitchen paper to remove any excess oil, then transfer them to a clean plate. Continue cooking the rest of the fritole, adding a bit of extra milk or flour if the batter gets dry/runny.


Before serving, sprinkle with icing sugar. Best served warm. Warning: IMPOSSIBLE to eat just one.

Infinitely awesome Texas BBQ

I don't write much about home-cooked meals here on the blog, but I wanted to report back on the lunch we had on Monday. You may recall from last week that a group of us recently went to Fresh @ Elwood for the birthday of Jess, a passionate aficionado of all things Texan. For the reasons she articulated in her guest post, we were terribly disappointed by what we felt was a poor example of Texas-style BBQ.

So imagine our excitement when the lovely Kate from the blog Eating Melbourne sent us an email with the subject line "Bigger than Texas" and the opening "Hey y'all,

Texas BBQ potluck. My place. Monday 26th April. HIGH NOON.

If you ain't yeller, bring some fixins."

Yee haw! If you want good Texas BBQ in Melbourne, you've just gotta do it yourselves. We were all inspired to go the extra mile to make it special. We dressed for the occasion in boots, jeans, plaid shirts, big earrings, etc. Kate even tuned the stereo to an internet radio station coming to y'all direct from Texas.


On Saturday morning I drove waaaay out to greyest, grimmest Moorabbin with my travel companion Captain America to visit USA Foods in order to stock up on Tex-Mex provisions and candy bars and stars-n-stripes-bedecked serviettes. I was extra happy to get some more chipotle tabasco - I'm currently obsessed with the smokey taste of it.


I was assigned a pretty easy dish, the Texas caviar (please note that the name is ironic: it does not contain caviar). The recipe calls for char-grilled corn, so I opted for the cheat's method: microwave the corn for a minute or two, then scorch it using the miniature blowtorch I was given for my birthday last year (supposedly so that I can make crème brulée). Yes I know it's not the authentic method, but it's quick and easy and FUN!



Recipe for Texas Caviar (thanks Jess):
1 can tinned seasoned black beans (available only at USA Foods)
2-4 ears of corn, roasted then sliced
2-4 tomatoes, diced
1 large green capsicum, diced
1 avocado, preferably firm so it doesn't mush into everything else, diced
1 bunch of spring onions, chopped
1 bunch coriander, chopped
1 chilli (not the Thai hot one... either a single jalapeño, seeds removed, or one of those mildly hot finger length chillies, also no seeds), finely diced

Throw everything into a bowl, chuck on a couple dashes chipotle tabasco, a smattering of oil to coat and a splash of fresh lime juice.

If you want to go into awesome overkill, you can also crunch some tortilla chips over the salad top.


And yes, I did go into awesome overkill by crunching some tortilla chips over the top just prior to serving. At USA Foods I'd picked up some white and blue corn tortilla chips: we served them with Kate's pico de gallo salsa and guacamole.


American beers are not normally my beers of choice... but it was a Texas BBQ. Don't mess with Texas.


Kate's partner J was in charge of the meats (brisket and pork ribs) and was very anxious to do them justice after the disappointment we'd all experienced last week at Fresh @ Elwood. He did a test run of the meats the night before, that's how much he cared. Adorably, he actually joined an online Texas BBQ forum ("Aussie needs a hand!"), and got fantastically detailed advice on how to prepare, smoke and cook the meat from a bunch of friendly Texans. Click on the link and have a read of the comments!


I asked J to divulge his secrets and he wrote back: "No big secrets. The idea was to use the 3-2-1 method – 3 hrs smoking, 2 covered in foil and 1 browning in very low heat. That WAS the idea but things went a bit haywire as I couldn’t keep the temp low enough for long enough. The rub was a South Western rub with lots of chilli and cayenne pepper. Oh, and it was smoked with Mesquite wood."


Bless your cotton socks, J. Both the brisket and the ribs were *awesome*.


Jess made the fiery BBQ sauce according to her secret recipe, 24 hours in advance so the flavour had time to develop. I WANT THE RECIPE, IT'S ADDICTIVE and it has a kick like an angry mule.


And then of course there were all the sides. Jess made biscuits, of the traditional baking powder buttermilk variety this time. They tasted a bit like scones, and were great for mopping up BBQ sauce.


Other sides included potato salad, SENSATIONAL mac n cheese made by M&M, slaw and the Texas caviar. Bravo, everybody!


Just as we were falling into a post-BBQ stupor akin to the one you get after Christmas dinner, Kate announced that we still had dessert. In keeping with the American theme, she'd made blueberry pie and Jess whipped up a quick and tasty peach cobbler. We served them à la mode.


I asked Kate for details of the blueberry pie: "I used the “pâte brisée” (sweet shortcrust) recipe from Bourke St Bakery, except I cheated and made the whole thing in the processor (skipped the kneading by hand), and skipped the multiple chilling times that BSB suggests. (They always overcomplicate their recipes... I suspect it is to make it all seem too hard so that you just go to the bakery and buy it instead.)

The filling is my grandmother’s recipe."

Grandmother's blueberry pie filling is a family secret, and with good reason. It's PERFECT. A huge thank you to Kate, J and all the other Texas potluck contributors for a smashing afternoon - I was unable to eat for 24 hours afterwards, but it was totally worth it.

Nonno's capocollo

This is my Nonno. I've previously mentioned my Nonno here on the blog. My mother's father, he was born in 1921 in Italy, in a town on the Istrian Peninsula called Pola (which became part of Yugoslavia after WWII and is now part of Croatia and called Pula).


Nonno was an athlete in 1930s Italy, and an officer in the Italian army during WWII. In the late 1940s, having been forced to leave his home town and emigrate over the new border into Italy, Nonno decided to emigrate all the way to Australia, bringing his newlywed bride (my Nonna) with him.

We grandchildren have always enjoyed poring over their old photo album, looking at the photos of them in 1930s and 1940s Italy, then on the boat that brought them down under. Below are the photos showing their first glimpse of Terra Australis, Station Pier, St Paul's Cathedral and the Forum Theatre (the last two photos taken from the train that was taking them to Bonegilla, the migrant camp near Wodonga where they were interned upon their arrival in Australia).


Nonna and Nonno have lived in Australia for 60 years. Yesterday was their 61st wedding anniversary, so we had a lovely family lunch for them at my parents' place. One of the antipasti which I feel I must share with you was the capocollo that Nonno cures himself.

It. Is. Delicious.


SO much better than prosciutto! Extracted below is a description of the process the pork undergoes (written by my mother):
Papà has been curing his own capocollo for years. He used to cure prosciutto, but that proved to be too much meat to eat in a short time, especially as his prosciutto became ready to eat at Christmas, when it's hot. The meat potentially goes off quickly. Capocollo takes about 6-7 weeks to dry and therefore can be eaten in late winter (as June-July seems to be the best time to make it). The part of the pork is the "capocollo" (part of the fleshy part of the neck and upper back of the animal).

It usually weighs 1.5-2 kgs and loses about 30-40% of its weight in the drying process.


The meat should be trimmed of visible fat with a small, sharp knife. It should then be immersed in rock salt, and left for 18-24 hours. Once taken out of the salt, the meat must be washed to remove the salt crystals, then carefully dried and laid out on a chopping board. More fat trimming can now be done and more easily too as the fat is more visible due to the action of the salt.


The meat is now ready to be seasoned. Use coarse pepper, whole cloves and a cinnamon stick or two. Then roll the meat as tightly as possible and tie very securely with butchers string up and down the length of it. The capocollo should now be covered in a stretchy string cover (available from the butcher). It can easily be sheathed by the means of an aggy pipe.

Both ends of the string casing should be tied securely, and it should be labelled with date of curing and preferably weight of the capocollo. It should now be hung in a cool dry and well-ventilated spot; a meat safe type arrangement works well.


By applying firm pressure with your fingers, it is possible to periodically determine how well it is drying. It should have a little bit of give - if it gets too hard, it becomes chewy and unpalatable. If you feel your capocollo is drying too quickly, a method of slowing down the process is to place it in a box filled with wheat, so that it is totally submerged.


Using an electric slicer can improve the taste as slices are thinner and more even. Buon appetito."


After the anniversary lunch, I drove Nonna and Nonno home to Vermont South yesterday afternoon. I took the opportunity to take photos of the flyscreen cage he made to protect his curing meats from blowflies (see above), and to check out how the radicchio in his garden was faring.


Oh, and here are some food porn photos from the anniversary lunch itself. We had two crimson salads: one of roasted baby beetroot and another of radicchio rosso, Spanish onion and pine nuts.


Somewhat unusually (given that we're northern Italians, more used to polenta and strudel) we had pizze. One of the pizze bianche we had featured mushroom, sliced potato, taleggio and rosemary, the other gorgonzola, cherry tomatoes and torn basil.


Ever since the Great Mussels Incident Of 1999 that I was unlucky enough to experience in Montmartre, I tend to steer queasily clear of most bivalves. However, I make an exception for good oysters, and for clams (vongole, in Italian). We had linguini alle vongole, using pasta all'uovo, chilli, Italian parsley and a small quantity of chopped fresh tomatoes added just prior to serving. Completely delicious.


Two cakes for dessert. One was a chocolate mousse cake from Laurent, and another (far more interesting) cake made by Mamma: a frangipane tart containing chopped dates and topped with pistachios and heated fig jam.


It don't get much better than this!