Friday, March 14, 2008

pasta con calamari e mascolini beccafico

Justina and I had plans to head over to the Linguaglossa street market this morning, and there we ran into Bastiano and Irene. Thanks for the picture!
I bought artichokes, flowers, and my favorite toasted almonds... On our way home, we stopped in Linguaglossa's fish market, and it was a treat. I decided on calamari and mascolini for lunch. It is, after all, Friday... (Mascolini in Sicilian, Anchovies in English, and Alici or Acciughe in Italian.)

The man at the fish market insisted on cleaning the calamari for me, so I don't have a before picture. He cleaned out the inside, scraped off the thin outer skin, and cut into pieces.

Here, I sauteed the calamari in olive oil, garlic, and red pepper. Parsley and cherry tomatoes were then added to the pan. White wine would also be a nice addition, but I didn't have any today.

Then, the not quite al dente pasta was added to the pans liquid, where it would finish cooking.

A little sweet a little spicy... Yum.

With the mascolini I thought about making a "type" of beccafico. A very simple combination of bread crumbs, Parmigiano Reggiano, and parsley. After removing the spine, I layered the fish with the breading, and cooked on low heat. You can see other ideas with mascolini here.



1 comment:

Gary said...

Just found your blog while searching for a recipe for cudurre (thanks!) in anticipation of Easter, and I've been having a great time reading other posts. The beccafici remind me of Commisario Montalbano!

The other Easter treats I'm planning on making come from Mistretta, where I have cousins. One they call "varate" and the other is a very soft almond paste cookie, flat, with grapes or flowers or fruit in relief. Not marzipan, not colored, just dusted with powdered sugar. I've just emailed my cousins for recipes.