I love “lu baccala” when it is done just simple and eaten right away.

1 – Buy your baccala, “na spina” or more.  Soak the baccala in water for at least 3 days changing the water at least every day.  This will get rid of most of the salt the codfish is brined and dried in.After soaking the baccala it will be more manageable to cut it and prepare.

2 – After drying with paper towels, cut “la spina”  into pieces such as you see in the pictures.

3 – Dredge each piece one at a time in a bowl of plain flour.  That is what you see in the first picture.

4 – Fry the pieces of baccala in a deep pan of heated oil, whether it is olive oil, canola oil, vegetable oil, or a combination of these.  When the pieces are a golden brown take them out and you can place them on a paper towel to absorb the frying oil.  Don’t crowd the pan.

5 – After draining the oil you are ready to “dress” the baccala.  Put the pieces of baccala in a large bowl where you will add chopped parsley, and sliced garlic.  You can layer the pieces in as you add the parsley, garlic on top of each layer. When you are ready to eat the baccala serve with lemon slices. Squeeze lemon juice when you are about to eat so the baccala doesn’t get soggy.

Eat fresh out of the frying pan, or cold, or reheated in the toaster.  They are always good and delicious!

These are one version of these delicious Sicilian Christmas Cookies.  They have a thicker cookie part filled with a fig mixture.

This is 4 pounds of Flour, add to it 4 cups of Crisco, 2 tablespoons of Vanilla, 2 cups of Sugar, 2 tablespoons of Baking Powder. As you can see they are using an oven pan to put all the ingredients in and combine, until they are ready to take it onto the table top.

Add 5 beaten eggs to this mountain of ingredients, and combine it all together.

  Mix it until all the flour is combined.  Add a little scalded milk if the dough mixture is too dry.

Roll the cookie dough into logs.  Slice the dough about an inch thick.  Flatten it out and put some fig mixture in the middle as you see above.  Then close it up.

After rolling up the dough with the fig mixture, you slice it to reveal the filling.  Place them on an oven pan.

This is the fig mixture filling for these cookies.  It consists of mashed up figs, dates, orange zest, honey, clove powder.

For the glaze you will mix a cup of confectioners sugar with water and a squeeze of lemon.  Add the water a little at a time until you get a thin consistency that will allow you to brush it onto the cookie, or simply smear it on with you hands as you see us doing!

Beating a mixture of confectioners sugar with water and a squeeze of lemon.  Only add enough water to make a thin mixture to be brushed on to the top of each cookie after the have cooled.  Drop sprinkles on the cookies while the sugar glaze is still wet.

Potatoes and onions are frying in the pan.  Add salt and pepper.

The potatoes and onions have fried up nice and brown.

The beaten eggs have been added to the pan of potatoes and onions.  I stirred them up for chunky pieces.  However, I usually do not stir it up, I pour in the eggs and when I think bottom is cooked enough I flip it, then my frittata is in one piece.  I’ll be back with that one.

You will need a large skillet.  Today I am mixing up the eggs when I cook them into the pan with the sauteed onions and potatoes, so I will not be sliding it out to flip it in the pan for the other side to cook, I’ll do that another time.

1 large onion, yellow or Vidalia

2 large potatoes, peeled, rinsed and cut in half and half again and then sliced up to make them into large to medium rectangular cubed pieces

6 eggs, medium or large, scrambled in a bowl, ready to pour when the inions and potatoes are ready

Salt and Pepper added to your taste

Heat up the oil, I used olive oil.

Add the onions and the potatoes, cook them till they are nicely browned and you can tell that the potatoes are cooked.

Add the scrambled eggs to the skillet and let this cook until you can see the eggs are getting done.

Then stir up the eggs in the potatoes/onions to cook up the rest of the eggs in the pan.

Don’t let the eggs get brown, over cooked

Stir the pan to get all the eggs cooked

All of this should be done over medium heat, but that depends on the size of your burner, so use you judgement.  Usually, I use the low setting on the front burners because they are the large ones. If you use the medium sized burners then you can go to the medium heat setting.

Serve it up in a dish and I like a little ketchup on the side.

My next post will be Spaghetti with garlic as my mother made it.

Well today I attempted my mother’s Pasta cu Brocolo, and that means pasta with broccoli or pasta broccoli.

I used one whole head of very fresh garlic.  Sliced and toasted/sauteed in a big pan with enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the entire pan.  When the garlic started looking beigey-brown I added one pound of frozen broccoli florets right out of the bag.  In the meantime, the water was boiling and the spaghetti was cooking in it.  I continued cooking the garlic, broccoli, olive oil in the big sautee pan, and when the broccoli seemed cooked enough I added the drained spaghetti.  I added salt and pepper to the big pan of my pasta cu brocolo.  I let it cook a little more all together for just a couple of minutes.

What did I learn from this experiment?  It tasted almost like my mother’s but not exactly.  I was still delicious but as much as my mother’s.  Next time, I will use two whole heads of sliced garlic and chop the broccoli before adding it to the pan.  I will also reserve some of the pasta water to add a little to the whole dish in the pan.  AND I will make sure I have grated cheese on hand like Percorino Romano or Parmgiano Reggiano.

So I will be back after my next attempt at my mother’s Lina Romolo’s pasta cu Brocolo!  Thank you for visiting, and remember to “eat while you can!!!!”

Here you can see that I just did not cut up the broccoli enough,  the dish is better when the broccoli pieces are smaller and mixed throughout more evenly.  My next suggestion is using a linguine or macaroni like gemmeli.  So next time,  2 heads of garlic/one pound of broccoli/one pound of pasta with reserved water.  Capisce?