Fisherman's Stew from Zeppoli.
Scungilli and calamari marinara.
Posted on 12/25/2023 12:24:00 AM PST by nickcarraway
Fisherman's Stew from Zeppoli.
Scungilli and calamari marinara.
No such thing as the “Feast Of Seven Fishes” in Italy. It exists only in the US. It’s a great Italian-American tradition though. . .
We do lasagna with homemade meat sauce (beef and Italian sausage), piccata, garlic bread, salad, roasted vegetables, homemade biscotti and ricciarelli.
Sadly, since my COVID adventures, I haven’t had the strength to cook in almost a year. Spending time in the kitchen, making good food with my husband or children, was a favorite Sunday ritual.
Tomorrow, my husband is doing the cooking. Thankfully, he is an amazing chef.
The lasagna sounds great! I do most of the Italian cooking in my house though my wife’s a fantastic cook who does everything from Thai to Indian to Chinese to her speciality; the classic British Roast Dinner complete with wonderful Youkshire Pudding. My thing is Southern Italian-Sicilian cooking. We live in Sicily, so you can guess how wonderful the ingredients for that sort of cooking are! Auguri di Buon Natale!
Catholics formerly observed fast and abstinence on vigil days before major feasts. Fast before the feast....very old principle. :)
I once ate baked calamari. I kept chewing and chewing and chewing….it was like eating rubber bands. My saliva couldn’t break it down.
At the same time, shrimp and scallops and pasta was the best.
My husband and I traveled across Italy in 2019. Started in Venice, a day trip to Piza, a few days in Florence, a few days in Rome, and a day trip to Naples. The food was outstanding.
We had wanted to go back in 2020 and spend more time in Naples, then Cinque Terra, then Milan. Covid shut the world down, then it shut me down. Hope to get back there.
Buon Natale e felice anno nuovo!
Calamari is an acquired taste.
If it was tough, it was either cooked too long or the heat was too high.
If you are going to fry it, it’s one and done. Literally, a minute. Otherwise, go with a low heat and cook a lot longer.
Somebody left it in the fryer for too long. I would have sent it back. Sorry you had the “chewing on a bicycle tire” experience.
If you cook calamari for longer than one minuCte...it becomes uneatable.
Calamari is to be flash cooked...less than a minute is best, and that’s the only way to enjoy it.
Well, it was my first Christmas Eve journey at the future Mrs DoodleBob’s family 7 fishes odyssey. I just kept chewing, but I was like an animal at the zoo; everyone watched so, wanting to marry my girl, I commented like it was the Curate’s Egg.
We are still going strong. And the in-laws didn’t hold it against me.
We must have eaten at the same restaurant.
It was in London and had to be the O-rings from the Space Shuttle Challenger.
Fried is good - I love it with marinara, not the sweet sauce.
ping
We had only one fish last night - salmon, plus risotto, asparagus, salad, garlic bread, and a couple of glasses of wine. For dessert, lava cake with vanilla ice cream and espresso.
Oh, and for appetizers we had crostini with soft cambonzola cheese spread, prosciutto and salami. YUM!
Buon Natale e felice anno nuovo a tutti!
Fast Easy Calamari
Ordered in a restaurant, you get your order fast— still hot and crunchy on the outside, while very soft in the inside----perfect calamari. And there's a reason---its probably been pre-soaked in milk.
Ing---1 lb calamari rings soaked in milk 3-24 hours 1/2 cup flour 1 1/2 tsp salt 2 tsp ea garlic powder, 2 dried parsley Lemon wedges 2 cups oil
Make---Combine flour, salt, garlic powder, and parsley flakes. Mix well and set aside. Heat the oil. Drain calamari well. Dredge rings one-at-a-time in flour mixture to completely coat. Deep fry 1-2 minutes til light brown. Liftout w/ strainer. Let excess oil drip. Set on server. Add lemon wedges.
Note---the lactic acid in milk makes the calamari soft.
an ever expanding bucket list includes tucking into a homestyle “Feast of the Seven Fishes”. Until then an occasional Peruvian style “captain’s platter – “Jalea” will reluctantly suffice … along with my homebrew version of “cioppino”.
Ah, the things men endure for love!
Our first Easter together after getting married, I wanted to make stuffed hens. My friend gave me the recipe but the temperature was wrong. My beloved husband, to applaud my efforts, dug right in. I got towards the middle of mine and it was undercooked.
“Honey, is yours okay?”
He smiled and nodded.
I looked at his plate. That sucker was raw!
“You don’t have to finish that. I don’t want you hospitalized with food poisoning.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” he insisted, not wanting to hurt my feelings, and kept eating.
I made sure to perfect that recipe. He never ate half- cooked stuffed hens again and my family has enjoyed it a number of times over the years.
God bless, and Merry Christmas!
I envy you- my adopted family is Sicilian, my grandparents are from Casteldaccia.
Our Christmas culinary tradition is making sausage bread. My wife is 100% Sicilian, her grandparents hailed from Sambuca.
The sausage bread is a carryover from her mother, who made it every year at Christmas. We made 6 this year, Christmas Eve morning. They’ll all be gone by tonight!
Buon Natale!
The fast was not observed if the vigil was a Sunday. (It wasn't even moved to the Saturday before; Sundays are not (and never were) days of penance, so the faithful would catch a break once in a while.)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.