The typical recipes of Calabria are so many and varied that choosing just a few is really difficult, so for the most part you will find recipes from Reggio Calabria here. Calabria is a hospitable, wild and beautiful land with an uncontaminated sea and mountains with breathtaking views, and with a thousand-year-old culinary tradition. It is a savoury and tasty cuisine linked to the products of the land and especially those of the sea.
Calabria produces cured meats that have a long tradition, the most famous of which is nduja, a soft salami made from the fatty parts of the pig and chilli pepper. In addition to cured meats, there are also cheeses. Calabria boasts one of the oldest cheese-making traditions in our country. The various pecorino cheeses such as pecorino crotonese or pecorino del Pollino, caciocavallo or burrito del Pollino, to name but a few, are exported and enjoyed not only in Italy.
Let's start with recipes that are both land and sea-based. The first course for Sundays and feast days is the typical maccheroni, dressed with a sausage ragout and lots of grated salted ricotta cheese
Maccheroni is a type of handmade pasta that is not very difficult to prepare even if the process is a little long.
Macaroni
Ingredients for making macaroni
grams 300 of type 0 flour
grams 300 of semolina
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon olive oil
about a glass of hot water
Preparing the macaroni
Mix the type 0 flour with the semolina, add the salt and oil and knead the dough with your hands, slowly adding the water. This is because the end result should be a fairly hard but not wet dough. Make a dough ball and put it in the fridge for at least an hour. After this time, knead it a little more with your hands and cut it into pieces.
Roll the pieces with your hands and make a rather long cylinder of dough with a diameter of one finger. Make as many cylinders as the number of pieces you have cut. These cylinders should in turn be cut into pieces of about 2 centimetres.
At this point we have to give it its original shape and this is done by rolling the 2 centimetre piece around a knitting needle or if you do not have any available on a wooden skewer stick.
Roll the dough onto the toothpick and flatten until it has covered the entire toothpick. Remove the toothpick and at this point we will have obtained the first maccaruni, which is a kind of rather coarse noodle with a hole in it.
We repeat the process for all the pieces of dough.
Let's now move on to preparing the meat sauce to season our macaroni.
Ingredients for the macaroni sauce
1 - 1,200 kilograms of blended peeled tomatoes
grams 300 minced pork
grams 300 minced beef
2 sausages (if you can find them typical of Reggio Calabria with fennel seeds and black pepper)
1 small onion
olive oil, salt and pepper to taste
grated salted ricotta cheese for seasoning
Preparation of the meat sauce
In a rather large saucepan, put a few tablespoons of olive oil and sauté the onion, chopped rather finely.
Add the pork and beef meat and the sausages peeled and chopped into small pieces. Adjust the salt and pepper and after about ten minutes add the chopped tomatoes.
Cook on a very low flame and with a lid for about 6 hours, adding a little water if needed during cooking to prevent sticking. Once the macaroni is cooked in plenty of boiling salted water, season with the meat sauce and grate some salted ricotta on top.
Calabrian-style pasta and broccoli
A typical first course in the tradition of Reggio Calabria
Ingredients for Calabrian-style pasta and broccoli
For this recipe, you need Calabrian broccoli.
700 grams of short pasta, mezze maniche rigate type
grams 600 of Calabrese broccoli already cleaned
grams 100 of provola cheese or similar
5 fillets of salted anchovies
100 grams of grated seasoned pecorino cheese
2 cloves of garlic
1 bunch of parsley
salt, chilli pepper and olive oil to taste,
Preparation of Calabrian-style pasta and broccoli
Clean and cut the broccoli into not very large pieces and cook it in plenty of boiling, salted water for about 15-20 minutes. Do not throw away the broccoli cooking water as it will be used to cook the pasta.
In a pan with 4 -5 tablespoons of olive oil, cook the finely chopped anchovies with the garlic, also finely chopped.
Add the chopped chilli pepper and cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Now add the chopped broccoli, adjust the salt and cook for a few more minutes. In the meantime, put the cooking water back on the stove and as soon as it is boiling, add the pasta.
Once cooked and drained, place it in the pan with the broccoli, add the chopped provola and chopped parsley and mix well. Before serving at the table, sprinkle with plenty of grated seasoned pecorino cheese.
Swordfish Calabrian style
What you need for Calabrian swordfish
1 kilogram of swordfish
300 grams of peeled chopped tomatoes
3 potatoes
1 clove of garlic
half a Tropea onion
grams 10 of capers
grams 50 of pitted black olives
olive oil, chilli pepper, salt and parsley to taste
Preparing the Calabrian swordfish
First cook the potatoes in plenty of boiling water without peeling them for about thirty minutes. (the time depends on the size of the potatoes).
In a pan fry the finely chopped onion and garlic in 4 tablespoons of olive oil until golden brown. Add the capers and olives and the chopped peeled tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes.
Adjust the salt and chopped chilli pepper and place the sliced swordfish in the pan. Cook for about 6 - 7 minutes, turning the fish several times. Halfway through the cooking time, add the potatoes, which you have peeled and chopped, and mix everything together. Before serving put the chopped parsley on top.
Reggina-style anchovies
Ingredients for anchovies alla reggina
1 kg cleaned and gutted anchovies
80 grams of stale bread or breadcrumbs
80 grams of pitted green olives
25 grams capers
1 clove of garlic
1 bunch of parsley
salt and black pepper and olive oil to taste
Preparation of anchovies alla reggina
Finely chop the garlic, capers and parsley and add the breadcrumbs and green olives cut into rounds. Mix everything together well.
Place a few tablespoons of olive oil in a baking dish, preferably earthenware. To cover the entire surface of the baking dish now place the anchovies next to each other. Season the layer with the garlic, capers and breadcrumb mixture and drizzle with olive oil.
Continue alternating layers of anchovies and mixture until all the ingredients are used up. Drizzle again with olive oil and place in a hot oven at 180 degrees for 30 minutes.
And now to the typical desserts.
The cudduraci
Typical sweets that are prepared during the Easter period.
Needed for the cudduraci
grams 400 flour
grams 150 sugar
3 eggs
grams 50 of aniseed liqueur
grams 100 of butter at room temperature
1 sachet of baking powder
1 lemon
grams 50 of milk
coloured sugars for garnish
Preparation of the cudduraci
Mix the flour with the baking powder, add the eggs. the aniseed liqueur, the sugar and the butter cut into small pieces. Work with your hands until the butter has melted completely, add the grated lemon peel and form a soft, compact ball. Refrigerate the dough for at least twenty minutes.
Take the dough and knead again with your hands. Now make balls with the dough and give each ball the shape you like, such as a dove, a plait, or a heart shape, but with a maximum dough height of 2 centimetres.
Brush the biscuits with milk and decorate with coloured sprinkles. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes or until the surface is golden brown.
Honey pignolata
The pignolata al miele is the Calabrian version of the pignolata prepared in Sicily.
Ingredients for the honey pignolata
350 grams of wheat flour
4 whole eggs
grams 30 of butter
grams 200 of honey
30 grams of sugar
1 lemon
salt to taste
half a litre of seed oil for frying
coloured sugars for garnish
Preparation of the honey pignolata
In a bowl, break the eggs, add a pinch of salt and working the dough with a wooden spoon, slowly add the flour, butter flakes, sugar and the grated rind of a lemon. Take the dough and knead it with your hands until you obtain a compact, firm dough. Place the dough covered with cling film in the refrigerator for at least an hour. This way you work the dough better.
Cut the dough into many pieces and roll the pieces into one centimetre thick cylinders. These cylinders should be cut into pieces of about one centimetre and given a round shape. Fry the pieces in plenty of frying oil until they are golden brown, about 4 minutes, and wipe them in blotting paper to remove excess oil.
Place the fried pieces in a bowl and sprinkle with honey, mixing well. Sprinkle with coloured sprinkles and serve at the table.
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