Extremely OT for Anna Maria or any other Italian

I should probably e-mail our AMCM, but some other lurking Italian might
be able to help as well. This is a question about Italian pastries. I
have a wonderful book called "Christmas Memories With Recipes" in which
well-known people reminisce about the celebrations of their childhoods,
and include menus and recipes. Artist and author Edward Giobbi
describes, but does not give recipes for, two mouthwatering pastries his
mother used to make:

"turnovers filled with an exotic combination of cooked chick-peas,
honey, and toasted almonds that were deep-fried, then dusted with
powdered sugar"

and

"unforgettable crispy rounds filled with a reduction of grapes, saved
from my father's wine-making, chopped chocolate, orange rind, and walnuts"

Have you ever heard of these, and do you know their names, or, best of
all, do you have a recipe you'd be willing to share?

In article , spampot wrote:

I should probably e-mail our AMCM, but some other lurking Italian might
be able to help as well. This is a question about Italian pastries. I
have a wonderful book called "Christmas Memories With Recipes" in which
well-known people reminisce about the celebrations of their childhoods,
and include menus and recipes. Artist and author Edward Giobbi
describes, but does not give recipes for, two mouthwatering pastries his
mother used to make:

"turnovers filled with an exotic combination of cooked chick-peas,
honey, and toasted almonds that were deep-fried, then dusted with
powdered sugar"

and

"unforgettable crispy rounds filled with a reduction of grapes, saved
from my father's wine-making, chopped chocolate, orange rind, and walnuts"

Have you ever heard of these, and do you know their names, or, best of
all, do you have a recipe you'd be willing to share?

Oh boy that sounds yummy........

Els

--
I have added a trap for spammers......niet.....

spampot wrote:
I should probably e-mail our AMCM, but some other lurking Italian might
be able to help as well. This is a question about Italian pastries. I
have a wonderful book called "Christmas Memories With Recipes" in which
well-known people reminisce about the celebrations of their childhoods,
and include menus and recipes. Artist and author Edward Giobbi
describes, but does not give recipes for, two mouthwatering pastries his
mother used to make:

"turnovers filled with an exotic combination of cooked chick-peas,
honey, and toasted almonds that were deep-fried, then dusted with
powdered sugar"

and

"unforgettable crispy rounds filled with a reduction of grapes, saved
from my father's wine-making, chopped chocolate, orange rind, and walnuts"

Hi!

These sound like pastries from Central-Southern Italy, expecially the
first one. Do you have any indication of the author´s town? That´s very
important for an identification.
The second ones remind me of bocconotti from Abruzzo, but I can´t be
sure (I ate tonzs of them, but never made myself).
I hope that Sarah Grace will read your message, since she has a very
good knowledge of Calabria, where they also make similar pastries.
I´ll e-mail a friend about this, hope she´ll answer to your question.

Sorry that I can´t be of more help for now.

Hugs,

Anna Maria

Spampot wrote:
"turnovers filled with an exotic combination of cooked chick-peas,
honey, and toasted almonds that were deep-fried, then dusted with
powdered sugar"

and

"unforgettable crispy rounds filled with a reduction of grapes, saved
from my father's wine-making, chopped chocolate, orange rind, and walnuts"

Hmmmm these are not terribly familiar to me but i agree with Anna Maria that
they probably are Southern dishes. In Calabria i have had something similar to
the latter- but without the pastry- i.e. dried figs stuffed with chopped
walnuts, orange rind and honey and baked in the oven. Very simple to make but
long procedure and you need a huge quantity of perfect dried figs....

I had a quick hunt and came across a recipe he
http://www.rodigarganico.info/i/docs/cucina/dolci.htm

look for Cav’ciuncidd (calzoni dolci)- it is dort of a mix of the 2. It's a
website from Puglia. It's in Italian but is a start.

I'd look more but i am on Grandmother duty.

Regards
Sarah

Anna MCM wrote:


I hope that Sarah Grace will read your message, since she has a very
good knowledge of Calabria, where they also make similar pastries.
I´ll e-mail a friend about this, hope she´ll answer to your question.

My friend hasn´t answered yet, so I made a reasearch on my own. I found
these two recipes, which could be of some help. They come both from
website about Calabria. AFAIK, the use of chickpeas is not so common in
other Italian places in pastries, so they should be the ones you are
searching for. Please consider that there are so many variation between
nearby towns amd villages, inside the same village and inside the same
family that´s almost impossible to give a codified recipe for anything
(apart very few ones).
I leave the Italiam original, so please, Italian speaking people, check
and correct my translation (I don´t transalte the names, it´s impossible
for me). For quantities, please use a measure conversion site.
Disclaimer: I never tried these recipes, but they sound more or less OK.

The original site is:

http://www.calabriaonline.com/ita/ru...ette/dolci.php

--------------------

CASSAREDDRE O CHJINULLILLE

½ kg. di farina

4 uova intere meno un albume

un bicchiere di olio

tre cucchiai di zucchero

cannella in polvere

½ bicchierino d'anice
preparate la pasta; stendetela in una sfoglia piuttosto sottile e
tagliatela con una rotella, seguendo l'orlo di un piattino da caffè,
poggiato su di essa. Otterrete così una serie di piccoli dischi su
ognuno dei quali metterete una cucchiaiata della crema ottenuta
amalgamando perfettamente gli ingredienti per il ripieno. Piegate i
dischi in modo da ottenere delle mezze lune; fissatene i bordi, bagnati
con albume d'uovo, con la pressione delle dita e friggete in olio
d'oliva bollente. Spolverate con zucchero e cannella. Per il ripieno si
può usare con ottimi risultati la marmellata d'uva.

1/2 kg of flour

4 eggs (take away a egg white)

a glass of oil (how big the glass? who knows...)

3 table spoons of sugar

powder cinnamon

1/2 little glass (liquer glass?) of anice (Italian liqueur used in pastries)

Mix the ingredients making a dough, then make a thin sheet and cut it
with a "rotella" (round cutter?), following the border of a little
coffee plate. Put on each circle a tablespoon of the filling (they don´t
sey which one, but please read until end). Close the circles making a
"halfmoon"; press the edges a little bit so to close them very well with
finger tips, using also a little bit of egg white. Fry in hot olive oil.
Then dust with sugar and cinnamon. For the filling grape jam can be used.

As usual, the Italian recipes are not so clear (never found one in my
life), but I understand that the cinnamon must be used at the end and
not in the dough.

-----------

CASSATEDDRE CCU RI CICIRI'

½ kg. di farina

4 uova intere meno un albume

1 bicchierino di olio

3 cucchiai di zucchero

1 bicchierino di vermouth

gr. 300 si ceci tenuti a bagno per una nottata

gr. 100 di cacao dolce in polvere

cannella

chiodi di garofano pestati

pezzetti di frutta candita

1 bicchierino di cognac o brandy
seguite lo stesso procedimento suggerito per le 'cassateddre'; per il
ripieno, invece, bollite i ceci e passateli al setaccio. Alla crema
ottenuta aggiungete il cacao e tutti gli altri ingredienti. I dolci, una
volta fritti, vanno passati nel miele e successivamente spolverati di
zucchero profumato alla cannella o alla vaniglia.


1/2 a kg of flour

4 eggs (take away a egg white)

1 little glass of oil

3 tablespoons of sugar

1 little glass of vermouth (an Italian liquer, can it be found in the
States?)

300 gr of chickpeas kept in water overnight

100 gr of sweet cocoa powder

cinnamon

some ground cloves

little pieces of candied (crystallized) fruit

1 little glass of cognac or brandy

Use the same procedure as for the previuos recipe for the pastry dough.
For the filling, boil the chickpeas and pass them through a sieve. Add
the cocoa and other ingredients to this cream.
After the frying, the pastries must be covered (dipped maybe) with honey
and the dusted with sugar and cinnamon or sugar and vanille.

I apologize for all my English mistakes. If you try them let me plese know.

Hugs,

Anna Maria

spampot wrote:

"unforgettable crispy rounds filled with a reduction of grapes, saved
from my father's wine-making, chopped chocolate, orange rind, and walnuts"

There is something similar to this made in the town where I live. It's
funny, I never heard of it in any other part of Italy. We call it
pecorelle (little sheep). We don't put chocolate in it though. When the
grapes are harvested, we buy the crude raw juice (called "mosto" in
Italian) from the winery before it has begun to ferment, and boil it
down to a third of its original volume. We keep it until Christmas to
make the pecorelle.

The pastry is made with flour, a little olive oil, and enough dry white
wine to make a stiff dough. It's not easy to roll out. When it has been
rolled thin, we cut it in rectangles and put a bit of the filling on
each one and roll them into a cylinder. We make cuts in both ends to
represent the legs of the sheep and then bend them in a curve (so the
feet are down). We also make little cuts in the "back" of the sheep.
(This don't really look much like sheep when they're done; it's just an
impressionistic sheep.)

The filling is made from dry bread crumbs, the reduced wine mosto,
grated orange rind and finely chopped walnuts. The bread crumbs and
chopped walnuts are in about equal quantities, the orange rind is just
enough to give it a bit of taste and the wine mosto is enough so that
when well mixed a wooden spoon will just stand up in it.

The recipe I have is very old and the quantities are very vague. I had
help from neighbors the first three times I made it and just had to
learn from the appearance how it should be.

You can easily see that this is a traditional Italian peasant recipe.
There are no ingredients (other than the orange rind) that a peasant
family wouldn't have around the house. The orange rind was available
only at Christmas; it was the only luxury that a poor family would allow
themselves for the holiday. In our town, this treat is made for Epiphany
(January 6th) when the good witch (La Befana) brings presents to little
children. So the Christmas oranges were used for the rind.

Barbara

Oh, how lovely of you! Thanks so much! I'll let you know how these
turn out when I have time to try them.

Anna MCM wrote:


Anna MCM wrote:



I hope that Sarah Grace will read your message, since she has a very
good knowledge of Calabria, where they also make similar pastries.
I´ll e-mail a friend about this, hope she´ll answer to your question.

My friend hasn´t answered yet, so I made a reasearch on my own. I found
these two recipes, which could be of some help. They come both from
website about Calabria. AFAIK, the use of chickpeas is not so common in
other Italian places in pastries, so they should be the ones you are
searching for. Please consider that there are so many variation between
nearby towns amd villages, inside the same village and inside the same
family that´s almost impossible to give a codified recipe for anything
(apart very few ones).
I leave the Italiam original, so please, Italian speaking people, check
and correct my translation (I don´t transalte the names, it´s impossible
for me). For quantities, please use a measure conversion site.
Disclaimer: I never tried these recipes, but they sound more or less OK.

The original site is:

http://www.calabriaonline.com/ita/ru...ette/dolci.php

--------------------

CASSAREDDRE O CHJINULLILLE

½ kg. di farina

4 uova intere meno un albume

un bicchiere di olio

tre cucchiai di zucchero

cannella in polvere

½ bicchierino d'anice
preparate la pasta; stendetela in una sfoglia piuttosto sottile e
tagliatela con una rotella, seguendo l'orlo di un piattino da caffè,
poggiato su di essa. Otterrete così una serie di piccoli dischi su
ognuno dei quali metterete una cucchiaiata della crema ottenuta
amalgamando perfettamente gli ingredienti per il ripieno. Piegate i
dischi in modo da ottenere delle mezze lune; fissatene i bordi, bagnati
con albume d'uovo, con la pressione delle dita e friggete in olio
d'oliva bollente. Spolverate con zucchero e cannella. Per il ripieno si
può usare con ottimi risultati la marmellata d'uva.

1/2 kg of flour

4 eggs (take away a egg white)

a glass of oil (how big the glass? who knows...)

3 table spoons of sugar

powder cinnamon

1/2 little glass (liquer glass?) of anice (Italian liqueur used in
pastries)

Mix the ingredients making a dough, then make a thin sheet and cut it
with a "rotella" (round cutter?), following the border of a little
coffee plate. Put on each circle a tablespoon of the filling (they don´t
sey which one, but please read until end). Close the circles making a
"halfmoon"; press the edges a little bit so to close them very well with
finger tips, using also a little bit of egg white. Fry in hot olive oil.
Then dust with sugar and cinnamon. For the filling grape jam can be used.

As usual, the Italian recipes are not so clear (never found one in my
life), but I understand that the cinnamon must be used at the end and
not in the dough.

-----------

CASSATEDDRE CCU RI CICIRI'

½ kg. di farina

4 uova intere meno un albume

1 bicchierino di olio

3 cucchiai di zucchero

1 bicchierino di vermouth

gr. 300 si ceci tenuti a bagno per una nottata

gr. 100 di cacao dolce in polvere

cannella

chiodi di garofano pestati

pezzetti di frutta candita

1 bicchierino di cognac o brandy
seguite lo stesso procedimento suggerito per le 'cassateddre'; per il
ripieno, invece, bollite i ceci e passateli al setaccio. Alla crema
ottenuta aggiungete il cacao e tutti gli altri ingredienti. I dolci, una
volta fritti, vanno passati nel miele e successivamente spolverati di
zucchero profumato alla cannella o alla vaniglia.


1/2 a kg of flour

4 eggs (take away a egg white)

1 little glass of oil

3 tablespoons of sugar

1 little glass of vermouth (an Italian liquer, can it be found in the
States?)

300 gr of chickpeas kept in water overnight

100 gr of sweet cocoa powder

cinnamon

some ground cloves

little pieces of candied (crystallized) fruit

1 little glass of cognac or brandy

Use the same procedure as for the previuos recipe for the pastry dough.
For the filling, boil the chickpeas and pass them through a sieve. Add
the cocoa and other ingredients to this cream.
After the frying, the pastries must be covered (dipped maybe) with honey
and the dusted with sugar and cinnamon or sugar and vanille.

I apologize for all my English mistakes. If you try them let me plese know.

Hugs,

Anna Maria

Sarah Grace wrote:
Spampot wrote:
"turnovers filled with an exotic combination of cooked chick-peas,

honey, and toasted almonds that were deep-fried, then dusted with
powdered sugar"

and

"unforgettable crispy rounds filled with a reduction of grapes, saved
from my father's wine-making, chopped chocolate, orange rind, and walnuts"


Hmmmm these are not terribly familiar to me but i agree with Anna Maria that
they probably are Southern dishes. In Calabria i have had something similar to
the latter- but without the pastry- i.e. dried figs stuffed with chopped
walnuts, orange rind and honey and baked in the oven. Very simple to make but
long procedure and you need a huge quantity of perfect dried figs....

I had a quick hunt and came across a recipe he
http://www.rodigarganico.info/i/docs/cucina/dolci.htm

look for Cav’ciuncidd (calzoni dolci)- it is dort of a mix of the 2. It's a
website from Puglia. It's in Italian but is a start.

I'd look more but i am on Grandmother duty.

Regards
Sarah

Oh, that sounds yummy. Thanks!!

Barbara Vaughan wrote:
spampot wrote:

"unforgettable crispy rounds filled with a reduction of grapes, saved
from my father's wine-making, chopped chocolate, orange rind, and walnuts"


There is something similar to this made in the town where I live. It's
funny, I never heard of it in any other part of Italy. We call it
pecorelle (little sheep). We don't put chocolate in it though. When the
grapes are harvested, we buy the crude raw juice (called "mosto" in
Italian) from the winery before it has begun to ferment, and boil it
down to a third of its original volume. We keep it until Christmas to
make the pecorelle.

The pastry is made with flour, a little olive oil, and enough dry white
wine to make a stiff dough. It's not easy to roll out. When it has been
rolled thin, we cut it in rectangles and put a bit of the filling on
each one and roll them into a cylinder. We make cuts in both ends to
represent the legs of the sheep and then bend them in a curve (so the
feet are down). We also make little cuts in the "back" of the sheep.
(This don't really look much like sheep when they're done; it's just an
impressionistic sheep.)

The filling is made from dry bread crumbs, the reduced wine mosto,
grated orange rind and finely chopped walnuts. The bread crumbs and
chopped walnuts are in about equal quantities, the orange rind is just
enough to give it a bit of taste and the wine mosto is enough so that
when well mixed a wooden spoon will just stand up in it.

The recipe I have is very old and the quantities are very vague. I had
help from neighbors the first three times I made it and just had to
learn from the appearance how it should be.

You can easily see that this is a traditional Italian peasant recipe.
There are no ingredients (other than the orange rind) that a peasant
family wouldn't have around the house. The orange rind was available
only at Christmas; it was the only luxury that a poor family would allow
themselves for the holiday. In our town, this treat is made for Epiphany
(January 6th) when the good witch (La Befana) brings presents to little
children. So the Christmas oranges were used for the rind.

Barbara

Oh, my this does sound good. I wonder whether the chocolate was added
by people who could afford it. How long do you bake them, or, as my
grandmothers always said, "til it looks right"? Thanks!

spampot wrote:

Oh, my this does sound good. I wonder whether the chocolate was added
by people who could afford it. How long do you bake them, or, as my
grandmothers always said, "til it looks right"? Thanks!

That's about it! The pastry is a bit like pie pastry and should be just
lightly colored. The recipe says to bake in a hot oven. It was written
in the days when the oven was heated with wood and you couldn't exactly
set the temperature.

Barbara