ARTICHOKES IN A CITRUS SAUCE

(Carciofi ai Quattro Succhi)

Serves 8

12 medium artichokes

6 onions, thinly sliced

225 ml/8 fl oz olive oil

225 ml/8 fl oz orange juice

225 ml/8 fl oz tangerine juice

125 ml/4 fl oz lemon juice

125 ml/4 fl oz white wine vinegar (see note)

1 litre/1¾ pints water

1 teaspoon salt

50 g/2 oz capers

8 anchovy fillets

1 teaspoon olive oil

2-3 tablespoons sugar

Remove the tough outer leaves from the artichokes, cut off the tops of the remaining leaves, then peel the stems and bases. Cut each artichoke in half and remove the choke with the point of a sharp knife.

Place the artichoke halves and the sliced onions in a large, heavy saucepan together with 225 ml/8 fl oz oil, the three juices, vinegar, water, and salt. Cook slowly for 30 to 40 minutes or until the artichokes are very tender but still hold their shape

Take the artichokes from the pan, and place them in a deepish serving dish.

Add the capers (well rinsed if you have the good luck to be using salted Sicilian capers) to the sauce and cook it slowly until it is reduced and quite thick. Dissolve the anchovies in 1 teaspoon of oil over steam. Then add to the sauce both the anchovies and the sugar (the quantity of sugar will vary according to the strength of the vinegar you have used, and you have to go by taste). Cook for another 5 minutes until the sugar is completely dissolved, then pour over the artichokes. Serve cold.

Another citrus fruit of which Sicilians are very fond is the citron. This looks like an overgrown lemon, as big at times as a small melon, with a nubbled, wrinkled yellow rind. To slice it open is to discover that, between the thin yellow peel and the small centre of sweet, rather insipid flesh, there is a vast expanse of white pith, which is the best part of the whole affair. Besides being candied (candied citron and citron conserves are staples in Sicilian pastry), it is also excellent eaten raw, particularly when the yellow peel is removed and the pith and flesh are cut into thin slices and mixed with slices of sweet fennel, some good oil, salt, and pepper.

A last curiosity for anyone lucky enough to have a citrus tree in the garden or greenhouse: badduzze, meatballs of chopped veal or beef mixed with eggs, breadcrumbs, chopped parsley and garlic, grated pecorino, and salt and pepper. The meatballs are pressed flat between two orange or lemon leaves and grilled over the coals, so that the essential oils contained in the leaves permeate the meat. (Obviously one must be very sure about the provenance of the leaves, lest it be pesticides that do the permeating.)

Northern Italians fancy themselves as having a monopoly on the consumption of rice, but in fact rice first entered Europe as a foodstuff via Arab-occupied Spain and Sicily. The Romans knew rice only as an extremely expensive commodity imported in small quantities from India for medicinal purposes, but the Saracens were so skilled in irrigation that they were able to create paddies in the area around Lentini, to the south of Catania (albeit in a climate that has since become considerably hotter and more arid), where the cultivation of rice persisted into the eighteenth century.

The rice cultivated in the Mediterranean area has always been, until this century, the fat, short-grained variety that originated in Japan, rather than the long-grained rice from India that is cultivated in the United States. The former is still being produced and is known as riso originario. Modern Italian cooks now prefer, for risottos and many other dishes, the twentieth-century superfino hybrids, of which the most famous are arborio and vialone. In the recipes that follow I have indicated which type is to be preferred when a choice is possible, but any type of Italian rice is more suited to Sicilian dishes than a long-grain American rice.

It is true that a risotto or a riso in brodo has no place in traditional Sicilian cooking, but Sicilians are very proud of their arancine—rice croquettes fried to a golden brown so that they look like little oranges, which come either alla carne, stuffed with meat and peas in a tomato sauce, or al burro, with a ham and mozzarella filling. Arancine are to be found at the sandwich counter of almost any bar in Sicily, not to mention (and it’s a good place to make their acquaintance) in the bars of the ferryboats that ply the Straits of Messina between Sicily and the mainland. When arancine are good, they are very, very good, but when they are bad they are with you forever.

It takes considerable courage to enter the fray of contending arancine recipes: there must be almost a dozen different versions, each claiming the title of Authority. I have had success with this one: