I cook better in the springtime, when there is more energy in the air; this recipe for lamb is a tribute to spring and the period of pasturization. Sheep and goats were historically the first animals to be domesticated, roughly ten thousand years ago. The lamb was dedicated to Polyphemus, cyclops and shepard The first characteristic of this plate is the farse, a base of dates, dried figs, almonds, pine nuts, sultano raisins, and toasted sesame. Everything is soaked and ground, and reduced into a paté. With this, you stuff the ribs and the leg, browned first on the stovetop and then in the oven. In the center of the plate goes a yogurt sauce, cucumber, mint and garlic, finished with saffron and wild fennel. To complete the dish, a tiny pot of crunchy seasonal vegetables tossed with lamb sauce. Note Saffron and wild fennel are refreshing, digestive ingredients that also add a touch of color.

Abbuttunatu stands for “filling” according to Palermitan tradition. Following their conquest of Sicily, the Arabs moved the longtime seat of power – that had by ancient customs always been Syracuse – to Palermo. The tuna is stuffed with a filling of Ragusan cheese, breadcrumbs seasoned with aromatics, olive oil, parsley and crisp onion. At the moment of serving, a beef sauce is gently poured over the top. Note «I want to emphasize that the red garlic from Nubia that I use for this dish is sweetened in milk and added in moderation. Traditionally, the tuna is cooked in tomato – a low and slow braise – however in this case, I serve two cuts: the belly, grilled over the barbecue, and a filet just barely seared served nearly raw and lacquered (“ingilluppato” in dialect) in a vegetable-based barbecue sauce». The long reign of the Arabs in Sicily resurrected agriculture and gifted many things: rice, sugar, cotton, citrus, the red mulberry, jasmine, anise, sesame, cloves, the invention of pasta, and more...

«I would like that this recipe remain a bit of a secret, to be tasted without too many words, without too many explanations. Like certain prayers that are valid for their brevity; to have and to hold on their own accord. A blessed recipe, three times white. For this it should be remembered». Note White tuna, the Pizzuta d’Avola almond and milk is an explicit reference to the white eating (“bianchi mangiari”) that spread in the XII century among the wealthy classes as a symbol of spiritual purity. To understand its influence, it would suffice to remember that, in a completely different context, it was also served in the banquet organized by Matilde di Canossa for the reconciliation between Pope Gregory VII and Henry IV.

«Sicilian cuisine is very similar to the history of Sherazade. Where one story ends, another begins. This is the recipe for a sweet cous cous where each ingredient represents a place near and far that concerns us, a piece of our history. «I put two scoops of ice cream in the dish – of lavender and celery water – a tribute to Persia. Celery is a natural salt, a subtle seasoning. Then I add some pistachio cous cous, recalling the dish made by the cloister nuns of the Monastery of Santo Spirito in Agrigento. My cous cous, however, contains only durum wheat semolina. «To get the same visual effect, I crumbled some sponge cake, passing it in a sieve with large holes. Then, the mixing with the fingers (“incocciato” in dialect), adding water scented with rose, elderberry and jasmine, plus a few sprigs of fresh lemongrass with its flowers. «Tasting this dish, you will instantly find yourself in one of the gardens that perfume the Island, of which the Arab and Norman poets sang». Note «Fantastic, these nuns! There is a freshness and a wisdom in their cooking that stuns, enchants and comforts you with sweetness. All of the fears and challenges of the world vanish».

A plate of spaghetti in honor of Madonna Santissima delle Milizie di Scicli, the only one to have mounted on horseback, drawing the sword that gave Count Roger strength against his opponent, the emir Belcane. In local dialect, taratatà does not translate to the sound of the charge, but to the “clash” – a great confusion – at most reminiscent of the repeated clash of the swords between the Christians and the infidels when dancing the Moorish party dance. «I don’t associate it as much with the Arab domination as with the Byzantines; a few centuries later they were the first to take interest in bottarga. «It is a homemade spaghetti of Sicilian wheat, seasoned with Bluefin tuna bottarga sauce, inspired by the Moorish sauce that was (and is still) used both in this area and in Venice to flavor ‘bigoli’, a rustic, hand cut spaghetti. The spaghetti is tossed with a pesto of citrus herbs and exalted with elderberry and rose hips». Note «The combination of pasta, bottarga, and raw carrot unleashes a souvenir of my childhood. Magically, I rediscovered the taste of the gelsi (a white mulberry common in Sicily) that we ate straight from the trees. «The combination of these three elements recreated something miraculously floral. It served in my realization of the difference between a well-made kitchen and a creative kitchen, from zero to two stars».  

The Bluefin tuna bottarga is part of a line of products signed by Sultano; a una  bottarga of two sets of hands, , selected by Ciccio Sultano and entrusted to the master Alfio Vissalli.

A recipe that starts with Ragusan scaccia (a thin oven-fired focaccia, typically stuffed) transformed into crisp wafers shaped like equilateral triangles. A sort of unleavened bread, arranged vertically on tomato sauce that covers a cream of basil and of Ragusan cheese. The dish is completed with a dusting of focaccia crumbs, a refreshing tomato gelée and a mousse of buffalo mozzarella. Note This dish is dedicated to the Jewish neighborhood of Ragusa. If you observe the assembly of the dish, you discover an ancient sapient symbol. The tomato sauce is part of the selection signed by Sultano.

«For Angioini and Aragonesi, hunting and sculling champions, the pigeon came to mind, prized for its lean meat. The thigh is glazed with carrot, served with a crumble of mushrooms and spices, crisp leaves of sanapastro or sanapo, a wild herb of the onion family that paints the Sicilian countryside». Note «The noble goodness of this pigeon depends largely on the fact that the carcasses are roasted on the barbecue and pan sautéed so as to obtain a sauce for the reduction».

On the topic of the squash, “pork for the poor”, scholars disagree. Some say that it was cultivated from the remotest antiquity in America while some claim it was native to Asia, arriving from India to the Peninsula by way of the usual Phoenicians. We Sicilians could care less, we love squash and are exactly halfway between the West and the East. Whether it arrived at the turn of the 16th century or was already cultivated in the times of Carthage does not change the fact that the squash, here, is at home. And I like to joke around with Marziale, the Roman poet, who to laugh at Cecilio, wrote this epigram, “A lunch based on squash”: Cecilio is the Atreus of the squash So well he cuts them into pieces, as if they were the sons of Tieste. Straight away you’ll have them as an appetizer and then again in the first course and in the second and in the third course, more squash and finally, squash for dessert... Squash, anchovies, orange and bottarga is a dish that represents simplicity as a point of arrival, the beauty of ingredients and of natural forms. A rectangle of yellow squash, baked in the oven, lies over a sauce of sour cream with marinated anchovies, orange segments, bottarga, and bergamot gelatin. This is life, history and geography: a mixture of flavors. Note The squash in this case is Sicilian butternut, born in the ‘30s thanks to the tenacity of a farmer from Massachusetts. The Bluefin tuna bottarga is one I make with Alfio Visalli, flavored with rose petals and elderberry, while the anchovies are straight from the nets of the Testa family, who have fished in the Sicilian seas since 1800. In every recipe there must always be a catalyst element that literally pulls at the brain’s waves. In this case, the role is taken on by bergamot gelatin.

«I found inspiration for this recipe in the book by Pino Correnti, the Golden Book of Sicilian food and wine, in which a certain spiritual scene transpires: Giuseppe Balsamo, count of Cagliostro born in 1743, is questioned about his favorite dish. He replies – with a full mouth – “that incredibly spicy number: puddastri ca pipirata”. I have instinctively modified the dish by replacing the pipirata (a sauce made with peppers and chili) with a homemade harissa sauce that is just spicy enough to leave heat in the mouth. A mediumistic dish, therefore, dually inspired.» Two Aia Gaia chicken thighs are braised skin-on, served with their skins crispy. Two sauces accompany the dish: salsa pipirata – cinnamon, ginger, cloves, honey with macerated rosehip and elderflower – and salsa harissa – cumin, cardamom, yellow squash, bell pepper, and chili pepper. Note Giuseppe Balsamo once described: I do not consider myself from a certain period or a certain place; aside from time and space, my spiritual being lives in eternal existence… Beyond the Count’s many scandals, it must be acknowledged that Cagliostro was able to foresee the French revolution as the guillotine of the sovereigns, and that his long life elixir (Egyptian wine and refreshing powders) cured many sick and dying – without compensation – and was widely diffused.

A Bourbon dish, at the time of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. «The timballo of the Leopard, mentioned in the book by Tomasi di Lampedusa. A base of pastry dough is stacked, layer by layer, with slices of fried eggplant, cooked Capitelli ham, fresh Ragusan cheese, homemade macaroni noodles seasoned with meat sauce from our purveyor Giuseppe Grassi, pork from Agostino Ninone Sebastiano, and chicken from Aia Gaia. «This is all brought together with a bechamel scented with bourbon vanilla, a lighter, more pleasant version than the traditional pastry cream». Note The defiant challenge of this timballo isn’t the exuberant filling, but rather that we have shrunk it into a mini-version; a single portion. An example of culinary engineering. In The Leopard, Tomasi di Lampedusa writes: The burnished gold of the wrapper, the fragrance of sugar and cinnamon that emanates; was nothing but a prelude to the sensation of delight that came from inside when the knife broke the crust: first it burst into wafts of aromas. Then we saw the chicken livers, the hard boiled eggs, the slices of ham, chicken and truffles in one, unctuous mass, scalded by the short macaroni noodles, to which the meat extract lent a precious chamois color.

The dessert Moakaffè is a double tribute: first, to the wine of Arabia, the intoxicating drink presumed to have originated from Caffa in Ethiopia, arriving in Yemen between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and then propagated in Europe by way of the Arab and Ottoman worlds; and second to the coffee producer Moak – the ancient Arabic name for Modica – a historic partner of Ciccio Sultano. The Moakaffè contains a base of mascarpone cream, covered with a cocoa crumble on which sit brioche filled with cardamom ice cream and frozen Moak coffee. The dish is finished at the table by pouring over organic espresso spiked with rum. An invigorating dessert, to say the least. Note According to a tradition handed down by the Maronite friar Antonio Fausto Nairone, a theologian at the Sorbonne in Paris between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the archangel Gabriel would offer coffee to the prophet Muhammad, whom after drinking it “disarmed 40 knights in battle and satisfied no less than 40 women”.