Where to begin with this one?
I made Sicilian pistachio pesto, but that’s not the true story here. This story begins forty years ago, when my parents started high school back in Russia.
There they met a couple other kids they liked, ones they instantly became good friends with. They spent their high school and college years continuing to build these friendships, several of them even marrying within the group. In their twenties, life started to move them in different directions. Many of them emigrated from Russia to different parts of the world. They moved to England, to France, to America. They had babies.
These friendships weren’t intimidated by country borders, and so throughout the last twenty five years, they’ve made it a habit to get back together. The younger generation (us), although most of us grew up halfway around the world from each other, see each other as extensions of our own families as well.
This year was probably the biggest reunion we’ve ever had. Seven families (with only three “kids” missing) traveled to Sicily. We rented a villa outside Taormina on the eastern side of the island, and proceeded to do what we do best—eat, sightsee, recreate old photos, and translate conversations back and forth so everyone can understand.
This is how much people change in 25 years. I’d say not much.
In ten days, we managed to cover most of the eastern part of the island, including Taormina, Syracuse, and Catania. Most of us (me excluded) also took the trek up Mount Etna to see the active volcano.
From a culinary perspective, I have to say that Sicilian food was pretty simple and lacked excitement. The ingredients were always fresh and delicious, but there were few things that inspired envy. The exception to that being granitas, which we discovered at a place called Bam Bar in Taormina and ended up going back to two or three times. Granitas are like sorbet but better—I very much plan to figure out how to make them and will share the recipe here.
With a group of about 25 people, going out to restaurants every day becomes exhausting. So instead, we opted for cooking at the villa. Each night a group of four or five would be responsible for dinner. Other than the fact that every single group bought enough food to feed 50 instead of 25, this process worked very well. Dinner each night was absolutely the highlight of the trip.
One night, we had the villa’s chef cook dinner for us. It was a full Sicilian meal with multiple courses of the island’s specialties. The pasta course included a pistachio pesto, which I found to be excellent. I thought this would be a good place to start in recreating Sicilian food.
Now any true Sicilian would gasp at this ingredient photo, seeing that I used roasted pistachios instead of raw ones, but unfortunately raw pistachios are hard to come by in the US. I checked two grocery stores, so I’m pretty mad at myself for not buying them at the market in Catania when I had the chance.
Regardless, pistachio pesto is a nice alternative to your regular pesto and is just as easy to make. Grind up the nuts, basil, garlic, Parmesan, and olive oil and dump it onto your favorite pasta.
Other Sicilian dishes you may see in the future here? Granitas for sure. Aranicni are on the list (fried balls of risotto stuffed with various things). And perhaps some of the gnocchi and desserts I’ve discovered in the cookbook I bought (which is 100% in Italian, so will take some time to translate).
- 10 oz spaghetti, dry
- ½ cup raw pistachios
- 1 cup packed basil leaves, plus more for garnish
- 4 garlic cloves
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½-3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- ⅓ cup Parmesan cheese, grated
- Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add spaghetti and cook until al dente. Drain water.
- In a food processor, puree together pistachios, basil, garlic, salt, and ½ cup olive oil until smooth. Add in Parmesan and pulse. If the mixture is too thick, add in a little olive oil at a time until it reaches the right consistency.
- Once pasta is cooked, combine with pesto. Garnish with basil and serve immediately.
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