Pantelleria, not always the same old thing
If winter cools even the wish to go out and one might prefer to stay at home warm, its time to heat up the body and the spirit with delicious traditional dishes, genuine and corroborating. Soups are one of the basics of the pantescan cuisine and that tell us about the heart of the island, with local flavor and ingredients.
Above all of them, the pantescan lentils have a leading role: small, brown, rich in iron, are the main ingredient to prepare delicious soups. Just soak them half an hour and then cook them together with onions, carrots and celery, adding maybe some potato and some spices. Then lower the fire, add some salt and a hint of olive oil and it’s done. A perfect recipe in order to have all the proteins needed: lentils, as a matter of fact - and all the legumes in general- are considered the meat of the poor and as a base for vegetarian diets or even when meat is not easy to obtain.
And still, chickpeas and beans, called lubbia nostra, and adding carrots, celery, onions, spinach and a pig’s leg (u pedi du purceddro) form the ingredients for flavory suppa, the traditional legumes soup of Pantelleria. Another version of it is the minestra di ciciri, made with dry chickpeas, soaked overnight and cooked together with pork ribs and wild fennel. To end the cooking, just add carrotts, onion and celery; and for the hungry ones, you might add pasta like tagghiarini, cooking them directly into the chickpeas broth.
Finally, one of the dishes that warm up the winter in Pantelleria is the fave a cunigghiu, overnight soaked broad beans cooked with onions, tomato and parsley served with its broth, perfect as an appetizer or as a side dish.
So let’s seat and enjoy one of the good dishes that make winter in Pantelleria a season to live around nature and around a table, discovering the ancient and traditional preparations.
