This great little link was sent to us by Ann! For me, you can leave out the sardines, eggplant, and ricotta, but several of the desserts sound awesome, like the 7-layer chocolate cake! The actual article is from 2014, but food never goes out of date!
The National Italian American Foundation (NIAF)
14 hrs ·
Happy #FoodieFriday! Which of these Sicilian dishes is your favorite?
http://ow.ly/smtb30eDgT5
However, surprise, surprise, no Chicken Marsala? Here is my favorite chicken marsala recipe, based on Ignazio’s!
Jana’s Chicken Marsala
Take your pounded thin skinless chicken breasts and pat them in a mixture of 3 parts flour, and 1 part cocoa, and about a tablespoon of cinnamon. Season with salt, pepper, and Italian seasonings. Saute them in a mixture of about a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of olive oil and half stick of butter. And can’t forget the freshly sliced/chopped whole clove of garlic, or leave the little cloves whole, and another tablespoon of cinnamon. 🙂 After getting crispy on both sides, add in about a cup of Marsala wine, use the darker sweet version. I also make another pan of the Marsala wine with more butter and olive oil and add my mushrooms to that. There never seems to be enough! Thicken the sauce if you like. Take out the chicken, spoon the mushroom sauce over chicken, garnish with freshly chopped Italian parsley, and serve immediately with your favorite pasta, and vegetable. Although, it seems common to serve with little roasted potatoes in Italy. Why not try it with a blood orange salad, also popular in Sicily? I found this recipe here:
http://www.thekitchn.com/colorful-recipe-sicilianinspired-blood-orange-salad-167371
And who can forget the famous and cute little video of Ignazio teaching us how to cook chicken Scalloppine alla Marsala! We’ve posted it before, but ever so cute!! (although, someone needs to tell him you really don’t want to use cooking Marsala…you want the real stuff!)
MANGIA!!
I agree, don’t cook with wine you wouldn’t drink. Ugh.
I never thought of putting cinnamon on chicken. seems good.
Yes the cocoa and cinnamon do complement each other. You really don’t taste the chocolate, it just gives the sauce and chicken a richer flavor.
Does anyone else put a little cinnamon in their tomatoe sauce? I think it’s really good!
Laura, when we cook Greek dishes like Stifado or Moussaka we always use “just a little cinnamon” in the meat sauce which is tomato based. Very tasty.
Thank you for that info., Rose Marie; That’s interesting. I didn’t know that. It’s just something I’ve been doing for a long time and miss it when having sauces without it, which is the case with most (pasta) sauces, at least from my experience.
Although I don’t bother to cook for myself anymore these recipes sound amazing. Please anyone invite me to your cooking feast. And if I ever get to Italy I will make sure Ignazio is there so I can knock on his door with a present & hope he will invite me to his dinners.
Ahh, 😘Loretta!
I can relate to several of these recipes. They all are so delicious. A couple of years ago, my daughter had a house guest from Sicily and it happened to be Thanksgiving. She wanted to cook something special for the dinner. And what did she prepare? Arancine!! Oh my gosh, how good were they! Forget about the turkey!
A little note on Ignazio’s video! I think I heard a little slip of the tongue. But then again, that is Ignazio!! Thanks Jana! I am bookmarking these receipes! 👍
I think it wasn’t a slip of the tongue from him. It’s his vocabulary, but if you say it in Italian it’s cute. Especially coming from him.🙀
Rose Marie: You are so right. I thought I’d be polite!
Ok ladies, you’ll have to fill me in on the slip of the tongue. Did he swear or something? 🙂
As he is dropping the chicken into the pan it must have splashed on something and he says the nasty word.
I like sardines in tomato sauce. They are supposed to be good for you. In my youth I ate a lot the them since my parents did.
Yes, they are good for you, Gina, but as with many ( not all, though), you just don’t want to eat them Too often due to the concentration of mercury in them now. (Sad).
(correction: “.. as with many types of fish,”…..
I just came back from Sicily and my sons were jealous because we could have eaten those great foods so two days ago (Sunday) I invited them to lunch and there were Sicilian rice balls and Sicilian cannoli and cakes with almond paste and pistachio paste, very good.
While we were in Sicily my husband and I went to the local markets to eat breads and panelle and breads with the spleen, really good, in Monreale we ate a tris of appetizers of eggplant, which was caponated with eggplant, eggplant at Parmesan cheese, rolls of aubergines and dough to the norm.
Usually we also eat pasta with sardines and pasta anelletti.
In the cakes there is a wide choice besides the cannoli the cassatine, the sfinci and so on. We could talk for days. The Sicilian food is delicious and tasty,
I have made Chicken Marsala for years without as Igna calls it “chinnamon” but did it his way and it is really very good. Just a little though. I also sauté the chicken before adding to sauce. Daniela I saw you had a wonderful time in Sicily, where to next? Maybe Greece?
It could be. If so, do we meet us there?
Daniela, that would be wonderful. I will let you know if go next year. 🇬🇷🇮🇹❤️
Ciao, Ann and Jana, Thanks for this! That little video with Ignazio brings back fond memories of happier days and is one of my favorites, too! Love the way he pronounced ‘cinnamon’; he’s so cute. I thought it was touching that he used cooking wine instead of the better wine. I see that you noticed that, too, Ann. By the way, I wanted to let Marie know that (the Canadian internet Star) 😂, “Crusoe The Celebrity Dachshund” is might be in Sicily by now. He’s on an adventure with his ‘pawrents’ to Germany and Sicily. (He had asked his fans where they’d like them to go in August and the fans chose those two places — Germany because that’s his breed’s origin and Sicily because… well, mainland Italy and Sicily are where the majority who responded chose ! ). Marie had graciously posted here one of Crusoe’s fun videos of ‘Chef ‘ Crusoe cooking with Chef Gino D’Acampo, in about 2015 0r 2016. Anyway, I had written to Crusoe, (c/o his ‘Dad’ and ‘Mum’) about the “Il Volo Flight Crew – Share The Love” website and that Marie and Jane had traveled in Sicily last year and suggested they see their posts from the trip to maybe get some tips and ideas. I also told them all about IL Volo ! (I guess the guys won’t be home while Cru is seeing Sicily.😢). Looking forward to seeing those videos eventually on Crusoe’s site. Meanwhile, enjoying the instagram pics. Cru posts. (Still love his “European Vacation” video from 2015, especially the places in Italy where they went. Heck, I love all of his stuff!). “IVFC – STL” and “Crusoe…” are still my Favorite ‘places’ to visit.). ( and “Tunameltsmyheart” — the little, rescued dog, “Tuna”, with the severe underbite who had been dumped on the side of a road as a puppy in San Diego. He travels all over, too! ). There’s still so much and so many to love and enjoy in this amazing world we all live in. (sigh…). 💛
There’s a great picture of Crusoe the Dachshund in Taomino, Sicily today, Sept. 7th, sampling “The world’s best cannoli” being held by a famous Sicilian bakery owner there. ( He was in Germany just recently and Crusoe has a super-cute little video entitled, “James Dog” (as in James Bond), playing Roulette in a casino in Baden Baden). Thinking that the animal lovers here might really enjoy seeing these. (On Crusoe’s Facebook & Instagram). Trying to cheer up, as Hurricane Irma is coming at us in southern Fla. and I feel depressed about it. Il Volo and this site, plus Crusoe help me de-stress.quickly.