Cicchetti

Cicchetti

and Ciao!

Pronounced chee-keh-tee. Cicchetti are to Venice what tapas are to Barcelona

Cicchetti are usually a bargain with most dishes going for 2-5 euros and possible to have an assorted platter and a couple of glasses of wine for the price of a single plain pizza.

The traditional home of cicchetti is the BACARO – a bar serving wine and cicchetti. Most bacaro have an extensive menu of wines by the glass along with Venice's signature cocktail, the Aperol Spritz.

Various cicchetti – small toasts covered in spreads to unadorned chunks of cheese or salami, from grilled fish to shrimp salads. There is an entire class of tiny triangular sandwiches with crusts removed called TRAMEZZINI. Cicchetti can be small portions of more traditional dishes such as risotto, stuffed mussels by the piece small plates of olives or fried items such as fritters and crunchy cheese sandwiches.

There are 3 typical cicchetti every visitor should know,

BACCALA is cod, and the most traditional preparation is a mousse or pate of dried cod spread on sliced bread found at virtually every bacaro.

SARDE IN SAOR is the signature dish of Venice also on most restaurant menus sweet and sour whole sardines usually served with the tail (but not the head) sauteed and marinated in vinegar with raisins and pine nuts.

POLPETTE are small meatballs, traditionally veal but they can be any meat or seafood, often mixed with some mashed potato filler. Be precise when ordering these because POLPETTE sounds identical to POLPETTI – or whole baby octopus, another common cicchetti.

After discovering cicchetti I went in search of a book that would do it justice – it's called, not surprisingly, “Cicchetti” by Lindy Wildsmith and Valentina Harris”. I knew of Valentina Harris, so any tome with her name attached has got to be good – truly wonderful stuff – here are two examples from the book, tried, tested, served, thoroughly enjoyed and repeated.

Stuffed mini pancakes with broad

bean cream

Serves 4

250g broad beans, fresh or frozen

30g robiola or similar cream cheese *

1 tbsp grated pecorino

4 eggs

3 tbsp milk

1 tbsp plain flour

2-3 tbsp finely chopped flat leaf parsley

salt and black pepper

2 tbsp rapeseed oil

4 slices cooked ham (Italian if you can

get it)

Boil the broad beans until softened in lightly salted water for 5 minutes. Drain, cool and “pop”.** Place in a food processor with the cream cheese and the pecorino and blend until smooth. Season to taste.

Beat the eggs in a bowl with the milk, flour, flat leaf parsley and salt and pepper.

In a lightly oiled, non-stick pan, use this mixture to make about eight small flat, thin omelettes, cooking them on each side for about four minutes. Make sure they are cooked through but soft enough to roll up. Leave to cool.***

Lay a slice of ham on top of each little pancake and spread with the broad bean and cheese mixture, then roll up and cut across into bite-size pieces, sealing each one safely closed with a wooden cocktail stick.

Chill until required.

*Robiola is very difficult to get hold of. You could use ordinary cream cheese or, for an extra tang, try Boursin – I appreciate that Boursin is French and Robiola is Italian but hey, needs must!

** and *** are elements that can and as far as the omelettes are concerned should be made ahead.

Dates wrapped in Parma ham

Makes 20 canapes

1 tsp vegetables oil

20 dried dates, pitted

20 small cubes of parmesan or other hard cheese

10 slices of Parma ham, halved

Pre-heat oven to 190c/170fan//Gas 5. Grease a baking tray large enough to fit all the dates. Place a cube of cheese inside each date. Wrap each date with half a slice of Parma ham and fix with a wooden cocktail stick. Arrange on the baking tray, bake for about 10 minutes – until the ham begins to crisp – serve hot.