A tribute to my favourite food personality, Masino Zummo
ingredients for 4 servings (cost about 2 € pp)
- 300 g flour from soft wheat
- 3 g dried yeast
- 6 g salt
- One small egg
- 30 g EV Olive oil
- 10 g sugar
- 125 ml water
- Poppy seeds
- 125 g chickpea flour
- 300 ml water
- 10 rosemary leaves
- 4 g salt
- Black pepper
- EV sunflower oil for frying
- a bunch of rocket
- 10 cherry tomatoes
- 4 vinaigrette tbsp for the salad
Voglio dedicare questo piatto al mio ………….
Sorry.
I want to dedicate this dish (which is very typical of Sicily) to my idol Masino Zummo. Who is he? Α unique personality, a fantastic guy, who hangs around Palermo and tastes local street food delicacies, among them the “panelle”, we will prepare today. Masino (Tom in Italian) is very, very famous in Italy, everybody in Sicily knows him and when he meets him, he salutes him with Masino´s well known exclamation “Mahhhhhh” …….
There is no need to speak Italian to follow Masino´s adventures as its films (very, very well made with a professional photography and montage) are mostly image and Sicilian music.
Just have a look. Masino ti amo.
One of the snacks Masino often eats are the Sicilian “fritters”. Sicilian fritters are made with chickpea flour and served with soft breads. Today we present you a deluxe edition with homemade buns and also a salad made with organic ingredients.
We first have to prepare the buns.
We sift the flour as always we have to, aiming to add air to the flour and so the dough becomes even lighter and fluffier.
We pour the yeast into a small bowl, where we have put 50 ml of water. We wait 5 minutes and we dissolve the yeast in the water with a teaspoon. We add to the yeast and water about 50g flour and we stir with a spatula in order to form a mixture that will have the texture and the density of a sponge. We lightly cover the bowl with a towel or nylon film and we leave for about 20 minutes until the mixture foams enough.
In another bowl we beat the egg, the olive oil and the sugar and we make them a homogeneous mixture.
We put the rest of the flour mixed with the salt in the bowl of the mixer and we start slowly adding the rest of the water, the flour – yeast mixture (which has risen and become like a sponge) and the egg , sugar and oil mixture. We work with the hook for 5 minutes on low speed and for 5 minutes on medium, until the mixture becomes soft and very elastic and the dough “sticks” to the hook.
We grease a clean bowl with olive oil and we put the dough inside. We cover with a nylon film not tightly closed and we let the dough rise at room temperature until it doubles (from 1 hour and up to 2 hours depending on the temperature and the humidity of the room).
We remove the dough from the bowl and we deflate by folding it. We let it rest for 10 more minutes.
We divide the dough into 4 pieces and we shape the buns. We spray some water on their tops and we pour over the poppy seeds, pushing them lightly in order to get stuck on the dough.
We put the buns on a lightly oiled sheet, we cover them with a film and we wait until they are double in size in relation to the deflated ones (about an hour).
We preheat the oven at 200 degrees and we bake the buns for about 12-15 minutes (I repeat that each oven has different settings and that the time is indicative). We check that they are baked to the desired degree before removing them, having in mind that we search for a soft result.
We cool the buns on a wire rack so that their bottom does not become dull. These buns are preserved for a very short time, so we have to eat them within a few hours.
So, rapidly we have to prepare our “panelle”. We dilute the salt in the water (300 ml) and we start adding the chickpea flour, stirring constantly with a whisk to avoid the formation of lumps. We put on heat, whisking constantly till we have a very thick dough, thicker than polenta.
CAUTION: This point is crucial. If the dough is not dense enough it will create serious problems during frying it and it will not have the texture we want.
When we reach at the desired density, we add the rosemary leaves chopped very finely and black pepper, we pour the dough in a 40Χ30 pan and we leave it to cool completely. When cold and already homogeneous by the gelatinization we cut the dough in squares equals to the buns.
We preheat the sunflower oil at 200 C degrees and we fry the panelle, two at a time, till crispy. We drain them on kitchen paper.
We prepare the salad cleaning, cutting and dressing the vegetables with the vinaigrette, we put in plates and we serve.
