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Sicilian Cooking

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Welcome to Sicilian Cooking Plus

Welcome and thanks for visiting Sicilian Cooking Plus.   We are pleased to offer you this collection of Sicilian recipes and to give you some information about the Island’s cooking, along with Sicilian traditions, history and legends. We will present aspects of our Sicilian way of life so that the Sicilians and the Sicilian-American heritage can be better understood and assessed. 

My name is Vincent Ciaramitaro, formally the operator along with my brother Paul of Joe’s of Avenue U, the Focacceria Palermitana in Brooklyn,NY,  our family business. I retired in 2003, and a few years ago, encouraged by my wife, Terry, and my nephews and nieces, I assembled this collection of Sicilian recipes mostly practiced in my almost fifty years working and running the focacceria. 

Here you will find an overview of each category and the respective recipes, including a section dedicated to the other Italian regions’ culinary traditions, containing some recipes.

Each category has an interesting introduction and the recipes. 

The recipes are grouped in the following categories:

1. Appetizers
2. Sicilian Delicacies
3.Baked Delicacies
4. Sicilian Pasta Recipes
5. Rice Recipes
6.Sauces and Condiments
7. Meat Recipes
8. Seafood Recipes
9. Egg Recipes

10. Sicilian Salads
11. Vegetable Recipes
12. Sicilian Desserts
13. Wines and Rosolio
14. Sicilian Holidays                   (Recipes for the Festino of Saint Rosalia, Christmas, Easter and  St.Joseph’s Table)
15. Recipes of the Italian Regions
16. About the Italian Regions  

POPULAR SICILIAN RECIPES

PASTA CON SARDE

Pasta con sarde is a traditional Sicilian dish that is made all over the island, using the same ingredients but differing in its preparation ..

CANNOLI

The cannolo is a famous Sicilian pastry prepared all over the world. Although there are some variations, the classic cannolo, which originated in Palermo ..

PANELLE

When I lived in Palermo, the panellari (the makers and sellers of panelli) were a local institution. In my hometown, this trade is patronized ...

SWEET AND SOUR SQUASH

To prepare this dish, you can use butternut squash, the acorn squash, Calabasas squash or pumpkin. Winter squash is best between fall and winter ..

CASSATA

Cassata is the most celebrated Sicilian dessert and it is the classic Sicilian Easter Cake. Easter comes around the time of the vernal equinox, which occurs on March 20/21 ..

VASTEDDA

In Palermo, the most famous and oldest place where vasteddi are sold is the Antica Focacceria San Francesco, located across the Church of San Francesco, in Via Alessandro Paternostro ..

TRIPPA IN SAUCE

Because to clean and prepare the tripe required a tedious and long process, it was a very inexpensive part of the interiors of beef, pork or lamb, and used for food by the poor people ..

SARDE A BECCAFICO

Beccafico (Sylvia borin), a Sylvidae bird is larger, meatier and more exquisite than a sparrow, nests in Tuscany and passes over Sicily in spring and in the fall for the winter migration ..

ARANCINE (RICE BALLS)

Arancine is derived from the Italian word for orange, or arancia. This preparation will make approximately 25 visually and gastronomically appealing miniature rice balls ..