She doesn’t follow recipes, hates cream and would never use a Thermomix. Marinella Sammarco just doesn’t do anything that she doesn’t stand by 100%. Looking back, a broken leg was the best thing that could have happened to her.
Marinella Sammarco is Sicilian – and Stuttgart; both with all my heart and full of pride. That’s why the people of Stuttgart have it good, because they can go to Marinella’s “Ristorante Il Ritorno” and feast on all the Sicilian delicacies, from salad to dessert. Unfortunately I can’t do that, the distance between Berlin and Stuttgart is a bit too big for an enjoyable detour. So all I can do is leaf through Marinella’s book – and swallow. The photos and recipes alone make your mouth water. Even before you start cooking!
“Il Ritorno” means something like return or recurrence – Marinella Sammarco couldn’t sum up her life better than in this single word. She also writes about this in her book. “Real Sicilian cooking/I’ll ??show you how” was published by Becker Joest Volk Verlag. As always in the tried and tested way with appealing food photos, landscape shots, portraits (all Valerie Hammacher). That makes a lot of reading pleasure! Even those who are wild about cooking (recipes form the second part of the book) should not start reading right away.
At the beginning, Marinella talks about her eventful life, gives insights into her childhood happiness on her grandfather’s farm and in her grandmother’s kitchen, lets us share in the successes and setbacks of her adult life. Marinella’s grandparents were simple farmers who made their living from agriculture. She loved being there, climbing trees, filthy from top to bottom, stuffing the fruit into her mouth – although Mama would have preferred a small, well-behaved daughter with patent-leather shoes and a little dress. The carefree childhood came to an abrupt end: the grandfather died of cancer and the father’s construction company ran into difficulties. All reasons to start a new life: “Our home was now called Stuttgart.”
What followed must have gone through many children who emigrated with their parents and were supposed to feel at home in a foreign country. Marinella was just eleven, didn’t speak a word of German, suffered terribly from homesickness, at school she was “the tallest of all and understood the least”. The only consolation was five weeks of summer vacation in Sicily, once a year. Marinella only came to terms with her new home when she met Angelo – happiness and love at first sight for her, apparently a trauma for her parents, since the guy didn’t even come from the same Sicilian village! She was 16 and fell head over heels in love with the “gentle Roman with the blue eyes”. And then Marinella got pregnant too! Dad was raging … However, he came down from his palm as a grandpa, apparently he couldn’t resist his granddaughter Gabriella.
Marinella tells her about her own teething problems in her first restaurant “Il Mulino”, which Angelo took over from his brother. When she was 19, her son Alessandro was born. The restaurant was renamed “Noi Due” (roughly: the two of us). Meanwhile, Marinella enjoyed the work, she had overcome her shyness, her parents supported her with the children, many guests had become friends in 18 years. Everything alright? Not at all!
In 2002 the “Noi Due” came to an end. Due to extensive construction work all around, the restaurant became a construction site. The Cardascia family (Sammarco is Marinella’s maiden name) went back to Italy, not to Sicily but to Longiano in northern Italy and took over a restaurant there. The “Setaccio” was a giant shed, Marinella rubbed herself between weddings and big events: “… it felt like assembly line work”. Then Marinella broke her foot, which was unfortunate, but ultimately very lucky for her and for all lovers of her dishes. The woman, who begins her life story in the book with the sentence “I never really wanted to be a chef,” switched from serving to the stove. Another new chapter in life: Marinella was forced to get started – and found it fun, became more confident when cooking, and dared more and more.
And another upheaval: in 2017 the local owner went bankrupt. Marinella didn’t want to buy the restaurant because she wanted to cook creatively, but only had to offer traditional dishes from Emilia-Romagna at the huge weddings – in short: she felt restricted. “I wanted to go back, back to Germany. And Angelo? He wanted me to be happy.”
“When we finally lived in Stuttgart again after 13 years, it was as if we had never been away. How I missed this city! Even the guests of our former restaurant ‘Noi Due’ treated us from day one as if the ‘ Il Ritorno’ opened, the faithful. A lot of them had become friends by then and we’d kept in touch over the years.”
Marinella Sammarco came to cooking via detours. Today she can’t imagine anything nicer – what luck! As she tells about her life, you can read it in one ride in a row. It is as if she were chatting with her guests, wonderfully light and unaffected; free from the liver, the way Marinella cooks.
“Whoever leaves is reborn,” goes a Sicilian proverb: “We left back then to start a new life in Germany. Looking back, it was the best thing that could have happened to me,” writes Marinella Sammarco in the chapter “My Sicily”. Nevertheless, her heart beats for her beautiful homeland, “to which I will definitely return one day”. What I believe at her word. After all, Sicily’s magic pulls everyone under its spell – with a backdrop of cities that are thousands of years old, with emerald-blue bays and, last but not least, with a cuisine that is as versatile as it is unique. Arabs, North Africans, Greeks, French and Italians have left their culinary traces in the varied history. In Sicily’s 4000-year history, conquerors destroyed a lot, but also brought back a lot of beauty. This is how an exciting and varied Mediterranean specialty cuisine developed from what was once a simple farm worker’s kitchen. “Today there is an incredible number of Sicilian dishes, but they all basically revolve around a manageable number of ingredients. And these are fresh seasonal vegetables, fruit, durum wheat, olives (oil), pistachios, almonds, fresh herbs, fish, seafood and sometimes meat,” says the book. Because each generation passes on its recipes to the next, nothing of the Sicilian tradition is lost.
Marinella reports on the work of the Sicilians, on climate and history, agriculture and cuisine. And of course about wine growing on the island, after all Sicily is Italy’s largest wine-growing region with more than 100,000 hectares of vineyards. Sicilian wines are not yet as famous as those from Tuscany or Piedmont, but the potential of the island and its winegrowers is enormous. Incidentally, Marinella’s children have their say in the “Wines” chapter, because after all, Gabriella and Alessandro are trained sommeliers – to be found like Marinella and Angelo (who makes the pasta himself in the Stuttgart restaurant) in “Il Ritorno”.
Marinella talks about her philosophy of cooking, about the passion of the Sicilians, which is also reflected in the hospitality: “If my mum invites ten people to dinner, she cooks for 30…” We dine for at least four hours, after all it’s not just possible about food intake, but about enjoyment and communication. She introduces us to the ingredients of the “cucina siciliana” – from aubergines to lemons, breadcrumbs and salsicca. The Sicilian basic rule is: use few ingredients, but the right ones. Cooking in Sicily is simple, but special. All of the recipes in the book are easy to prepare. If the traditional Sicilian dishes are often too greasy for you, you will find a like-minded person in Marinella, because that bothers her too. She doesn’t change the ingredients in the traditional recipes, because that would probably be a mortal sin, but she experiments with the preparation – for example oven instead of pan. Marinella doesn’t skimp on tips and tricks in her book; it finds use in everything, even potato skins.
Now you’re in the right mood for Marinella’s recipes. All recipe chapters – antipasti, primi piatti, secondi piatti, dolci – are divided into two parts: first the cook offers traditional dishes (tradizione), followed by modern interpretations (innovazione). Between all the varied recipes we find chapters that are important for understanding Sicilian cuisine and in which Marinella lets us in on their secrets: bread, herbs, dressings, pasta, vegetables, wines, dolci, jam, pistachios – including a few Marinella’s sophisticated ideas. By the way: never lay bread down the wrong way, it will bring bad luck…
vegetarian, free of refined sugar; Preparation time 45 minutes
Preparation: Wash and quarter the tomatoes, cutting off the stalks. Peel the garlic clove, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the garlic clove to a large, thick-bottomed saucepan and sauté for a few minutes. Add the tomatoes, reduce the heat and simmer for about 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat the sunflower oil in a deep pan. Wash the aubergines, cut them crosswise into thin slices and fry in batches in hot oil on both sides until golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon, drain briefly and place on paper towels to drain. Salt to taste.
Meanwhile, grate the ricotta. Rinse the basil, shake dry, set aside a few leaves for garnish and cut the rest into small pieces.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and use an immersion blender to puree the tomatoes until smooth (remove the clove of garlic first, if you like). Return the saucepan to the stove and simmer over low heat for another 10 minutes, until the sauce thickens. Season with salt and pepper.
Meanwhile, bring plenty of water to the boil in a pot, add salt and cook the pasta in it al dente. Drain and add directly to the pot with the tomato sauce. Stir in all but 4 tablespoons of the ricotta with the finely chopped basil, add half of the fried aubergines and mix well.
Divide the pasta mixture between four plates, garnish with the basil leaves and the remaining ricotta and arrange the remaining aubergines on top.
Marinella’s tip: You can also use canned tomatoes. But if you are preparing the dish in the summer, it is better to use fresh tomatoes. Believe me, the difference is amazing!
lactose free, gluten free, free from refined sugar; Preparation time 40 minutes plus approx. 60 minutes cooking time
Preparation: For the vegetable broth, peel the onion and carrot and cut into pieces. Wash the celery and also cut into pieces. Rinse the parsley and pat dry. Put the prepared ingredients in a saucepan, pour in 500 ml of cold water, salt and bring to the boil. Then cover and simmer on low heat for about 30 minutes. Strain through a sieve into a bowl and measure out 300ml. Dispose of the sieve residue.
Meanwhile, cut the chicken into seven to eight pieces. Peel the garlic cloves, cut in half, place in a casserole with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and sauté lightly. Add the chicken pieces and sear for about 5 minutes on each side. Season with salt, deglaze with wine and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the olives and capers and leave to simmer for a few minutes over low heat.
Wash and halve tomatoes. Rinse the thyme, shake dry, set aside a few small pieces of twig and pluck the leaves from the rest. Add the tomatoes, thyme leaves and 8g oregano to the casserole and season with salt and pepper. Pour in the measured vegetable stock, reduce the heat and let simmer, covered, for about 60 minutes.
Place the chicken in a serving dish and garnish with the reserved thyme and remaining oregano.
Marinella’s tips: If you don’t want to prepare a whole chicken, you can, for example, just buy thighs. It is important that the chicken is always well cooked. You can tell by the fact that the meat can be easily separated from the bone.
If you can’t get Capperi di Pantelleria, you can also use pickled capers. Rinse well, soak in water for at least 15 minutes and drain.
Vegetable broth should always be prepared with fresh produce.
gluten free, refined sugar free; Preparation time 40 minutes
Preparation: Preheat the oven to 170 °C top/bottom heat.
Peel the oranges, removing the white skin. Cut the orange fillets from the skins and set aside.
For roasted almonds, place the flaked almonds on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and toast in the preheated oven for 5 minutes. Take out and let cool.
Set the oven temperature to 200°C.
For the red mullet, rinse the thyme, shake dry and pluck off the leaves. Rinse the fish fillets and pat dry. Line the bottom of an ovenproof pan with baking paper – the baking paper is used to protect the red mullet fillets as they are a very delicate fish. Place the fish fillets skin-side down on top, drizzle with 2 tablespoons olive oil, season with sea salt flakes and pepper and sear over medium-high heat for a few minutes. Add the thyme and finish cooking in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, making sure the fillets remain tender.
Meanwhile, for the orange reduction, reduce the orange juice and 3 tbsp olive oil in a saucepan over low heat by half. Season with salt.
For the foam, put a mozzarella ball and the liquid with the lemon zest, 1 tbsp olive oil, some salt and pepper in a tall blender beaker and mix with the hand blender until fluffy. Thinly slice the other mozzarella ball.
Pour the orange reduction into four deep plates. Place mozzarella in the middle and arrange two red mullet fillets on top. Garnish with mozzarella foam, slivered almonds and orange fillets.
vegan, lactose-free, gluten-free; Preparation time 70 minutes plus 60 minutes rest time, 15-20 minutes baking time and cooling time
Preparation: For the crumble, clean the lemongrass, cut into pieces and puree finely in a blender. Sift the rice flour into a bowl, add the almonds, sugar, lemongrass puree and olive oil and use a spatula to crumble into crumbles. If the dough is too soft, add some almonds. Wrap in cling film and let rest in the fridge for 60 minutes.
Meanwhile, place a bowl in the freezer for the cream. Heat coconut milk in a saucepan. Whisk together the lime juice and zest with the sugar in a bowl. Stir in starch, then incorporate coconut milk, return to saucepan, add rum to taste and continue to stir over medium-high heat until creamy and smooth. Remove from the heat, remove the bowl from the freezer and pour in the cream, stirring very quickly, until it begins to cool. Refrigerate.
For the coulis, wash and hull the strawberries and heat in a small saucepan. Add the lemon juice through a sieve, sift in the icing sugar, mix well with a whisk and simmer over low heat for about 5 minutes. Pass through a fine sieve into a bowl to remove the strawberry seeds. Refrigerate.
Preheat the oven to 180°C fan-forced.
Spread the dough as crumbles on a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes until golden brown. Take out and let cool.
For decoration, rinse the berries and mint and pat dry. Pour the strawberry coulis into four tall wine glasses, top with the coconut lime cream and sprinkle with crumble. Decorate with berries and mint and dust with icing sugar if you like.
Marinella tip: I created this delicious dessert for my son Alessandro, who is lactose intolerant, and for anyone who also needs to avoid gluten.
Heidi Driesner wishes you lots of fun reading and success in cooking. We already have the right ambient temperature for the Sicilian feeling.
