Italian master chefs bring Sicilian specialities to Harare

MY love affair with pasta was rekindled with the arrival in Harare of Master Chef Alessandro Sacha Del Bono. Summoned with his assistant, Chef Andrei Bogdan, from the Kasbah Restaurant in the Aeolian island of Lipari north of Sicily, the chefs were taking part in Italian Cuisine Week, their mission being to train a wide selection of local chefs and trainees in the art of Italian cuisine.

Light and airy potato gnocchi, with Chianti from Tuscany.

This was the fourth Italian Cuisine Week to be organised by the Italian Embassy in Zimbabwe. In 2017, the event coincided with Operation Restore Legacy, and as we tucked into our bowls of fettuccine, armoured vehicles and troops rolled into central Harare. Last year, this gastronomic event was temporarily abandoned, owing to the outbreak of cholera, but the chefs’ busy programme in 2019 was completed without interruption.

The final event took place on 12 November, at the Rotary Centre in Colquhoun Street, with a workshop for graduating chefs from the Hospitality School SAHTC, and the Culinary Arts Academy. Mike Farrell, Director of the Hospitality School, was our genial host for an elegant lunch following the workshop. Smartly dressed and courteous hospitality students directed us to tables laid with crisp linen table cloths, sparkling glasses and silver cutlery.

Two pasta courses followed, the first a serving of parmesan-stuffed cappelletti (little hats) served on a cauliflower puree, generously sprinkled with more finely grated parmesan cheese. The pasta was delicate, and the flavouring and seasoning perfectly balanced. The next dish, potato gnocchi with baked ricotta cheese, fresh spinach and lemon zest, is the kind of dish I would like to eat very week. Gnocchi pasta can be stodgy, but the Aeolian chefs showed us how to make light and tender dumplings in a delicate sauce with a hint of fresh spinach. A sprinkling of lemon zest gave the umami hit that lifted this delicious dish to another level.

Chianti from the Villa Travignoli in Tuscany offered a smooth velvet taste that seemed to me to complement the rich flavours of the cappelletti and gnocchi. Purists, however, might argue that the floral, herbal aroma of Roceno Grillo, a white Sicilian wine, would pair better with pasta. Both wines were expertly poured by a young trainee, immaculately attired in a dark suit.

Pasta was followed by tiramisu (roughly translated as ‘cheer me up’), a classic Italian dessert made of coffee-flavoured savoiardi (lady finger) biscuits, marscapone (Italian cream cheese), eggs, sugar and freshly whipped cream. For an authentic tiramisu, the savoiardi should also be flavoured with Marsala, a fortified red wine produced on the west coast of Sicily. The dessert produced by the Italian chefs and their assistants at the Hospitality School was the real deal – light and airy, yet rich and luscious.

Hospitality School trainee serves Chianti from Tuscany.

When Chef Alessandro isn’t running global workshops or honing his cookery skills in Milan, he runs the Kasbah Restaurant, a popular destination with foodies, in the winding alley ways leading to the Marina Corta in Lipari. The name Kasbah, originally a fortress or walled city, refers to the Arab domination of Sicily in the tenth century, bringing a strong and spicy influence to Sicilian cuisine. If you’re walking past the Kasbah, you can peep into a large window looking onto the street, and watch the chefs at work.

Luscious tiramisu, a Sicilian speciality.

Kasbah Restaurant has its own organic vegetable garden. ‘We don’t do any frozen stuff’, says Chef Alessandro. ‘We look what we have in the garden, and we listen to what the food is saying. It is secret, but they talk’. When I asked for a sample menu from the Kasbah, Alessandro said that he considers three to be a magic number, and that he never works with more than three ingredients. A typical starter at Kasbah might be tuna carpaccio, served with olive oil and orange vinaigrette, and crunchy, quick-pickled radishes. A pasta dish such as tortelli stuffed with egg plant, in a tomato and basil sauce, might follow. A popular main course, especially on Christmas eve, is baccala, or salted cod. Prepared in the style of Chef Alessandro, it might be cooked in a sous vide (water bath), finished on the grill with olive oil, and served with smashed chick peas, garnished with black sesame seeds.

Always leave room for cannoli, Sicily’s most popular dessert. These sweet, crunchy pastry tubes, filled with creamy ricotta, are a speciality at the Kasbah.

Chefs, cooks and food lovers will be looking forward to next year’s Italian Cuisine Week in November 2020, and the opportunity to continue learning how to make authentic Italian dishes. A Matter of Taste Charlotte Malakoff

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