Silvia Nacamulli
Jewish Flavours of Italy: Spotlight on Hanukkah

Silvia Nacamulli - Jewish Flavours of Italy: Spotlight on Hanukkah

- Silvia Nacamulli is a London based cook, lecturer and author specialising in the Italian Jewish cuisine, a well recognised name on the international food and cooking circuit. She grew up in Rome, surrounded by her home’s country passion for food, and honestly, the quality of the food that we do know about. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a big difference. And you have amazing products.

• Yes.

• Okay, she runs Cooking for the Soul, where she teaches and caters traditional home cooking. She’s a regular economist for the “Jewish Chronicle” and has contributed to several publications. She has given hundreds of cookery demonstrations and lectures at cookery schools, universities, charities, synagogues, fairs, and festivals worldwide. She is on the advisory board of Foodish, the culinary wing of ANU, the Museum of the Jewish People. Her first book, “Jewish Flavours Of Italy,” a family cookbook has just been published by Green Bean Books. Can we see it, please?

• There you go.

• Thank you. And during her lectures, she’ll present her new book, talk about the Culinary history of Italian Jewry, and do a short cooking demonstration of Hanukah in mind, focusing on Italian traditions for the Festival of Lights. So we so feel honoured to have you with us on the second night of Hanukkah. And I know that you’re going to light the Hanukkah land candles with us tonight, which is going to be, which are going to be fabulous. Thank you very much, and Silvia, please share with our audience when you do cooking, how they can reach you, you know, your K2 details and also details of where we can buy the book. I guess it’s on Amazon, right?

• It is, yes. On amazon.com, the cooking, the US hasn’t arrived yet, but it’s on its way, but yeah.

• Okay, good. So just hold it up one more time so everybody can see it. And, okay, thank you very much.

• Okay.

• Over to you.

• Thank you so much, Wendy. Yes. Thank you so much, Wendy.

• Thank you. Thanks, Lauren.

• From South Africa and thank you for inviting me and also to Trudie Gold who also invited me, thank you so much, both of you. And thank you so much also to Lauren for organising all the logistics. It is really a great pleasure to be here with you with this evening. I think the platform of the lockdown University is absolutely inspiring and it’s ongoing and I feel really, really, really lucky to be here this evening. So perhaps the format of the talk may be slightly different from the ones that you are regular, but it is going to be a mixture of a lecture of the history of Italian Jews, of Italian Jewish cuisine. I will present my book, I’ll tell you a little bit more about it. Thank you so much, Wendy, for bringing it up. It’s been published by Green Bean Books in London, and I will also light the Hanukah with you. Tonight is the second night of Hanukah. And the reason that I’m doing it beside being Hanukkah, of course, is the fact of sharing with you the traditional Italian Jewish tune of the lighting of the Hanukkah, which I think maybe some of interest of you. Singing is not my strength. I’m a better cook than singer, but I’m still not shy, so I’m going to sing with you this evening. I also want to do a short cookery demonstration. I’ve got everything more or less set up here at the back. And of course, being Hanukah, we are going to do a little bit of frying. And I’m going to demonstrate a dish that it’s an Italian Jewish dish called Precipizi-Struffoli. I will tell you more about it.

I put the recipe for anyone who is interested on my website. My website is cookingforthesoul.com, and you can find a few other recipes there. You can find, if you want a signed copy of my book, you can order it from there. And actually, I deliver worldwide. So although in the states it’s not available until mid 2023, if you order it through me and willing to pay the extra postage, then I’d be delighted to sign copies and send them anywhere you like. But in the recipe section, you will find the recipe which are uploaded. So you find quantities both in metric and imperial and cups. So hopefully it will suit everyone. So let me tell you a little bit of, I’m going to do a bit of maybe a five minute introduction just to put things in within context. And I am Roman, I’m Roman Jewish. I’ve been living in London for over 20 years, although my accent gets stronger by the day, apparently. And one of the questions that I often get asked is if either as Italian Jews, if they’re either Sephardi or Ashkenazi. Now to the surprise of many, we are actually neither, we are Italkim. And that’s because the Jews originally came already a presence in 200 BC was registered in Rome, and then they came after the destruction of the second temple when the Romans brought back thousands of prisoners of war, which is basically slaves. And since then, since 70 AD, the community really kind of started in earnest and has been a presence of Jews and is, makes it really the oldest Jewish community in the western world, or better the oldest continuous Jewish community in the western world. And what makes Italkim, and I’m from Rome, and which actually folds it even into a within smaller category, which is the Romai, the Roman, it’s a really a different type of which is a liturgy. So this way of praying, which some say that is probably one of the closest to what was the better is still applies and is still done today.

So there’s no synagogues in the world to me that would speak as much as the synagogue in Rome. The tunes are unique and and they’re wonderful. And that’s one of the reasons that I’m going to lit the hanukia with you shortly to share with you one of the tunes. Now, the distinction between Sephardi and Ashkenazi, it happened much later, it happened in the Middle Ages, and both groups, they settle in the, mostly both in the south of Italy and then in the north of Italy throughout the century. And they brought with them their own cooking traditions, their own influences, their ingredients, and they really influenced a lot what it became Italian Jewish cuisine. Now, Italian Jewish cuisine, it’s also very regional. And for ironically what you can say, it’s so perhaps because of the creation of the ghetto and for over 300 years in most cities of Italy. And this allowed the Jews to actually preserve, ironically, the Jewish traditions and their own identities. And the last ghetto was the one of Rome, which was put down in 1870 with the end of the coupled state and the unification of Italy. So Italian Jewish cuisine, it’s a story in my view of migration, creativity, and necessity. It is really what I like to call it a gastronomical osmosis of all these different traditions and all these different cultures that they kind of influenced into each other. So it really all started from the south, in the south of Italy, it was really the cradle of Italian rich cuisine. Jews lived in relatively peace and prosperous, prosperous existence for over 1500 years until they unfortunately all came to a sudden halt with the coming of the Spanish Inquisition.

Now, I’m going to try and see if there is more time at the end. I’m going to tell you a little bit more on how the Jews moved to the centre and to the north of Italy and how the Ashkenazi came from the north and how the aubergines were brought from the south to the centre to the north. And so the artichokes and the sweet and sour flavours, the deep frying, what we’re going to do today, but mostly of more so, which was very popular in the south, was brought to the north. There’s so much that one can share, or perhaps we’ll just do another lecture on the other side of Italy. But, the one part that we are going to look at today that I also would like to share is Hanukah. So Hanukah, I’m not going to get too much into the history of Hanukah, as I am quite confident you’re all very familiar with. But I’ll just give you as a kind of a headline. It is the 25th of the Month of Kislev. So today it is the second night, which is the 26th. I was born on the third night of Hanukah. So in theory, tomorrow it’s my birthday in Jewish calendar, it’s the Festival of Light and really commemorates the rededication of the second temple in Jerusalem. It is really a story of the Hebrew, the victory of the Maccabees against the Greek put in very simple words and the miracle of the light, which lasted eight days instead of one. In the world of Zakaria, the small group really of rebellious Jews after three years of fighting succeeded in a battle which was somehow unconceivable really to win, was said, is said, “Not by strength, not by might, but by spirit.” Now, since the miracle of Hanukah involves oil, as food is concerned, there is a lot of fried food that is concerned and allowed. And in Italian Jewish cuisine, generally, there is a lot of fried food. There’s no shortage of it in my book as well, perhaps the most famous dish is the Sufganiyot, which are the Israeli Sufganiyot, the donuts filled with jam.

Now, when I grew up in Italy, we didn’t really have much Sufganiyot specifically for Hanukah. Now Italians are very good at cooking, okay? And there’s very good making what they’re called Bomboloni, which are very similar looking Sufganiyot and often filled with cream or with chocolate, which are delicious. Now, we don’t necessarily wait to have Hanukah to eat them, usually something that you eat either for breakfast with a cappuccino or if you’re like a late teen or early twenties. If you are your night out, you go at midnight, you go and get like hot Bomboloni and they’re really like a treat. But since the globalisation, so the really, the way of new food being introduced and shared by everyone, Sufganiyot made really kind of a top entry in the Italian Jewish cuisine, and now can really be found everywhere. Now, in my book, I propose a Bomboloni with, or I call this Sufganiyot, with creme de Marroni which is chestnut, which I love Chestnut. It’s very much the season and or Nutella of course. So, and I give the recipe here, I will tell you more about the book later, but that’s my Sufganiyot recipe. And the recipe of the Struffoli can be found on the website. And the reason that I chose the recipe tonight, and I will tell you more about it while I cook, is that another tradition during Hanukah is to eat not only fried food, but also dairy food. And that’s to remember the story of Judith, the heroine, Judith, who bravely gave a lot of cheese to the, I always have to look for this name, sorry, the Assyrian General Holofernes, I hope I pronounce it correctly.

And she saved the Jews of Bethulia by giving lots of cheese. Then the general got very thirsty, drank a lot of wine, fell asleep, she cut the head off, and then Assyrians having lost their leaders, they escaped and Israel was saved. So I decided to actually combine the tradition of frying and doing the, using dairy two in one. Now I’m going to lit the hanukia with you. I will, I’m going to also, now I’m going to move now to the back so that you can see. So just to show you also here, so this is a okay, like a a praying one that I got when you do a bat mitzvah everywhere in the world. And that’s my copy from when I did a bat mitzvah. So it says, you see, Italkim, so it says really following the Italian write, okay? So all the prayers that are here are the ones that the following Italian write. And on Hanukah, I’m going to use, I use a candle hanukia. Now this is an art piece that my sister actually did it for my nephew’s bar mitzvah. She created it, she’s a designer. And so I use it just by adding a candle every day, which is really lovely. And I’m going to light, I’m going to do that, probably I would. So, the hanukia, as you all all know, is a menorah with nine branches. It’s the eight days of Hanukkah plus the Shamash, which is used to lit the other candles. So I’m going to, first, I’m going to, really singing, it’s really not my strength, but I am not shy. So I will, I will sing. The first, the couple of I’m going to skip apart as well, but you will see, so you say. So if you, if any of you would like to light the hanukia with me, you’re very, very welcome. Now, the second part, oh, Hold on. The second part, you see, I can’t, with the Hanukah candles, you’re not supposed to use them for anything else, than to look at them. To just look at them. So although I want to burn the bottom of here, I’m going to, I can’t really use the Hanukah candles. I’m going to just lit this one up again and just, ah, sorry, I just burned myself. Here we go. Now, the prayers that usually you do in order to light the candle is actually, and that is the same tune, okay?

So actually I’m not going to sing that just because it is the same one. And I want to just share with you the one song that I think is slightly different, because after the we don’t jump into, but we sing this passage, it takes about a minute, and I will, I will sing it to you. And now everyone sings So excuse my singing, really, but I would be really interested to hear if this tune is familiar to anyone else around the world besides the Italian community, because so far, anytime that I sing it, whenever I have friends around and it’s Hanukah, they are not familiar with it. And I think it’s something that shows how the liturgy of the Italian Jews is unique. But I am very happy to be proved differently. So if any of you has a similar tone or even if you all anyone else sings this passage, then please do let me know. I’m going to take questions towards the end, but you can start writing and Lauren very kindly is going to take them on, but now I think it’s time to do a little bit of cooking. If you have any questions, please be very welcome to write them in. Now I need about maybe like 30 seconds to a minute to set up, so you can just chat or this is a time to put your questions in, okay? I’m going to take my mixer and I will tell you, I will talk to you to the ingredients, although you can find the recipe, I will talk to you to the ingredients as well. So you can follow, you can follow up.

Okay. Okay, so, the recipe that I’m going to make, I’m going to show you now from the book is, here we go. So the way that I, let me tell you just a couple things about the book, okay? So this book has been a labour of love, really has been like more than 10 years in the making different life cycle. And it’s a family cook book and it’s really a glimpse into an Italian Jewish kitchen. So I try to share the favourite of my family, the Nacamullis, we are quite known in Rome to cook quite well. And although my background is very different and it political science, international relations, international political economy, food somehow kind of drew me back to what it is. And this and this book has been really an opportunity for me to keep my traditions alive and been living outside of Italy for 30, almost 30 years. So as if it really gives me a firm sense of identity. I think the food is one of the things that lives the longest that we share and that kind of pulls those little memory strings. So the book is, it’s divided with recipes. In four section, there is the, what we call the primi, which is pasta, risotto, soup and maxa, the pictures, by the way, they’re really stunning. They’ve been mostly made by very talented, very famous Italian blogger, she’s called Barbara Toselli. And she’s really been wonderful. So there’s a picture of almost all the recipes. I’m going to flip through, this is Pasta Fagioli, it’s one of my favourite, I almost wanted to do that. If it was not Hanukah would’ve made Pasta Fagioli. Tomato sauce. Then there is the meat section, meat and fish. So this is all the fish, meat, poultry and fish. And there’s lots of recipes in here, of course, they’re using the fact of Shabbat and the Jewish holidays really dictates the rule of like, of how we cook in the Jewish tradition, not just in Italian Jewish cuisine, but internationally, the fact of wanting to creating dish which are eaten often at room temperature or to celebrate a special occasion. It’s very much there.

So we have stew like this, like Stracotto, which means very slow cooked, which is a beef stew with tomato sauce and red wine, which is really wonderful. Then we have, there’s always also little snippets of features, this is about a fish head and a fish placard on the size of fish that we’re allowed to buy in the old market in Rome. There’s all the vegetables section, the vegetable section, it’s great. There’s also a whole section on artichoke. Now the most famous dish of Italian cuisine is the Carciofi alla Giudia. There’s like a step by step guide on how to peel the artichokes. This the Carciofi alla Giudia, these are some amazing artichokes, which is now is just the season started. I’m so excited. I was in Rome a couple weeks ago and already started eating some. Those are the Carciofi alla Giudia. If some of you have not been to Rome yet and you want to go to Rome, then it’s worth or just worth a trip to Rome to go and eat them. Then of course there is all about aubergines. And finally, last but not least is the dessert. So the dessert section is really divided into festival, starts from Rosh Hashanah through Sukkot, Hanukah, Purim, Pesach. And then I have a few neutral dishes which really have just the reasons to be there. So the one that I’m going to show you tonight is the Struffoli Precipizi, which is going to look something like that. And then just the last thing is that I told you about the recipe, however, the introduction of the book, it’s about 70 pages long, but it’s not just one heavy thing. It’s really telling you about my family, my sources of inspiration and the history of Italian Jews. And you can see like maps on how they moved through history and where they settled. And then there is a personal story of how my parents survived the war, both story, very, very meaningful and part of my identity and that’s why I share them. Those are my parents.

And then the kosher rules, of course, you couldn’t have a a Jewish food somehow without that. And then I go through quite a lot of details on all the different festivals. So Shabbat and the Jewish festivals. And this is the Hanukah, So I would for example, talk all about Hanukah and give a few dishes examples of things that you can have for each hug. And then I give some tips and basic of things that I like to do. So it’s a heavy book, but it’s full with tips and lots of great recipes, quite accessible, the Italian flavour. And there is also a little snippet of a Libyan Jewish cuisine, Tripolitanian Jewish cuisine because a community of Tripolitanian Jews arrived in Rome in 1967 when they escaped from Libya and they settled and really invigorated the Italian Jewish community. And they brought the wonderful food, which today is part also of Italian Jewish cooking. So I will now show you a little bit about the cooking. I hope I’m not talking too fast, but probably I am, so sorry about that. I will try to pace a little more. Now the Struffoli, it’s, sorry, the Precipizi Struffoli, it’s a great recipe which really combines two recipes in one. So the Precipizi is an old recipe from Ancona in the eastern shores of Italy and whether which once quite a thriving community. Now the original recipe is parve and it’s a little balls, dough balls that are fried and then put together and glued together with honey put flat, left to dry and then cut into chunks and eaten almost, I would think as a kind of thing. Now it sounds great, although the one recipe that I found, I tried it so many times and somehow it doesn’t seems to work or I didn’t manage to make it work. But I still loved the idea of the recipe. I love the idea of using a recipe from a community, which it’s very, very small to nowadays. And I love the name of Precipizi, and then I thought of this other recipe, which is called Struffoli. Now Struffoli, it’s a Christmas recipe from Naples. So it’s a Christian Catholic recipe that is made this time of the year.

And it’s a very, very similar in principle, is like bold little dough balls, which are fried instead of being putting straight, they’re putting in a pyramid and then with a lot of colourful sparkles on top. And now I was talking before about this gastronomical osmosis, really this kind of give and take. So the Italian Jewish cuisine, it’s really based on Italian flavours inspired by the Italian, Jewish, by the Italian culinary culture and changed in order to conform to kosher rules or in order to celebrate a specific holiday. So I think this dish is kind of, to me, kind of nails it in a more modern way perhaps, but I thought of using the idea of the small fried balls and to actually instead of presenting them flat and glue them together to just present them as a, as as a pyramid and put the icing sugar rather than colourful thing. And then I added the element, the Struffoli don’t have Ricotta in it, and I thought, you know, how can I just make it even more kind of suitable for Hanukah from a Jewish Italian perspective? So I used the cheese and what cheese Italian use a lot, is Ricotta cheese on desserts, they also, we also use Mascarpone, but we needed something, I think the Ricotta somehow works better. So we are going to do, we are going to do that. Now, I made some before, don’t worry, I’m just going to show you the different stages, but I’m going to tell you the ingredients just in case someone can’t have access to a website right now. But otherwise you can go to cookingforthesoul.com and have a look at the recipe.

Now we are going to, I work on a food processor, on a mixer, a standalone mixer. It’s really great. If you don’t, you can do it in a bowl, but as we have it, I’m going to, the great thing about this is that we can mix just all the ingredients together. So we have between 180 grammes to 200 grammes of flour. The way that I usually do, I start with the minimum and then if it’s too sticky, I add more. And you never really know if you may need a bit more or not because the eggs may be slightly bigger or may be slightly heavier. They may be particularly humid, the weather. So flexibility of mind as in many other things is quite useful in the kitchen as well. Okay, so we are going to use, here it’s 180 grammes. I use OO flour mostly because in Italy we, for any kind of dessert we really use OO flour. I don’t use OO flour when I use yeasty things, I tend to use a type of stronger flour, but otherwise it’s just a means a very fine flour that is sieved a lot, okay? Then we have a two tablespoon of castor sugar and I just mix it together.

Then the zest, grated zest of two lemons. We can again put together and then this is one large, oops, one large egg and one yolk in here And then 50 grammes of Ricotta. So there’s not much, you don’t want it to be, otherwise it’s too weight. It just gives a lightness really. Okay, so we are going to add the Ricotta and then a pinch of salt. I always add a pinch of salt in any dessert that I make. What salt does, it enhances flavours of things, it brings a balance between the different ingredients and all I’m going to do now I’m going to put it down, I’m going to start mixing it. It’s going to take about maybe a minute or so. So I’m going to be quiet for the next minute. If you have any questions, this is a good time to type them up. And then I’m going to also move now the stove here, so you can see what I’m going to do next, okay? So I’m going to just be a little bit quiet. I’m going to clear the table up here. So it looks, just to show you, actually at this stage it looks quite crumbly, quite dusty, but don’t worry, it’s going to come together, okay? So, let me do this. Hello. Almost there. Okay, I will show you, this is coming all together so you could, I’m going to show you actually now how it looks like. I’ll clean my hands as well. So, it’s a little bit sticky. I still kind of warts, it’s got little warts lower, so it needs to work a little bit longer. I’m going to put it for maybe another 30 seconds or so. I can see change in the structure.

• [Host] While you’re doing that, Silvia, we’ve got a couple of questions.

• [Silvia] Yes.

Q&A and Comments:

Q - [Host] Sorry, someone is asking what your next cookbook will cover.

A - Very nice. I don’t know, I’m enjoying my first cook book at the moment. But let’s say that, actually it’s interesting because I haven’t thought about it really because this first cookbook is really going to be like a, has been a total labour of love. But I live in London for over 20 years and Italians, I don’t know if any, for those who are familiar to Italian cuisines, Italians, we are very strict about sticking to rules of food. Probably is the area of life that we stick the most rules in on. So you can’t mix too much garlic and onion together or put Parmesan on an garlic based sauce or make a risotto with, not with rice or something like that. So it’s, well actually I haven’t lived in Italy for over 30 years. I, in the last 10 years perhaps in particular, I managed to kind of almost break free. It takes quite a lot of courage, but to try to explore the different flavours and London is a wonderful international scene. So to really, I cook not only Italian now I cook a lot of Mediterranean food, Asian food, and I love it. It keeps my kind of principle of keeping simple ingredients and the approach of cooking is the same, but, so perhaps it would be still very much kosher food, but more international and daring outside of the Italian realm. So that if anything, it might be that, because a lot of things that I do in my, during my cookery demonstrations or if I do the food deliveries, there’s actually on my website there is a list of food that I do for delivery. You can see that there’s a lot of recipes. Some of them are Italians and some of them they’re not. And that’s because my cuisine kind of combines sometimes somehow both. So I hope that answers the question. Thank you.

Q - [Host] Someone else is asking if you can use Greek yoghourt instead of Ricotta cheese?

A - Probably yes, I may. You have to use, if you use a yoghourt, use a very thick one because it can be quite watery, so you may need either a bit less or use perhaps a little, you may need a little bit more flour. So, but yeah, why not? I can hear the oil starting to warming up. So, you can see still is a little bit sticky, but that’s really perfect. So though you don’t want it too dry and this, you would wrap it in cling film and you put it in the fridge for 15, 20 minutes to kind of rest, okay? So I usually just kind of pad it like that and I would put it in the fridge for 20, 15, 20 minutes. And I think those, my daughters are going to be very happy tomorrow to have those to play with but I had this dough that I made about an hour ago. This is half of it, half of it already fried. I’m going to put this on the side. So the dough after when it comes out, you cut in four. So this is the, I did half. So these are the other two half that are left and you just roll it. Oops. I have to be careful with the oil. And you into like a long cigar. And by the way, if you want to keep it parve, you can also keep it parve, just omit the Ricotta cheese and just put a bit like maybe 150 grammes of flour and add it more if you see that it’s needed, but it may not be needing as much flour. Okay, and now the size is totally up to you. I suggest hazelnut size, so something like that. So you can see out of a strip, there’s quite a few come out. You can do olive size if you want bigger. So it’s about maybe 15 to 20 into one. Sorry, I’m just going to check one little tool that is held in the kitchen, especially when frying is like a thermometer. So I’m just checking the oil. It should ideally be about 170, now it’s 170.

Q - [Host] Oh and Silvia, people are asking what type of oil you’re using, are you using olive oil or vegetable oil?

A - Yeah, that’s a good question. Sorry about that. I should’ve said. So in this case, I actually am using a ground nut oils because I like the flavour that it gives. So if you’re cooking for someone without nut allergy, I think that’s quite a nice one to say to use. I think in my book, yes, I did say ground nut oil is one of it. Otherwise sunflower oil, very neutral oil to use very good. Or corn, I wouldn’t use an olive oil in this case because it’s got a flavour and it’s something sweet and you don’t necessarily need that. I usually avoid vegetable oil, so I one of those three, the ground nuts, sunflower or corn would do. I’m just going to roll the next cigar, let’s say. Oops. Okay, and I’m just going to cut it. And you could, so it depends how patient you are and how perfectionist you are. I’m necessarily neither one nor the other. So I will show you how I do it, which is cutting all the little pieces. Well, I’ve been a bit perfectionist about my book, actually. I do have to admit it because I’m very, very lucky to have found the publisher of Green Bean Books, who’s also a friend, but he’s been doing some wonderful books and he gave me really the opportunity to create the book that I like and I had a lot of, I was quite involved into the graphic and chosen photography and the way that has been structured. So I was very, very kind of perfectionist about that. But as cutting and dough goes, I’m okay. So if you want to be real round, perfect round, you can just do one by one or otherwise I just usually take it and I start frying it. Now I think the oil is probably ready. So if you’re doing the whole dough, ooh, ooh, she’s too hot. Oh, well I’m going to reduce you a bit. By the time I put everything in, the temperature is going to go down, it’s about 75. So, but it’s okay, it’s going to go down to 70. It’s better to kind of fry in batches. So I fry the first two in one batch.

And now this, I’m going to try it in the second batch. Oops. Now I usually tend to use a saucepan which has some high edges for frying, it’s much safer. So you see they are not necessarily round, the like cut, but they will round up a little bit when frying. Okay? So as long as they are in one layer. So here, I think it’s, I didn’t measure it, I think it’s about 300 millilitres of oil. I think I wrote that in there, but to be honest, it depends how big is your pan. Because you may need, if you, you may need slightly, maybe I put 350 or 400, you need enough to cover the bottom of the pan. Now, I can’t quite show you the inside of it, but I will show you how they’re frying. So there’s probably this amount of oil and they just need to have, I always say like a very comfortable jacuzzi somehow, they’re like frying with lots of bubbles and here you go. I’m going to just rinse my hand a little bit sticky. And they’re done, it takes about one minute for them to cook, so, it should be done very similar. Okay, you want them to be light golden, not too much otherwise, not too dark, otherwise they go a little bit on the hard side, I wish you were here to smell of. It’s very nice, it’s the smells of fried, but it’s got a bit of a sweet kick to it and rid the combination of the groundnut oil and I think the lemon zest is really important in this recipe on the dough. It really gives like nice kick. So the Ricotta and the lemon zest, that’s basically what makes the dough slightly different. So, now one thing, although they look like little beignet, you know the French beignet, they’re not like beignet, okay? So don’t expect like a little kind of hollow super light. It’s still a dough, okay? So it’s, it’s a dough element and, but they’re really, really nice. Here are the ones, I’m going to show you the ones that I cooked that I fried a little bit earlier. Okay, so that’s the colour that we are looking to have and you see the kind of the shape, they do get the round shape. Now this, by the way, they’re really nice eating like this. Most of the time I just kind of eat them as they are without doing the second part. But I will show you both ways and you can of course bring it up to the next level.

But even just like that, they’re really nice. I’m just going to check the temperature of the oil. Okay, let me bring it up. So ideally you want 170 centigrade. I think I might have written there how much is in fahrenheit, 335. So at the moment we got 150, went down, but it’s coming up again. 155. So the ideal thing about frying at a fixed temperature, and that’s why if you do have a deep fryer, that’s the best and healthiest way of frying is that the heat kind of the right temperature, just kind of sears, whatever you’re putting in. So in this case it would sears the dough. Now another couple of recipes, and I got a couple of dishes which are very traditional Italian Jewish for Hanukah, besides what I mentioned earlier, the Sufganiyot, probably one dish is quite famous is called the Pollo Frito de Hanukkah, which is fried chicken for Hanukah, which is usually on the bone and you marinate it with garlic and lemon. And then you create a batter and you deep fry it, but you really need to get it right on how you fry it in order to make sure that the chicken is cooked inside and crispy on the outside.

So, it’s a tricky one. I did not include it in the book because it’s, although it’s very simple, it’s not as easy. Now the best way to fry, generally, I usually put a sieve on top of a bowl if I’m frying larger amount, I have like a, a bigger oval sieve on top of a plate with like a paper perhaps. And so that the first lot of oil just drains rather than going on paper that soaks the paper and then really still seeps on, on soaking the food. Okay, so now it’s light golden. And if you can see, I’m going to show, come and show you and they’re ready. So I’m going to take them out with a slotted spoon. Going to switch off my hob. So sorry, I have got a big kitchen, but I don’t have an island. So this is our dining room. Welcome to our home. So this is how they look like, and you can see actually perhaps that they’re not, they’re not soggy at all. So they’re really just on the outside, they’re quite crispy and the inside they are, I’m going to show you one in the middle, okay? So they’re quite dry and it’s just doughy. Okay? So now the last thing we’re going to do, and if there’s any question, I’m going to change pot with the frying pan because I’m just going to coat them in honey. So sorry about that again, but I’d rather take away the hot oil. So while I warm up the honey and everything, if anyone has got any question, then I’m more than happy to answer any.

Q - [Host] Yeah, can you freeze the dough?

A - That’s a good question to which I am not sure I have an answer. I think you can use, so you can freeze the, you can freeze the dough when it’s uncooked and then just, that you can do, so then thaw it and we have to see if it’s a bit too wet. You may have to add a touch of flour to it, but otherwise you should be able to use it. So I’m going to move, I have a very hot plate on my hand. Okay, so what I’m going to do next, it’s combine the little donuts, we are going to mix them. Oh, I didn’t put the, okay, it’s good that we actually, this is the butter. I should have put melted butter in the dough. I didn’t, I can see it here. So it should have been together with the mix. So it’s good that we are not going to try that one now. So sorry about that. I’m going to coat all those Precipizi on a hot honey, orange and orange water mixture. Okay, or in blossom water. So we have 80 grammes of just runny honey. Here we go. And to this we’re going to add, oops, this is the grated zest of one orange. I’m going to put it lower because it’s warming up quite, quite fast. Okay? So you can use either or. Okay? And then we have one tablespoon of orange blossom water. I quite like to have this orange blossom water, but it doesn’t have the hechsher on it, so this one does. It’s, if anyone wants an hechsher one, this one is from Kosher Kingdom, you can use that.

I’m going to use a tablespoon from here, which is about that. And we mix it all together. And now I’m going to add all the Struffoli from here. Going to, oops. I’m going to need a couple, oops, on the side, just snack a bit later. Now we’re going to just coat them with the honey. I’m going to come and show you. It really just doesn’t take longer at all. I’m going to switch it off. You just need to make sure that all the, all the little donuts are kind of coated. I’m going to come and show you how it looks right now. And now all we need to do is to pile them up. I’m going to take, I’m going to take the little tongs, otherwise I’m going to burn my fingers. So sorry for a sec. And we are going to pile them on here. Okay? So you take like a little plate, medium plate and you can create your pyramid. Now any question? Was anyone familiar with the singing of the Hanukah? When I lit or does anyone sing?

• We didn’t get any comments saying people knew that tune, but we do have some questions.

• Yeah.

Q - Someone’s asking where you teach in London?

A - Yes, so I teach either privately. So I go to people’s home and I teach as one-to-one or to group of people or on, I’ve done a lot of Zoom classes or I work a lot with charities or synagogues. So for example, in January I’m going to be at the South Amsterdam Synagogue, in February I’m going to be in Radlett and so it’s, I tend to kind of work with larger organisation and try to organise like a large cookery demonstration. So last month I did one for the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in Lauderdale Road, that’s my synagogue where I belong to, is the closest that I have, not geographically but closest to my right Italian, right somehow. And generally if I have something on, I send a newsletter about once a month. I hadn’t sent a newsletter for very long time while I was finishing the book, but now once a month I send a newsletter. So if any of you is interested to know which lessons are coming up, then you can sign up on my website Cooking for the Soul for newsletter and I will, I just sent them one out for December. But I will in January. And if any of you is on Instagram, it’s Silvia_Nacamulli. And there also, I usually put to all the events that I do and I put like stories and anything that I might be cooking on the day and I may put this later most. So that’s at the moment I’m cooking, I’m teaching a whole different kind of location. Here we go. Any other question?

Q - [Host] Yeah, we have some other question. What’s your favourite recipe from the book?

A - That’s very difficult question. So I only cook things that I like. So there’s old recipe in the book that I like. I think there’s one that I’m not crazy about, but it’s so traditional Roman Jewish that I couldn’t really leave it without. I’m going to leave this to cool down for a minute before putting the icing sugar. So otherwise going to melt straight away. Now you can be a little bit more patient and try to arrange it more tightly in a pyramid. But this will stick and glue kind of together and you can have it either warm or at room temperature or cold. It will absorb all the honey. So talking of my recipes. So I love vegetables. Like in our house there’s probably about between five to 10 vegetables on a regular kind of Friday night dinners and two to three vegetable every meal. So aubergines are very special for Italian Jewish cooking and the Caponata di Melenzane maybe it’s one of my favourite. Melanzane parmigiana, pasta alla norma, do it all with aubergines, the Carciofi alla Giudia definitely, definitely, definitely. Oh, pumpkin risotto. I love pumpkin risotto. Pasta Figiolo, the one that I told you earlier, the gnocci of my nonna Biancas, They’re really special to me. Bigoli in salsa. I really like Bigoli in salsa. Bigoli in salsa is a Venetian Jewish recipe. I do it with a whole wheat spaghetti and has a lot of onions and a lot of anchovies.

So you may have to want to like that, but if you do, then definitely give it a go, it’s quite easy to make and quite a winning point. There is a Pappa Pomodoro, it’s here for Pesach, I do like a Pizza Dadzima, which I really like. Of the meat. Oh, the meat there is, this is called Abbacchio Brodettato which is lamb with a lemon and egg sauce, which is really delicious or the Pollo Ezechiele which is so easy to make, perhaps it’s one of the easiest recipe and it’s always a success. With tomato, olives, fresh herbs and red wine. So you can see there’s quite a lot of favourite recipes. Fish Chraime, I really love if you like spicy fish, there’s the fish Chraime. The Crespelle quite nice, that’s for Shabbat. We can do a session that if you want. And on the dessert is really goes, I think there’s a great selection of Pesach desserts. So, which actually tend to make throughout the year, this is the Torta Caprese, it’s almond and chocolate, there’s hazelnut and chocolate, there’s a carrot cake. So yeah, I cook, this is my everyday food and so there are quite, quite a lot of them I like. Any other question?

Q - [Host] Yes, someone is asking how much melted butter to use.

A - I think it was, sorry, that’s a good question. I think it was 20 grammes. So 20 grammes of melted butter and, that I should have used you mean. But yes, so 20 grammes of melted butter, the butter really what it does, it holds the pastry together so it gives a bit of soft texture and bind things together. So it’s a really nice addition if you want to do it parve, you can use margarine.

Q - [Host] A couple people are asking about if you include a recipe for pizza Ebraica.

A - Pizza Ebraica, yes. So the pizza Ebraica I did, and it’s at the end of the book. This is it, this is my mother and I making pizza Ebraica last year. So the pizza Ebraica, it’s a wonderful Roman Jewish dessert. And this is us to meet my sister and my daughters and friends doing pizza Ebraica at the seaside last year. So the Pizza Ebraica is a, it’s a traditional, Roman Jewish dessert, is like a fruitcake usually it’s made the size of a brick both in size and quite heavy to eat, but it’s delicious. It’s usually made and sold in a small little bakery in the centre of Rome called Boccione, where there’s a long queue, it’s a small little, a hole in a wall, but they make wonderful desserts and wonderful things. And it’s usually made for, originally for the birth of a boy, a brick miller. And then it became really widely used to make it in order for anything hot, so for a wedding bar mitzvah and so on. So in our family we have a tradition of making our own, the recipe of Boccione is like a top secret. No one can tell it. So we just created our own, is perhaps similar or perhaps if you want to try the original one, you should go to Rome. But this is the one that we really like to make at home. And it’s got candied fruits and almonds and pine nuts and raisins and it’s really, it’s really nice. But by all means, yes, it couldn’t be a Roman Jewish, Italian Jewish cookbook without a pizza Ebraica.

Q - [Host] Someone’s asking if you could please repeat the name of the Jews who settled in Rome after the fall of the temple.

A - Well, I said Italkim, perhaps that’s what they referred, there’s not a date that Italkim arrived in Rome. So the Jews that arrived in Rome that arrived already, at the time actually we’re talking about Judah Maccabeus. So the Maccabees video, at 200 BC, the one of the ambassadors came to Rome already and settled there. But after the destruction of the second temple in 70 Ad, a large group came and that as prisoners of war they were slaves. So they were the Israelites, the Jews from the temple. And then with time they stayed in Rome and they continued to practise and to be without the split before the split in Ashkenazi and Sephardi and with time they got the name of Italkim, which is the Italians, in Hebrew Italkim means Italians and the the liturgy is Italkim. So I think that’s what they were referring. But please correct me if you meant something else.

Q - [Host] And someone is asking if you could please repeat the name of the recipe with the pasta and the anchovies.

A - Yes, Bigoli in salsa. It’s a Venetian Jewish dish. I’ll show you here. Yes, so it’s really nice. I love the simplicity. So Bigoli, it’s a Venetian or actually from Benidorm region, it’s a pasta that is usually used to be made with buckwheat. Now sometimes it’s still used with buckwheat, but buckwheat has got a very specific flavour. So either you love it, which is very pungent or it’s more often now done with wholewheat, which is this one here, Bigoli in salsa. Now a funny thing like, so my mother looked at the book, she loved it, and think so she said, “But you know what, I think if you do another edition, maybe you shouldn’t put the parsley because there’s no parsley in Bigoli in salsa.” And I said, “Well I dunno, I think that’s an opinion.” So I think it goes very well and she thinks it doesn’t. So that’s part of that kind of rigidity of thinking of that in food you can’t quite break the rules. So maybe the original recipe was without parsley. I am not 100% sure, but actually I think the parsley goes super well on the Bigoli in salsa, so I included it, but by all means you can leave it without and online you can find it with or without. And by the way, the book has just gone to second print, but I did not change the past. Any other question?

Q - [Host] Yes, we have a couple. Are there any Jewish dishes of Jewish origin that are recognised with the DOP designation?

A - As recognised for the?

Q - [Host] As the DOP designation as traditional Italian? I think they mean DOC maybe?

A - I’m not sure I understand, D of DO, is it written or maybe I can read it, hold on.

• [Host] Yeah, it’s written.

A - Hold on. Because I can’t quite see. Jewish that recognises, ah, no, I don’t think so. I don’t think so, but I don’t think so, but I’m not sure. I never honestly looked into it, but that might be a good idea. But I’m not aware of any.

Q - [Host] And our last question is, “Is it true that Ottolenghi’s family is Italian?”

A - Yes, so I actually, I had really lovely endorsement. One of it is, another one is Ottolenghi, another one is Claudia Roden and Joan Nathan, Gil Hovav, Linda Dangoor I had really, really amazing endorsement and I met Yotam many times and he is, actually one of his recipe is in here. So he gave him his grandmother’s recipe of Polpettone. And so yes, Ottolenghi it’s a very classic Italian Jewish last name. So he was from his father’s side is Italian as the name passes through the father. And, but Yotam was born in Israel, so is his father and his grandmother was from Rome. And that’s a recipe that he passed on to him. And he included it actually in the Ottolenghi, sorry, in the Jerusalem, in the Jerusalem cookbook. He included the recipe and here I made it here as the Polpettone di Yotam Ottolenghi, he very kindly gave it to include. And it tells where the origins are and it’s a really, really lovely dish. I just don’t have a picture for it. But do try it if you have the book.

• [Host] All right. Well thank you so much Silvia. This was an absolutely lovely demonstration. Thank you.

• Thank you so much. Thank you so much, everyone. I hope you enjoyed. Oh, last thing, the icing, the icing on the cake, the icing sugar on. So just before serving, you just kind of add the icing sugar and here you have the Precipizi Struffoli. Wishing everyone and happy New Year. And if anyone wants to write privately, please feel free to email me or and I hope I’ll be able to answer all of the questions and to be with you all over again. Have a great evening. Thank you so much.