Honey and Co’s Jewish-Italian feast: caponata, focaccia and Sarde in Saor

Carciofi alla Giudia is the one you might know — the most famous dish associated with the Jewish community of Italy, more specifically the one in Rome. The local artichokes get a little trim, their leaves are spread out and the whole vegetable is deep fried for what seems like a silly amount of time till it is a deep, burnished brown, the tips of the leaves delightfully crisp and the heart of the artichoke soft, sweet and buttery. It is a perennial favourite that always satisfies.

Pizza Ebraica is a lesser-known dish of Jewish-Roman cuisine. It’s one that we find disappointing in at least two ways. First, it is not really a pizza, at least not in the sense that we have come to think of pizza outside of Italy. Second, it isn’t that nice: a somewhat bready, not very sweet cookie with candied fruit and nuts on top that are purposefully burnt. A kind judgment on it would be “very rustic”.

Always interested in other Jewish diasporic cuisine, we didn’t let it deter us from a deeper dive into Jewish-Italian food, which is one of the most interesting and varied found in Jewish communities anywhere in the world. Considered to be the oldest in the west, there has been a Jewish community on the Italian peninsula for at least 2,000 years.

Over the centuries, they were joined by Jews from the Levant and north Africa, from Provence and from Germany, from Spain and Portugal. They thrived in the banking halls of Florence and Milan, the trading hubs of Venice, Livorno and Sicily, linking east to west through a cat’s cradle of Mediterranean ties. Their cooking was informed by local custom, mingled with Kashrut laws and the particular heritage of each community, adapting and adopting the foodways around them and, in turn, leaving their own mark on the Italian food story.

Common to all Jewish cooking worldwide are Shabbat dishes that can be made a day in advance for the Shabbat meal when cooking is forbidden. It’s a concept we can all get behind: cook one day, enjoy the next and maybe even the one after. These dishes are all associated with Jewish-Italian cooking and come together for a terrific pan-Italian spread that can be made a day or even two before you want to serve them. After all, the cook deserves a day of rest as well.

To drink: prosecco of course, but one that doesn’t taste like prosecco. Look for something natural and offbeat. Our go-to is Malibran Col Fondo Sottoriva — a perfect choice of prosecco for prosecco-avoiders like ourselves.

Caponata — roasted Aubergine and vegetable bake

To serve six

Sicily had a large, thriving Jewish community until the island came under Spanish rule in the 15th century and a mass expulsion of the community, mostly to mainland Italy, helped to popularise this dish on the peninsula.

It is best to dice all the vegetables to similar sizes, around 2cm cubes, apart from the aubergine which should be about double the size (dice about 4cm) as it shrinks the most. We keep the skin on the aubergine and the courgette for a better-looking end result.

1. Heat your oven to 200C. Lay the aubergine flat on a roasting tray, and pour over 150ml of the olive oil and one teaspoon of salt. Place in the oven for 10 minutes. Add the courgettes, mix and roast for another 10 minutes.

2. While they are roasting, start making the sauce. Heat the remaining 50ml olive oil in a large skillet which can then be put in the oven. Add the celery, onion, garlic and one teaspoon of salt. Sauté on a medium-low heat for 10 minutes, add the pepper and sauté for another 10 minutes.

3. Add the pine nuts, olives, tomato paste and lemon slices, and mix well to combine, cook for two minutes, pour over the vinegar and again stir well to combine.

4. Add the now roasted aubergines and courgettes, and mix again to combine, then transfer the whole skillet to the oven for 15 minutes, mix and serve, or keep for the next day and serve cold.

Schiacciata Livornese — a focaccia made with potatoes

To make one pan loaf, a 22cm cake tin or similar baking tray will work

This focaccia-esque bread hails from Livorno, one of the most important Mediterranean trade hubs and a freeport, and an early adopter of new-world vegetables, like the potato, which helps keep bread moist for a few days.

This is a very loose kind of dough, best baked in a tin. You can free-form it, but it may turn out a little flat if you do.

1. Heat your oven to 200C and sprinkle the salt all over the tray. Place the potatoes on top and bake till soft; it will take about an hour. Remove tray from the oven. As soon as the potatoes have cooled enough to handle, peel them and discard the skins.

2. Place half the warm potato flesh in a large bowl of an electric mixer, and add the warm water, yeast, sugar, oil, thyme and black pepper. Use the hook attachment to muddle it up.

3. Sprinkle the flour and salt all over the mixture, and start kneading until it all comes together. Work on a medium speed for six minutes. Add the rest of the potato flesh, but just mix to combine, leaving large chunks of potato visible. Remove bowl from the machine, cover and set aside for dough to double in size.

4. It is a really wet dough and should be pretty sloppy so it will prove quite fast as everything is warm. If you want to prepare the dough a day in advance, then you should chill it straight away in the fridge and continue proving the following day.

5. Heat your oven to 220C. Lightly oil your baking tray, and tip the dough in. Place tray in the centre of the oven for 25 minutes or until focaccia is golden all over. Remove from oven and cool a little before serving.

Sarde in Saor — sardines in vinegar onions and pine nuts

To serve six

This Venetian staple may or may not have its origins in the ghetto of this city — among the first in the world and a hub of Jewish trade, thought and culture for centuries. Either way, it is as much part of the city’s fabric as the canals and palazzos.

You can really use any number of sardines here (allow at least two per person), and the sauce in this recipe will be enough for at least 12 sardines. If you make less, you’ll just have more of the delicious sauce to mop with the bread.

1. Heat a generous amount of oil in a frying pan, about 2cm deep. Coat the sardines with the flour and a little salt and pepper. Shake off any excess flour, and fry the fish on both sides in batches for about three minutes on each side until golden. Remove carefully on to a plate lined with kitchen paper.

2. In a separate frying pan, heat the olive oil on a medium-low heat, add the shallots, sprinkle with the salt and sugar, and slowly sweat until the shallots soften and start sticking to the frying pan. This should take about 10 minutes. You don’t really want any colour, just to soften them nicely.

3. Add the raisins and sauté for five minutes, stirring occasionally. Then add the red wine vinegar, mix and cook for three minutes so all the flavours blend together. Add the pine nuts, and stir one more time. Remove a couple of large tablespoons, add the fried sardines to the frying pan and then top them with the mix you have set aside.

4. These can be eaten nice and warm or, as with the caponata, they are delicious the next day too.

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