During your stay at Villa Elaia, both located in Cefalù (District of Palermo), in Sicily, you can taste the best Sicilian dishes.
Pasta al Taianu
The Pasta al Taianu, in Italian “pasta in saucepan”, is an ancient dish from the times of the Arabian rule, and still today it can be found in the Sicilian cookery. Traditionally, it is made – in Cefalù – between the 4th and the 6th of August, in occasion of the patron celebrations for the Holy Saviour.
The Pasta al Taianu is dressed with Bolognese sauce, fried eggplants, and meat, becoming a poetic and tasty miscellany of aromas and flavours.
Sarde Beccafico
The name of this authentic dish of the Sicilian tradition comes from the name of a bird, belonging to the family of the Silvidi. The beccafico birds were hunted by the Sicilian nobles, who used to eat them after having them stuffed with the same innards and bowels of the bird.
Even being an extremely tasty dish, it was luxury meal, so unobtainable by common people, who used to eat sardine instead of them. Today, both the bird beccafico and the sardine produce, in this unique union, a particularly savoury, enjoyable, and tasty dish, which is able to satisfy the palate of the most demanding gourmet.
Pasta al Taianu
Caponata
Among the best Sicilian dishes, there is, undoubtedly, a place reserved to the caponata. Tasting this sensational dish, you will be able to feel aromas, history, and wealth of the complex Sicilian culture.
It is an excellent union of local customs and memories, which belongs not only to the typical Sicilian gastronomy, but also to the Italian cookery tradition.
Pasta con le sarde
The combination between fish and pasta, gives life to one of the most typical dishes that belong to the excellent cookery tradition of Sicily. The pasta with sardine so, magnificently marries two of the most meaningful symbols of the whole islander tradition.
It is a savoury first dish where the unique taste of the wild fennel joins the one of the fresh sardine. Besides that, in the preparation of the pasta with sardine there is also the exquisite savour given by the typical raisins and the toasted almonds. It is a recipe where the Sicilianity is celebrated by a jubilation of aromas and savours, with an excellent result.
Arancini
Arancini
Arancini look like a ball, they are made of rice and then fried. The Arancino is certainly another one of the best Sicilian dishes. Generally, this tasty food large between eight and ten centimetres is served with Bolognese sauce or tomato sauce, or with peas.
It has been probably imported by the Arabians, who would usually ate rice, and saffron with meat and herbs; the arancino owes its name to the fact that its colours recall an orange. The breadcrumbs, instead, should come from the times of Frederic the Second’s rule, probably used to make them easy to carry.
Panelle
Up to the year 1000, Sicily was under the Arabian rule. Most of the best Sicilian dishes root their origins in those years, as well as the panelled. Being truly expert gourmets, the Arabian experimented the milling of seeds in order to obtain a sort of flour from them. Today, this flour is still used mixed with water and then cooked.
Even though panelled are small sized, they are capable to develop a more than unique taste. This typical dish, coming from ancient traditions, belongs to the solid Sicilian cookery customs, and it is indissolubly linked to social life aspects and stories from epochs of amazing beauty, and it gives the pleasant delight of trying an exceptional food.
