Scacce ragusana

"a bit like a lasagne crossed with a focaccia and pizza." Lorraine Elliott/Not Quite Nigella

This is just one of those short posts, about a particular dish, with a tiny bit of background, and a few variations. And always - a question or two.

The dish in question is a homely Sicilian dish - a pizza kind of dough wrapped around fillings made from whatever is in the fridge, although the most traditional ones it seems are the inevitable tomato; sausage and cheese; broccoli, cauliflower, cheese and currants, and an eggplant and cheese. Always cheese, although there seems to be some differences about what kind of cheese - caciocavello or the very local ragusano seem to be the most quoted - and also of course, the most difficult to find. Rachel Roddy says cheddar will do - I'm guessing mozzarella would as well as those two local cheeses are of the stretched kind.

As always there are arguments about who first invented this, although the date - the 17th century seems to be an agreed time for its invention, and mostly people seem to go for Ragusa as its birthplace although the people of Modica would disagree.

My main - probably only - question is why the dough for this is a yeasted dough - fundamentally a pizza dough often made with semolina rather than flour - it doesn't seem to matter which - but rolled out very thin.

Nobody seems to have an answer for this. The only comment I found was from Lorraine Elliott of Not Quite Nigella who hosted a cooking class by Carmel Ruggeri of Sicilian Food Tours:

"Carm tells me the secret to a perfect scaccia ragusana. Firstly, make sure that the oven is very hot. Scaccia ragusana should never be puffy, it should be flat and thin even though it is a yeasted dough and the hot oven allows it to develop the thin dough with a lovely bite to it. Also cover your scaccia ragusana with a tea towel for 10 minutes when it's out of the oven. This will help the top of the bread to become softer."

The picture is of the finished scaccie made by Lorraine at this class.

Mind you others seem to like the dough to be crisp - at least on top. Carmel Ruggeri is obviously well-known for her classes and her tours, because SBS  also features her variations in an article on the topic of scaccia. These are her own, and show those four different types of common fillings.

“The basic one is the cipudatta – cipudda means onion, so that’s a tomato and onion sauce. People will now sprinkle a bit of pecorino on there. Then there’s sciurietto, which is cauliflower and broccoli, and again cheese. Some people add the tomato sauce to it. There’s also a spinach with currents version, and sausage with ricotta and parley and pecorino, and an eggplant one. The three most popular are the tomato and onion, the eggplant, and the sausage and ricotta." Carmel Ruggeri

In spite of them being a kind of street food - the picture at the top of the page is of genuine Sicilian offerings - and in spite of them being a way to use up leftover stuff - they also seem to be a food that tends to be made for celebrations - particularly at Easter.

An oddment - scacce means squashed. And they do look sort of squashed. But there also seem to be a couple of different ways of forming them. The first, as demonstrated in Carmel Ruggeri's class and also by Rachel Roddy entails rolling out your pastry as thin as you can - a few holes don't matter, as the filling oozes out a little and caramelises on the surface. Then you put your filling all over the pastry, leaving a border, fold it in half lengthwise and seal the edges before baking on a tray in the oven.

You can then either slice it or eat as is, although if you are doing this, you might make it a bit smaller.

The other method is to roll the pastry thinly into a rectancgle. Spread over half your filling, fold in the edges to the middle, spread more filling on top of that and then fold over again - which gives you layers, looking a little like a lasagne. Or you could roll it like a strudel too.

The rather crisper topped version shown on the right is from Nicole Gaffney/Coley Cooks

And that's it really although I'm guessing there are classier versions with less traditional fillings. In fact Michael Bonancini on the SBS website presents a version stuffed with ricotta and fennel seeds. Now I wonder whether he rolled his pastry like a strudel or did the foldover thing as shown above.

Considering how the Italians are said to be very protective of their traditional dishes, with strict rules about how they should be made the Scacce Ragusana seem to be a variable feast. I'm pretty sure that every household in Sicily will have its own version, and those versions will vary according to how the cook feels on the day and what she has in her fridge that she wants to get rid of. I'm dealing with leftovers tonight - pork braised in cider and some red cabbage. I was going to make a pie - and probably still will - but I suppose I could also make one of these. Yeast doughs are a pain though aren't they? Not because they are difficult but they require planning - and time for the dough to rise. So perhaps not. Besides red cabbage us a bit too germanic isn't it? A filo strudel? Now there's an idea. But no, I want to use up some cream cheese by making cream cheese pastry. Hmm.

Oops - as I looked through my old posts for something similar I found I had written about scacce before. Hope this was a bit different, But then we've all probably forgotten what I said before.

YEARS GONE BY

September 6

2024 - Fried red tomatoes

2023 - Words from Rachel Roddy - now there's a small coincidence

2022 - Brioche à l'ancienne

2021 - Nothing

2020 - Missing

2019 - Nothing

2018 - Sancerre

2017 - Lunch in Second Home

2016 - Mushrooms