Image: Emma Lee for the Guardian/Mateusz Karpow
If I had to choose one place to spend the final day of my life, it would have to be Sicily, for breathtaking views of the coast and happy memories of family holidays. We’ve been going there for 20 years now and it’s like a second home for us.
We are friends with two families on the island: Vittorio Brignoli, who runs a wonderful hotel in Porto Palo di Menfi, and the other is the Planeta family, who have an amazing vineyard. We took over the whole of Vittorio’s for my wife’s birthday for three days and it feels like it is the best place to celebrate special occasions. I like to think I know every last crevice but when I go back I discover another gem I haven’t seen before.
I have one very vivid memory of eating there. When we arrived, the sea was quite calm, and we had some pasta with Mazara del Vallo prawns and pistacchio di bronte (spaghetti con gamberi e pistacchio), along with some fish soup. Then suddenly a thunderstorm started to rage outside – it was such a beautiful moment. I drank far too much grappa with Vittorio while my wife Plaxy stayed awake watching the storm until 6am.
I’d recreate that meal, I think. I love the simple flavours of Sicily, and all the raw, local ingredients. We’d have to start with that warming seafood broth and follow it with spaghetti con gamberi e pistacchio and finally, we’d end on a classic ricotta cake (cassata Siciliana). This is typical of the region – a sponge cake filled with ricotta, and garishly decorated with bright pistachios and green almond paste. We’d, of course, wash it all down with a bottle of Planeta from the nearby vineyard.
I’d be with Plaxy, and we would insist on sitting outside with a very simple setting – no tablecloths. The tables are wooden barrels with, basically, planks of wood on top. Storm lanterns are absolutely essential as it can get quite windy.
Other than that, the setting would be unadorned. And there’d be no music, which is just as well as my wife really dislikes Italian pop music.
A cake fit for a last supper: Giorgio’s Cassata Siciliana (ricotta cake)
Allow plenty of time to make this, as the cassata needs about 6 hours’ chilling time, once assembled.
Serves 10–12
900g good fresh ricotta
460g caster sugar
100ml maraschino (cherry) liqueur (or other sweet liqueur)
150g chopped candied fruit
150g chocolate chips, cut into a similar size to the candied fruit
1 x 24cm round plain sponge cake
2 tbsp apricot jam, heated until melted
To decorate
100g pistachios
300g golden marzipan
300g icing sugar, plus extra for dusting
Whole candied fruit
1 Heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Lay the pistachios in a single layer on a baking tray and put into the oven for about 8 minutes. As long as they are in a single layer you don’t need to turn them. Keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t burn, then take them out and put them into a blender until the nuts release their oil, and you have a paste the density of melted chocolate.
2 Find a bowl that is about 5cm deep, and preferably has sloping sides, to make your cassata in, and line it with clingfilm. Put the marzipan into another bowl and, with your hands, work in the pistachio paste, until the paste is all coloured bright green. Dust your work surface with icing sugar and roll out the paste into a strip that is as deep as the sides of the bowl you are going to make the cassata in. Put the strip of paste to one side.
3 Put the ricotta into a third bowl and work in the sugar, liqueur, candied fruit and chocolate chips.
4 Heat the jam. Slice the sponge cake crossways (horizontally) to form two discs, each about 1cm thick. Put one of the discs of sponge cake in the bottom of the clingfilmed bowl, and brush lightly with some of the melted jam. Line the sides of the bowl with the strip of green marzipan.
5 Spoon in the ricotta mixture, smooth the top to make it level, and cover with the remaining disc of sponge cake. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours.
6 Place a plate on top of the bowl and turn the plate and bowl over together, so that you turn out the cake on to the plate. Take off the clingfilm.
7 Make the glaze by mixing the icing sugar with enough water to make it spreadable. Cover the top and sides with the sugar glaze – very thinly, so that you can see the green of the paste through it. Decorate with candied fruit, and put back into the fridge for at least another hour before serving.
• Giorgio Locatelli is an Italian chef based in the UK and is the chef-patron of Locanda Locatelli in London: locandalocatelli.com
