Venice, La Serenità and My Frittelle Three Ways
Hello dear friends and Happy New Year!
I’m writing to You from Venice, where we moved to in December. With a few hiccups on the way we are here at last and this new part our life in Italy feels extremely exciting.
We spent the entire Christmas holiday period in our new home; we needed a rest from packing and unpacking and it felt like the right thing to do, to immerse ourselves in the Venetian festive rhythm of life.
Venice is always wondrous, but winter here is a different matter. The light turns even softer than usual, misty alleyways evoke mystery and the pace stays calm.The local famous fog can be thick, almost blinding and immobile. This is the time for reading, for a warm cappuccino coffee in the morning followed by a hot chocolate just after that, and to go to sleep early.
It’s the time of year were I find La Serenissima at its most serene. There is room to walk and to look around, the grocery shopping at my favourite fruit and vegetable stand at the Rialto Market , I must admit, has never been rushed, but it is now when I find it easier to discuss the particularities of local vegetables, having the elegantly elongated radicchio tardivo in mind.
We live in a peaceful part of the sestiere of Dorsoduro overlooking the Giudecca island. Each time we leave our home to go anywhere it feels like a little expedition. The perennially moving blue waters of the Giudecca Canal and the eternal beauty of the peachy-pink humid light rising above it compensate for any inconvenience, or this different way (car-less) of life.
We enjoy being here, it’s been fun so far coming back to our „old favourites” and discovering „new favourites”, we’ve met a few very interesting people, and we feel welcomed.
Frittelle allo Zabaione – Majer Venezia
Frittelle di Mele
There are things in life that one has never done before. Then all of a sudden one day you simply wake up and decide that now it’s the right moment to fill that void. Preferably fast as the feeling of being late in the world feels overwhelming.
Today – or this week I should say and soon you’ll find out why, that particular moment of waking up to something new has arrived for me. It was the time to make le frittelle, something I had never made before. I’ve always enjoyed eating them, starting with the more simplistic castagniole in Rome working my way up to fritole in Venice, but I had never made any step further.
Why? I might have been too apprehensive in the past about the delicate dough, in my own mind almost too delicate to handle. It’s difficult to fry doughnuts, bomboloni, zeppole or castagnole in small quantities and, needless to add, freshly fried delicious little doughnut-like balls, whichever name they carry, are without a shadow of a doubt best eaten almost immediately, when still warm.
I’ve always remembered the process of making the doughnuts at home when I was little. At that time it seemed lengthy and difficult, but very delicious in the end! I also fondly recall the distinctive smell of the fried sweet dough lingering in the house.
So here I am, practically at dawn in my new little Venetian kitchen, with the carnival period upon us and the friettelle season officially under way, I’m preheating my oven to 180 C whilst dividing the sweet Delica pumpkin flesh into evenly sized chunks to bake them until soft. Puree soft is really what I’m after.
You see, I chose to prepare pumpkin frittelle. A little riff on the frittelle Veneziane which are currently available in nearly every pasticceria in each sestiere of Venice, giving a deep fried sweet prelude to The Carnival season.The aroma of the fritole literally announces il Carnevale in La Serenissima and every year there is a local contest held for the best frittelle of the year. In case you are new to the context of: „frittelle” or „fritole”, I can assure you that it’s something worth travelling to Venice for. Frittelle Veneziane – in plural, are deep fried balls made of the most delicious soft dough studded with raisins and pine nuts (there are some variations), rolled in granulated sugar. They can also be filled (the dough in that case changes slightly-it’s even softer!) with cream, zabaione or ricotta. On a rarer occasion you could find a pistachio or chocolate filling, but that is a fairly late addition to the core staples. Personally, I like to stay close to tradition.
Since I’m still new to the local cuisine and even more to the finest recipes yet to be discovered, I’m not entering the frittelle contest in my kitchen. Instead, I chose something similar but with a little twist, and after all the Christmas holiday feasting, definitely less floury, slightly less sugary, but still holding a big nod to the realms of the Christmas and Carnival season flavours: lots of fresh citrus zest, citrus peel, ”drunken raisins” and cinnamon. It only happens once a year after all!
Frittelle di Zucca
Frittelle di Semolino
Pasticceria Majer
I may have lost count on how many kitchens I’ve had in my life so far. Smaller or bigger, brighter or darker, more modern or showing the signs of time. Each time I’ve tried to imagine our little daily rituals in a new space and somehow make it work for us. I’ll try to do my best this time too.
Our house in Venice is actually two houses joined together, many moons back. The kitchen is positioned at the very back on the ground floor, it’s facing a little secret garden-as I like to call it, overlooking a side canal along the house with the water leaping against the wall all the while, but it’s very dark. There are still some little works to be done but I can’t change the current set up hence I have to find the easiest way to fulfil my modest cooking fantasies and accommodate the
kitchen equipment collected over the years. These are the charms of the older Venetian – non fully modernised homes, but happy homes filled with life-long memories and emanating with character.
I’m still settling in, moving back and forth my baking trays, tea towels and all the possible kitchen utensils that can exist. I’d like this house to feel like home as soon as possible; maybe I’ve rushed and now I should just give it time, letting everything fall in its place fallowing the law of gravity. The most important however, is that I’ve found ” la serenità”- the serenity. A beautiful Italian world describing so well a peaceful state of mind.
And who knows, maybe because I feel ”serena”, the idea of deep frying knocked at my door which I opened to welcome the smell of home and a cosy warm kitchen where I used to love observing fried doughnuts making process, filled with a homemade strawberry or plum jam, a true labour of love.
So I rolled up my sleeves and tried three delightful recipes in one week.
I began with frittelle di zucca: pumpkin puree fried little balls studded with drunken raisins soaked in Armagnac, orange peel and citrus zest. After that we had frittelle made of semolino flour cooked in milk, spiced with citrus zest and cinnamon, followed by apple frittelle to finish.
The proportions and quantities are easy to manage even for a small household, plus, all the frittelle reheat like a dream.
Enjoy frying and Buon Anno!
Aleksandra xx
