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Food Revolution Day: Sicilian 'mpanate with Squid and Potatoes

Today the world celebrates Food Revolution Day, an event launched by international chef Jamie Oliver's to get people better connected to their food and improve the way they eat.
Communities across the world are getting together and celebrate the beautiful diversity of fresh food, sharing cooking skills, understanding good eating habits and, of course, eating great food. At the loveSicily cookery school we decided to go for a very traditional fish menu with Tunnina, thin slices of tuna made panfried with fried onion, sarde a beccafico, and 'mpanate di sicci (seppie), squid pie.

Recipe 'mpanata di sicci

Ingredients for the dough:

1 kg hard wheat flour
4 spoons olive oil
13g salt
15g brewer's yeast

Water (as much as required – usually 600-700gr but also depends on the existing moisture of the room, the flour, etc)

Ingredients for the stuffing:

1 kg squid
500 gr potatoes
6 tablespoons tomatoes sauce
extra virgin olive oil
chilly flakes
parsley
salt

Preparing the stuffing:

Clean the squid and cut into small 1cm pieces. Peal the potatoes and chop in small 1cm cubes. Place the squid and potatoes in a bowl and combina them with the tomato sauce, chopped parsley and chilly fakes. Dress with extra virgin olive oil and salt, set aside. (If you want to make sure the potatoes will be cooked all the way through, you can blanch them first.)

Preparing the dough:

Dissolve the yeast with a little lukewarm water. Combine the flour with the salt and stir in the yeast mixture and the olive oil. Add the water and knead until you obtain an elastic dough to be used for the "'mpanata". Cut up the dough into pieces of about 250g each, shape them into round buns and allow them to rest for 20 minutes. When tapping them you should get a hollow sound.
Keep the work surface and the top of the dough well floured, knead again and then roll out into a disk with a 20-25cm diameter and about 1/2 cm thick.

Making the 'mpanata:

Place the filling on one side of the disk, fold the other half on top of the filling and with your fingers turn up the edges of the lower part of the disk to seal it in a "calzone" half moon shape.
Brush the top of the pie with olive oil and bake until the crust us browned for about 30-40 minutes.

Written on
May 17, 2013
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