today we're in Italy on the island of Sicily and we're here to eat we're in
the capital of Palermo and we can't wait to show you the best food the city has
to offer if you love to eat Palermo's food scene will be right up your alley
the food culture here revolves around nose to tail eating, loads of seafood and
bold flavors this is our third video from Sicily and we're here to hunt down
the best local food watch out for famous Sicilian dishes, delicious Sicilian
street food and a whole lot more in this three-part series we're eating where the
locals eat you don't want to miss this series get ready for some mouth-watering
food I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena and we're Chasing a Plate we hope you're hungry
let's eat!
we are so excited to share Sicilian cuisine with you the food is
really heavily influenced by different cultures and its past and you will be so
amazed by how different the food is here from the rest of Italy in this video
we're going to be eating some street food and then we're going to visit some
of the most popular foods here in Sicily we can't wait to eat with you
for our first stop we're gonna be getting one of the most famous street
foods here in Sicily which is arancine so this is a deep fried rice ball it's
got some heritage that goes way back and we hear that this secret little place
it's a really hidden door really hard to find is the place to get these in
Palermo
we've got our arancine and we've gone with the classic so this is a ragu
one so a meat cooked in ragu so what it is is a rice ball crumbed and
deep-fried so really simple on the outside so I think we've got to bite
right in there and have a look inside
Wow ohhh that is really good
so it's actually
not much rice we've had quite a few of these while we've been here they're
normally much bigger and they normally have a lot more rice that has not too
much rice and a lot of that ragu it's so-so tomatoey
there's not actually too much meat in there so it'll have pork but the little tiny
bits of minced pork are truly tiny I can see some celery and a ton of that ragu
which is super tangy it's like a burst of tomato flavour
mmm that is beautiful it's really light for a deep-fried item and you can see
now the rice a lot more so I've eaten through most of that ragu and you can see the
rice has a little bit of a colour it's because it's cooked in saffron and these
have a history dating back from when the Arabs were here in Sicily this is the
most conquered island in the world they say and the most conquered city in
the world so a lot of people have passed through here and these date from when
the Arabs were here in the 10th and 11th century so the rice is a little bit
yellow because it's cooked in saffron damn that is really good
the rice is perfectly cooked it's nice and soft but it's got a still got a
little bit of bite and the outside the crumb is perfectly deep-fried it's not
gone soggy it's got a beautiful crunch these are by far the best arancini that
we've had since we've been here in Palermo and I love this place you can
sort of see how secret it is so it's got this tiny tiny little hidden doorway
that behind me is a really main road but there is no signage on the road and
there are people flooding in here for their arancine and it's all locals
because it's super hidden it is a really really good place and the quality
is amazing
those arancine were a great snack but it's now time to settle in for a long
Sicilian lunch now we have come to this trattoria that we ate at the other day
it was brilliant they've been around since the 1960s and they do a lot of
traditional Sicilian dishes we can't wait to show you guys
just like the last stop this place is pretty hidden as well and we're finding that
here in Palermo there's either really in your face touristy stuff where you don't want
to be eating or there's places like this so this doorway which when we first came
we thought it was the back door but it's not it's the main door to this restaurant
so Giuseppe is showing us exactly how to eat this pasta con le sarde so pasta
with sardines, sardines are really popular here in Sicily and so you mix it all up
and then add the breadcrumbs, toasted
toasted breadcrumbs, the perfect sprinkling
okay, grazie mille
alright I got service at the table so pasta con le sarde is
a really popular dish here in Palermo it is made up of sardines, there's wild
fennel, raisins and then the toasted breadcrumbs of course and it's a really
really delicious dish I had this the other day and it is just mouth-watering
so I'm gonna grab myself a big ole bite
if you like really strong tasting fish this is the pasta for you the
sardines are really really strong and fishy, intense in a good way the
toasted breadcrumbs add an almost creaminess because they're not crunchy
they sort of just soak up a bit of the sauce and add to the texture of the dish
the pasta is cooked perfectly it's al dente so it has a great bite
and the raisins are so sweet now it seems a bit weird to have raisins
in pasta right but that harks back to the thing that Thomas was talking about
before with the arancine about Sicilian cuisine being very heavily
influenced by its conquerors so the Arabs brought things like raisins and saffron
and cloves and those types of herbs and it sort of
integrated itself into Sicilian cuisine this is delicious
let's get some cheese for my pasta which is a super interesting pasta now we
asked him which one we should go for and this is the one he recommended and we've
seen a lot of people around town eating this and basically it's potato and meat so you've
got spaghetti and then you've got a crushed potato I think it's probably just a
boiled potato but then it's got some herbs and stuff so it's probably been
boiled and then tossed in some butter and some little chunks of meat so I'm
gonna get some cheese on there
just like with Sheena's we want to toss it and
get that potato and meat mix right through and that cheese coating so you
can see it's got a beautiful liquid layer down there and it does look kind of creamy
and buttery so let's see I've gotta get a big chunk of potato and a whole lot of meat
and it looks like pork I've got some potato and some meat hiding under that spaghetti
oh that is a beautiful flavour the potato and the pasta go so well
together that double carb
and the meat's got a nice little bit of fat on it so
you've got this beautiful sort of oiliness from that and there must be some
butter in there it's got a lot of salt so it's got a lot of flavour
oh it's really good
it's much wetter than I thought it would be
so it's really creamy and the pasta
is just coated in liquid it looked really dry when it came to the table but
that is a great combo and the potato's not too strong
you've just got a nice coating of the potato it breaks up into quite small pieces
this is a really neat restaurant I love this environment super local, there's lots of old
people, workers coming in for their lunch just in their overalls covered in
paint and things so it's a proper locals joint, really good food
Thomas is enjoying his grassa and I am without a pasta
so what happened is Giuseppe one of the guys who works here
he whipped my pasta away, ahhhhhh grazie
he's whipped it back in front of me and gave me a new portion because it was getting cold
while I was filming Thomas it was so nice of them
our second course has arrived now if you're wanting to do the whole shebang
like the full long Italian lunch you might start with an
antipasti so a starter then you might go a pasta course
then your second course which is a meat or a seafood
and then you might go dessert, you might have a digestive, a coffee
what not but we just went for the pasta and a second course so our second
course is made of Sicily's most famous dish this is caponata
it's an eggplant dish sort of like a sweet and sour eggplant salad and then
to go with it a butterflied and crumbed pan fried mackerel how golden
and delicious does it look but what I'm gonna do is start with the caponata so
the caponata you can usually have it as a antipasti with bread so as a starter
or you can have it as a side with your main or your second course so let's just
get in it's chopped end fried eggplant so chunks of eggplant and then
it's cooked with capers there's some celery, onion
and a sweet balsamic vinegar so it's a little bit tangy
it's so good
the eggplant is super soft and it just melts in your mouth and then the tanginess from that
balsamic vinegar is great it's very zingy, very lively now this fish
this fish looks so good so I've got a ton of lemon I'll just squeeze
that all over the fish and it looks like it's got a lot of dried herbs on
top maybe some oregano and then a ton of olive oil so let's just cut a huge
bit off this is mackerel which is a really oily fish see that in there
ohhh yeah all right
hot!
the breadcrumbs are really finely ground
so they just give a slight crunch, very golden
and then the fish is so soft, it's perfectly cooked
mackerel is a very oily fish
and so it's quite strong in flavour
but it's beautiful it just flakes apart in your mouth ohh delicious
it's really nice sitting down for a lunch like this with a glass of wine and
there's a great passion for eating here in Italy and in Sicily
so you're not rushed there's no rush to get out the workers can come in they
seem to sit here for a very long time for their working lunchtime but there's
passion for food so people take time for good food and to have a great lunch like
this it's fantastic
we're now right in the heart of town and after a big lunch like that we're gonna
have a granita this is another super famous thing here in Sicily it's a semi
frozen dessert it's unreal we've been doing some research finding the best one
in town you've got to see this this is unreal
watermelon
cafe con almond e panna
almond and coffee and panna, si, si
watermelon, peach and gelsi
this is a brilliant store and it's run by the coolest guy his name's Pino
he doesn't have much English but we don't have much Italian but we have
the best conversations and he comes up with the perfect flavour combinations for
you so Sheena's gone with a sweet fruity one so we've got mulberry on top there's
some peach and there's some more mulberry down there and that's
watermelon and I've gone with a serious after a big meal one this is a coffee
one so there's coffee down here then I've got almond granita down here
I've got cream a sweetened cream all over the top and that's covered in
chocolate powder and so granita is basically I guess a slushie is the best
way to describe it so it's a semi frozen dessert which is then flavoured with
either coffee like I have or nuts like I have or fruit like Sheena has now
it is mentally hot here so we've just got to dive right in look at all that
cream and chocolate on top and I want to get right down there and get some coffee
hmm oh man oh man that is good it's very very strong so think smashing back an
espresso in pretty much one gulp that's what that tastes like
really really strong
try and get some almond so I'll get a bit of a combo
of everything
the almond just takes a bit of the edge
off the super strong coffee the cream is beautiful and soft it's quite lightly
whipped and then sweetened and that chocolate powder on top just gives it a
massive sweet chocolaty kick
anguria
gelsi
peach
my granita is turning to soup so let's just get in so I'm gonna get a taste of all
three flavours hopefully so peach watermelon and mulberry
it is stinking hot here in Palermo today
so this granita is just perfect it's totally hitting the spot the granita
the fruit granitas are made from fresh ingredients so fresh fruit is used to
make these flavours and they are so intense in flavour the mulberry
particularly is really strong mulberry almost and I think it tastes
like a cross between blackberry and boysenberries but the peach flavor too
is coming through
mmm just beautifully sweet and refreshing and they say that back
in the day with granita how they used to make it was they used to go up to the
mountains because Sicily is quite a mountainous region grab the ice from the
top of the mountain and cart it back down to the villages and make the granita
that way and holy moly honestly this is the best thing for a really hot day in
Palermo
it's just perfection it's totally hitting the spot what an awesome day of
eating here in Palermo
yay, grazie Pino, best granita in Palermo, grazie