Comments on: Lost Recipes Found: Regina’s Puglian Doughnuts

By: Erica

Erica — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:17:25 +0000

Thanks Deena, I’ll check it out. Erica

By: Deena Montillo

Deena Montillo — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 13:56:37 +0000

My husband and I produce authentic Vino Cotto (sweet “cooked wine” syrup). It’s available online and in a few specialty food stores now.

Follow Montillo Italian Foods on Facebook and on Twitter @dmontillo.

By: Erica

Erica — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:58:16 +0000

Hi Agnes,

There are many versions of calzones or two crusted pies containing fish in Southern Italy, many from Puglia. Sicily has a bunch of them. I included one called Impanata di Pesce Spada, which contains swordfish and sometimes cauliflower, in my book ‘Flavors of Southern Italy’. I hunted around to try and find a recipe for the exact calzone from Molfetta that you asked about but couldn’t come up with it exactly. I’m assuming it’s made with a yeast crust, not a short crust. Nancy Harmon Jenkins in her book ‘Cucina del Sole’ has a Neapolitan version of a fish pie that sounds great and contains many of the ingredients you mentioned (not cauliflower though) This combination of flavors is very popular in Puglia and actually throughout the waterside towns in the South. I’ll keep looking around to see if I can find something more specific. It’s often hard to track down these types of recipes since they’re very improvisational and everyone makes them a little differently, but this is certainly a very typical type of dish from the Bari area.

I’ll let you know if I find out more.

THanks for you note.

Erica

By: Agnes Delia

Agnes Delia — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 21:41:31 +0000

Do you know of this recipe from Molfetta..a province of Bari It is a filled calzone….made with white fish, onions, tomatoes and cauliflower and green olives, olive oil of course..

By: Sanora Josiah

Sanora Josiah — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:40:31 +0000

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By: George Siciliano

George Siciliano — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:45:56 +0000

Regina,
Are we related? I have the same memories of what we called “jelly balls” My grandmother is from Bari and when she died so did this recipe. It is exactly as you described. She made a “raison syrup” and kept gallons of it in the cellar of her house in Brooklyn. Then at St Joseph, Christmas and Easter she would fry dough into perfectly round balls and soak them in this syrup. The dough had a wonderful chewy texture. The balls were a little smaller than a golf ball. WOW! I can taste them as ‘m writing this. The last “jelly ball” I tasted was in 1952. This is way too long to wait to try another. If you have the recipe for the syrup I would love to give it a try. As for the dough for the balls themselves I do not remember if it was a sweet dough or som left over bread dough. What do you think?
My web site is http://www.georgesiciliano.com. Any information you can give me would be appreciated.
Thanks
George Siciliano

By: Erica

Erica — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 13:53:09 +0000

Hi Joyce,

Thanks so much for your note.

Can you bring one of those olive and onion calzoni over right now? It’s 8 am and it sounds like a perfect breakfast.

I’ve made raisin foccacia and also ones with fresh grapes. This was never a Christmas tradition in my family, but what a lovely idea.

That’s so wonderful you wrote a book about your family’s home town. So many of my grandparents’ dishes just got washed away with the years. It makes me sad. If you ever have one you’d like to share with all my readers, I’d be glad to post it.

Merry CHristmas to you too.

Erica

By: Joyce

Joyce — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 05:58:34 +0000

Hi Erica,
Just surfing the net re: Christmas Eve in Toritto (the town where my grandparents came from) and your site came up. I do have a recipe for the “doughnut holes”. My grandmother called them “i petala”. She used to make them for us on New Year’s Eve. I wrote a book about my famiiy and the recipe is in that book. Unfortunately, at this time the book is in a cabinet that is blocked by our Christmas Tree, so I won’t have access to it until after the holidays. For all I know you have the recipe by now, but if not just let me know and I will forward it to you when I can.

Did your family ever make an olive and onion calzone or a raisin foccacia? They are two favorites of my family and we continue the tradtion of serving them at this time of the year. I have many of my grandmother’s recipes and I treasure them.

Buona Natale e Buono Anno

By: Erica

Erica — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:45:00 +0000

Hello Nancy,

I’m so glad you like my site. I very much like hearing from wine people since one of my causes is convincing people they can fit fine wine into their low cal, low carb Italian meals (seems like so many Americans think they have to give up wine, cold turkey, if they want to lose weight. Wrong.)

I’m going to go check out your Ponzi wine website now.

Thanks again for the nice note.

Erica

By: Nancy Ponzi

Nancy Ponzi — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:32:43 +0000

Hello,

Grazia! I love your lengthly discussions…what fun and I will share with some of my Italian foodie friends. I found your website through the April Cucina Italiana issue–I hope the magazine keeps coming! I am also passing on your site via our Amici di Ponzi cellar club newsletter…and more or less your instructions for homemade ricotta. I’ve made cheese before…never this easily and SO good. Plus, so perfect to match ricotta recipes with our Spring-release white wines.

Oh, just thought…perhaps you could send me information on wholesale purchase of your books. I confess at the moment I’m unfamiliar with them, but I’ll soon be. We have three retail wine locations where we also offer a small but select (mainly things I like) display of books and wine related items.

Again, thank you…now back to writing that newsletter!

Salute, Nancy Ponzi