Home Recipes

Whereas my mother made this with white Wonder Bread and probably a half a stick of butter, I’ve modified it over the years.  One modification came when I first saw the movie Moonstruck in 1987.  In one morning scene, Olympia Dukakis is making Uova Fritte nel Pane for Cher.  There’s a close up of her flipping the bread in the pan, and you can see that there is also roasted red pepper in the pan that she will top the egg with.  I’ve added roasted red pepper to my Bread with the Egg in the Middle dish ever since.

Put bread and cut outs on a plate.  Add the heated red pepper to the side of the plate. Don’t eat the cut outs first.  Save them for after you’ve eaten the bread to sop up any leftover yolk on the plate.

Optional: As you are plating, sprinkle the separated whites from the beginning of this recipe with a little salt and pepper, maybe some oregano and cook quickly in the cooling pan that you cooked the bread in.

My father’s family came to America from Sicily in the mid to 1800’s.  They came from Santo Stefano di Quisquina.  My father’s mother’s family came from Allesandro Della Rocca.  My mother’s family came to America by way of Cuba.

Early on, they lived, worked and played in Ybor City, Florida.  Some were cigar makers, grocery store owners, farmers, garment factory workers, machinists and carpenters.

The way that they cooked has changed between the 1800 and 1900’s and now. However, the food that they ate has remained pretty much the same.

Cooking in Ybor City has ranged from wood, charcoal and one-burner kerosene stoves to more modern gas and electric.  But throughout these transitions my Sicilian grandmother’s mother, Nanna Justina, still baked bread in her back yard wood burning red brick oven. 

In my father’s family’s house meals were served on a long wooden table.  Nanno Benedetto, my grandmother’s father (any my father’s and my namesake) presided over dinner at the head of the table where he alone dispenses his mod-mad wine from a gallon jug that was kept on the floor next to him during dinner.

The main foods at this table included home-made pasta (“…first you get the dough and make it round.  Then make it flat like a pancake, with a rolling pin… finito, finito.  You roll it like a jelly roll cake and cut it however big or small you want the pasta to be.  Then you hang it on a broom until it dries.”   With pasta as the base, there was “succo” (tomato sauce), various meats; chicken, sausage, roast, fresh vegetables (many from Nanno Bennedeto’s garden), all kinds of soups (lentil, escarole, chicken) and olive salad.

My Sicilian grandmother, Nanna Antonia, learned how to shop, cook and bake bread from her mother, Justina.  She was also taught how to make her  “World Famous”  (as we liked to call it) Olive Salad.  It was made the same way for generations except for the onions.  When my grandmother taught me how to make olive salad, she said “we used to fry some of the onions.  But now, it’s too much trouble…”   Not too much trouble for me.  I don’t “fry” the onions, but I sweat about half of them leaving the other half raw.

When I was a little kid and we would go to my grandmother’s house for a Sunday dinner, this was the usual stuff that would come to the table;  It started with peanuts.  The first thing on the table, while she was still cooking at the stove, were little bowls of plain peanuts.  Then little bowls of salami and/or peperoni would appear.   Assorted cheeses began to hit the table.  I guess these would be considered apps today.  At this point there was no formal seating.  Guests would pass by the table and pick up a couple of fingerfuls of peanuts, cheese and salumi.  Finally, right before the main courses were set out, bowls of my nanna’s World Famous Olive Salad would come out.

A call to sit at the table and you could first get a bowl of Escarole Soup with little meatballs about three-quarters of an inch in diameter that were cooked in the soup.  Bowls taken away and plates appeared.  Pasta would go on the plate.  Next up the sauce (succo) on top of the pasta.  Then bowls of meat were put on the table.  This included one or more of the following; meatballs, sausage, chicken, beef chuck roast, short ribs, etc.  Some of the meat had been cooked in the sauce for flavor.  However, the meat was usually served separate from the sauce.

As a much sought after prize, you could get a piece of potato or hard-boiled egg that was cooked in the sauce.  I was told that the potato was put in the sauce “to soak up the acid” from the tomato sauce.  However, whoever was luck enough to get a piece of the potato ate it with glee, consuming the now concentrated acid anyway.  I think that the potato and eggs were likely a carry over from leaner times when maybe meat was expensive and adding the less costly potato and eggs to the sauce acted as filler to whatever meat could be afforded.

Desserts were not elaborate; ice cream, cookies, chocolate, various pastries. Of course espresso or coffee as well.

But for me, as delicious as everything was, the olive salad was my absolute favorite. The pungent aroma of olive oil and vinegar as it has steeped into the olives.  The sweetness of the onions.  The green tasting crunch of the celery.  The surprise soft texture of the occasional marinated artichoke. 

The other major use of mojo is as a marinade topping for the yuca.  Peeled and boiled, the yuca is just kind  of a bland, sometimes stringy starch.  I know I’m not really selling yuca in an of itself, but when you smother it with mojo, it is wonderful!

So, for me, the actual corner stone that makes the roast pork a Noche Buena roast pork, and indeed the entire Noche Buena feast, is the mojo.  It has to be right.  Not too much olive oil.  You want to taste the sour orange flavor, but not too citrusy.  A little bit of a garlic bite to it, but not overly garlicy.  A slight hint of Tobasco, but the mojo should not be a “hot sauce”.  You can buy it pre-made from the grocery store, but, there is nothing like making it from scratch so that it comes out exactly the way you want it.

Cook

• In a medium heat cast iron skillet, 2 TBS olive oil, cook cauliflower, add green peppercorns and roasted red peppers.   
• Add red sauce.  I happened to have some leftover red curry sauce, but use whatever red tomato based sauce you would like. 
• Salt/pepper to taste. 
• Add 1 tablespoon each of basil and oregano. 
• After a few minutes, add garlic and red chili peppers and Serrano ham.
• Cook until cauliflower is just the other side of al dente.