Seada

A fried semolina pastry round a disc of fresh cheese, eaten hot under honey.

Not vegetarian — contains lard, pecorino whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

• 300 g fine semolina flour
• 60 g lard
• 140 ml warm water
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 400 g young fresh pecorino, not aged
• zest of 2 lemons
• 1 litre sunflower oil, for frying, which is poured off
• 200 g bitter honey, warmed

Method

1. USE A YOUNG FRESH PECORINO, days old, not a hard aged one. The whole dish depends on the cheese melting to a stretchy cream; aged pecorino separates into oil and grit.
2. Melt the cheese gently with the lemon zest in a pan, stirring, until it is a single smooth mass. Pour it out onto an oiled tray 1 cm thick and let it set hard.
3. Cut the set cheese into 8 cm discs.
4. Rub the lard into the semolina and salt, add the water, and knead to a firm dough. Rest 30 minutes, then roll it very thin and cut discs 2 cm wider than the cheese.
5. Sandwich each cheese disc between two pastry discs and seal the edge, pressing out all the air and crimping it with a wheel.
6. DEEP FRY at 175C, turning once, 2 minutes, until pale gold and puffed. They must float freely, which is why there is a litre of oil for six of them.
7. POUR WARM HONEY OVER AND EAT THEM AT ONCE. They are only right in the thirty seconds when the pastry is crisp and the cheese inside is still molten and will pull. Cold, it is a different and much lesser thing. Pour the oil off once cooled.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes