My dad often tells me about his grandmother making Spiedini and Crostini when he was a child. She would spend the whole afternoon making these in the kitchen, having to feed them to her many grandchildren. My dad would sit next to her and watch. And that’s how he learnt how to make them. As a child, I used to do the same: sit next to my dad and watch him making these delicious treats. That is how I learnt and I hope to pass this tradition on to my daughters. Since I made them as a part of the Sicilian Street Food New Year’s Eve Party I organised for this month’s Foodbuzz 24×24 event, I can show you too how to replicate this ancient street food recipe in your own kitchen.
For the meatballs
Ingredients:
300 gms – 10.5 oz. beef mince
1 egg
¼ tsp of nutmeg
5 tbsp of grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano
5 tbsp of breadcrumbs
¼ tsp of ground pepper
1 tsp of salt
Mix all the ingredients together and form slightly elongated meatballs, each the size of a dried plum. Keep them aside.
For assembling the spiedini
Ingredients:
Stale bread*, sliced into 1 cm – ½ inch thick slices and then cut the same size as the meatballs
Primosale cheese, sliced into 0.5 cm – ¼ inch thick slices and then cut the same size as the meatballs
Salami, sliced into 0.5 cm – ¼ inch thick slices and then cut the same size as the meatballs
Egg whites, lightly beaten
Flour and breadcrumbs, mixed in equal proportions
Salt
*this bread has to be compact, with no holes inside. It has to be bought and kept to dry a couple of days before making spiedini.
Cut the bread, the cheese and salami. Make sure everything is approximately the same length, this will make it easier to coat with breadcrumbs and fry them. Put them in skewers starting with a piece of bread, then cheese, salami and a meatball and then again… make sure to finish off with a piece of bread to keep the other ingredients from falling off the skewers. NOTE: if you do not have “double skewers”, use 2 normal skewers, side by side.
Dip in the lightly beaten egg whites and coat well with the flour and breadcrumb mix.
Shallow fry them in hot vegetable oil. Serve hot.
Oh wow, these are a new to me treat. They look fantastically crispy and flavorful! 🙂
What a great idea! Love how it turned out and of course how delicious it looks!
Thanks for sharing yet another winner recipe!
I am honestly surprised Manu at the number of deep fried treats there are in this series, I had no idea the Italians deep fried so much. Non-the-less, bread – meat and cheese are a winning combo. I can just imagine how that cheese would be so melty and stringy. Would you dip these into some kind of sauce, or just eat off the skewers?
YUM! I haven’t caught up with what you have been up to lately but I was looking up sofficini and came across your December post! Mmmm! And the Sicilian Street Food New Year’s Eve Party looks fantastic! What fun! All the dishes are to die for as are these spiedini. If you wrote a cookbook it would have to be in my kitchen! Wonderful cooking!
WOW. this looks great manuela! 😀 what other wonders with stale bread can you whip together? haha
Happy New Year Manu! Italian street food! I’ve never seen & heard of this dish before, but it’s interesting how you use bread and cheese between meat. I’ve been reading your delicious posts through phone, but it was about time to come back to your blog. Hope you had a wonderful holiday!!
My godness! Your Sicilian street food party is awesome! I wanna have a party like this myself! 🙂
What a great idea for an appetizer!
this look so fantastic! everything I love is in that little skewer
Happy 2012! What a great recipe for me to land on. It’s like a deconstructed pizza! How yummy is that!?!?
Congratulazioni Manuela e Buon Anno! sembrano veramente deliziosi, li provero’,a presto.
I definitively have to go on a gastronomic tour of Palermo!
I have been searching for this recipe! My mother was so very proud of her Sicilian heritage and kept up all the Sicilian traditions and recipes. I remember helping her make this very delicate recipe. I can’t wait to make this, but cannot find the double skewers. I am only finding long ones not short ones. Any help finding them would be appreciated