Sfince di zucca (Pumpkin sfince)
Sfince di San Giuseppe
When I posted the recipe for Pumpkin Ravioli, I was reminded of this but I hesitated to publish something we only make once a year.
My wife’s family migrated from Santa Marina di Salina in the Eolian Islands, north of Sicily about 120 years ago. Obviously, they brought some of their recipes with them. One of them is for sfingi, sfinge or sfince.
St. Joseph’s day is marked on March 19 throughout Italy. Apparently, there is a special celebration of the Feast of San Giuseppe held in Salina. The tradition was that in 1835 some islanders, who traded in food with Naples, survived a shipwreck through prayers to the saint. Safely home, they decided to set up a feast-table to share with all including the sick and the poor. Sfince, as I describe it here, is one of the sweet cornerstones (dolci) of the festive board.
If you search the web, you should find recipes for Sfince or Sfingi di San Giuseppe but they differ from what I describe here. You may find them called zeppole and you may find the recipes call for ricotta, perhaps like the recipe in the next video.
The ingredients we use are:
1 lb. more or less of pumpkin, peeled, cut into small pieces
1 lb. plain flour
2 eggs, beaten
Salt
2 teaspoons of bakers yeast
Fresh rosemary, optional
Raisins, optional, plumped in Malvasia wine (you could use sweet sherry or Malmsey or Madeira)
Olive oil
The pumpkin is boiled in a little salted water until tender and then added to the eggs, flour and yeast. The dough is worked by hand until smooth. The raisins and/or rosemary can be added at this stage. The dough is set aside in a covered bowl for an hour or so to let it rise.
While the dough is rising, you can get your deep fryer ready, or add oil to a deep pan, if you don’t.
Using two dessert spoons, make an ‘egg’ of dough and slide it into the hot oil, or you can be more rustic and just use one spoon to get a more irregular shape. Remove from the oil when darkish golden brown but not burnt! Repeat until all the dough is used.
Keep warm and serve on a large platter, dusting the sfince first with cinnamon and then generously with caster sugar.
Footnote: sfingi translates as sphinx, which we might take as meaning an enigma. Are these Italian doughnuts so enigmatic?
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