Caciocavallo Ragusano

A fellow food blogger, Alberto, wrote an excellent piece on the Caciocavallo Ragusano, the cheese Ragusa is most proud of and what is often called the best cheese in Sicily, which is made exclusively with the milk of cows from Modica. The cheese is ready after about four months of seasoning and it attains its top flavour over a period of one year or more. It is available at different level of maturity and it is great on its own with bread, the perfect breakfast!

We decided to complement Alberto's excellent piece by talking a bit about how the cheese is used in food. Not certain if we are the most objective of commentators as we freely admit to be totally biased towards Caciocavallo Ragusano. The place generally occupied by parmigiano cheese on any typical Italian table, has always been taken by the Caciocavallo in ours. While, we agree that there are several dishes where it would not fit, there are also so many that can actually be brought to life by a few flakes of `cosacavaddu' (as it is called in dialect).

A simple tomato and basil sauce for a pasta, the local sugo di maile for gnucchitti e ravioli di ricotta, i scacci di pomodoro, u pani cunzatu and many, many others. Well, try to use it in a parmigiana, no offence to the delicious parmesan, but the marriage of ragusano with fried aubergine is just perfect!

Another lover of the ragusano is Katia who uses it as her secret ingredients in many recipes. Here is a new simple dish for where the Caciocavallo Ragusano is the main ingredient: a dense, smooth, hot cream of broccoli with extra virgin olive oil and sun dried tomatoes. The surprise is at the bottom of the dish which is covered with grated matured caciocavallo that melts under the soup and comes to the surface as you dig your first spoon. An absolutely wonderful dish in that it is a perfect example of elegance and sophistication but absolute simplicity at the same time.