Cucina confidential

Sicilian dishes from the shadow of Mount Etna

CHEF MERLIN LABRON-JOHNSON has spent most of his career working at restaurants in the Swiss mountains, the French Alps and in Heuvelland (literally, land of hills) in Belgium. So it’s fitting that this spring he will be cooking in the shadow of Mount Etna. The kitchen is in a Sicilian villa that dates back to 1850 and has been restored – a six-year undertaking – by owners Jon Moslet and Marco Scire. It’s already a stunning rental property – and now, four or five times a year, it will be the location of week-long cookery courses hosted by top chefs, with Labron-johnson kicking off the 2019 programme in March.

Rocca delle Tre Contrade, about 16 miles north of Catania and perched on top of a hill with an ash-puffing Etna behind and the Ionian Sea ahead, is surrounded by lemon groves. Any fruit that’s not sold is turned into lemonade for the guests (or marmalade, curd, oil, or a spectacular lemon pie), but once

Crudo of sea bream with citrus and bitter leaves

Serves 6

This is not so much a dish as an assembly of rather lovely ingredients. In Sicily, we use whatever fish is good on the day. I’ve suggested sea bream as it’s reasonably easy to find in the UK, but feel free to experiment with different species. The fish will need to be incredibly fresh. In this recipe, the bitter leaves cut through the sweetness of the dressing, and the creaminess of the yogurt brings all the ingredients together. This dish is best served chilled, so get some plates in the fridge before you start.

— 1 orange

— 1 mandarin

— ½ red chilli, deseeded and finely diced

— 2 tbsp caster sugar — 120ml extra-virgin olive oil — 1 medium sea bream, filleted, pin-boned and skinned (ask the fishmonger to do this) — 100ml natural yogurt — bunch of tardivo or other curly bitter leaves, separated

— 1 endive, leaves separated

Have six cold plates ready.

Grate the zest of the orange and the mandarin into a bowl. Using a knife, remove the skin and pith from the fruit and slice between the membranes to cut the flesh into segments. Reserve them and collect any juice.

Mix the juice with the zest, chilli and sugar. Whisk in the oil. Season with a good pinch of sea salt and put in the fridge while you prepare the fish.

Using a sharp knife, cut the fish into very thin slices. You may find it easier to freeze it for an hour or so before doing this.

Put a small spoonful of yogurt on to each plate and spread it out evenly. Divide the fish slices and citrus segments between each plate.

Remove the dressing from the fridge and spoon it over and around the fish slices. Arrange the bitter leaves on top and finish with another drizzle of olive oil. Serve immediately. upon a time the land was home to vines, and grapes were pressed within the lava-rock walls. ‘When we first saw the building the vaults were partially collapsed, but the original arches are still intact,’ says Moslet, whose work in the wine trade exporting Italian wines to his native Norway prompted him to look for a property on the island. From the ruined shell, the old floor tiles are still in place, and 200-year-old chestnut beams have been used to make the dining table. Parts of the ancient door frames now border mirrors in the 12 bedrooms. There are also open fires, roll-top baths, a bijou gym and an infinity pool.

And the former wine cellar is the kitchen, led by Dora Caltabiano, who cooks Sicilian specialities – minestrone, arancini, calamari fritti – along with dishes Moslet came to love during a three-month professional course at Darina Allen’s Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork. ‘It was the perfect way to see how a culinary school works,’ he says. Full of ideas, he commissioned a custom-built demonstration kitchen for Rocca, where guests on the seven-day courses work with Caltabiano and the visiting chefs to create meals using Sicilian ingredients.

‘The more I come to Sicily, the more I love it. The food here is really special,’ says Labron-johnson, who is on the hunt for a new restaurant project after

‘The more I come to Sicily, the more I love it. The food here is really special’

Grilled beef rump with radicchio and salsa verde

Serves 4

This is a quick and easy dish to make at home, and in the summer would make for perfect barbecue food. The rump steaks could be substituted for another cut of beef, or even an entirely different meat such as lamb. The salsa verde is delicious with most meats, fish and just about every vegetable. It is best eaten on the day it is made.

— 4 rump steaks (about 180g each)

— 4 anchovy fillets

— 2 garlic cloves, peeled — 2 tbsp Dijon mustard — extra-virgin olive oil — bunch of flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped — bunch of fresh basil, finely chopped — handful of mint leaves, finely chopped

— 1 large gherkin, finely chopped

— 2 tbsp Sicilian capers, drained and chopped — zest and juice of 1 lemon — 2 heads of radicchio, cut in half — balsamic vinegar Three hours before cooking, remove the rump steaks from the fridge.

Using a pestle and mortar, pound the anchovies and garlic, combined with a pinch of salt. Incorporate one tablespoon of the mustard and a healthy glug of olive oil, and mix until it resembles a rough paste. Use your hands to rub this paste all over the steaks, and set aside to marinate.

To make the salsa verde, put the herbs, gherkin and capers in a bowl and stir to combine. Add the rest of the mustard and enough olive oil so that it resembles a coarse pesto. Season with salt and pepper and the zest of the lemon. Finish the salsa with the juice of the lemon just before serving, otherwise it will cause the herbs to discolour.

Heat a large griddle pan until smoking hot. Rub the marinade off the steaks, drizzle with oil and season generously with sea salt and pepper. Cook for two or three minutes on each side, then remove from the pan and leave to rest for 10 minutes.

While the steak is resting, cook your radicchio halves. Drizzle with olive oil and place cut-side down in the same griddle pan that the steak was cooked in. Turn the heat down to medium and cook for six or seven minutes. Remove from the pan and season with sea salt and a few drops of balsamic vinegar. Serve the steaks alongside the radicchio with a good spoonful of salsa verde.

Chocolate and chestnut mousse cake with whipped ricotta and orange zest

Serves 8-10

This recipe is an adaptation of something my grandmother made me for my last birthday. She picked the chestnuts herself and pierced them with a knife before boiling them until she was able to peel off the skins. You can save yourself the trouble by purchasing tinned chestnuts or vacuum-packed cooked ones. Personally, I think it’s fun to pick them yourself, and the flavour is a little more pronounced. The cake is also excellent served just warm from the oven with cream.

— 250g chestnuts, cooked and peeled — 250ml whole milk, or as needed

— 250g butter, diced — 250g best-quality chocolate, broken into pieces

— 4 eggs, separated — 140g caster sugar — 300g ricotta

— 50g icing sugar — zest of 2 oranges

Preheat the oven to 190C/gas mark 5. Line the bottom of a 23cm springform cake tin with greaseproof paper.

Put the chestnuts in a saucepan with the milk and bring to a simmer. Cook gently for 10 minutes, then place in a blender. Blend to a purée, adding a little extra milk if necessary to make it into a loose paste, then set aside.

Put the butter and chocolate in a heatproof bowl, and place over a pan of simmering water (making sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water), stirring from time to time until it is melted.

In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the caster sugar, then incorporate the chestnut purée, followed by the melted chocolate and butter mixture.

In a separate, very clean bowl, whisk the egg whites to soft peaks, then use a spatula to gradually and gently fold them into the chocolate and chestnut batter. Take care not to work the mixture too ferociously or it will lose some of the air, making the cake dense.

Pour the mixture into the cake tin and place in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean (if it’s not, return to the oven for a few minutes more). It will remain slightly wobbly to the touch. Leave to cool slightly, then release from the tin sides and leave to cool on its base for 45 minutes to one hour.

Drain any excess liquid from the ricotta and place it in a clean bowl. Add the icing sugar and a pinch of salt, and whisk well until smooth and creamy. Use a spatula to spread this mixture over the chocolate cake. Finish by sprinkling the zest all over the cake. This is best eaten the day it is made.

stepping down from his London restaurants Portland and Clipstone in October. He’d launched the former in 2015, aged 23, and won a Michelin star within nine months. (He is also consultant chef at The Conduit – again, in the capital: a members’ club with a philanthropic bent.)

Championing sustainability and seasonality in the industry, he’s the perfect match for Rocca. For his recipe of seabream crudo, a citrus-spiked raw-fish dish, a visit to the local fishmonger is required – one of the many trips guests will undertake with their hosts during the week, including jaunts to markets. ‘We always come to Ricardo,’ says Moslet, as the sea bream is prepared, along with handfuls of gambero rosso (Sicily’s butter-rich prawns).

Around the corner from Ricardo’s, piles of globe artichokes, sundried tomatoes, pomegranates and fennel fill the covered market, where vendors burst rapturously into song to drive custom. A mound of cedro, the giant lemons whose thick white pith can be eaten (‘delicious, not bitter at all’, says Labron-johnson), are a nod to the region’s citrus industry.

Etna’s vineyards, too, come into play during the cooking experience, with winery visits and tastings hosted by Isabelle Legeron, founder of the Raw Wine fair, and proponent of natural, organic and biodynamic production. ‘People can really understand terroir here,’ she says. ‘The dramatic weather, the old vines, the impact of the volcanic soil…’

The volcano ‘dominates everything’, Moslet says, as the sun sets, to leave the mountain’s snow-speckled crater in twilight. Looking down over his seven acres of land – bearing lemon trees, orchards and vegetable gardens – it’s an imposing reminder of the island’s fertility. Prices for the one-week culinary experience at Rocca delle Tre Contrade start at £4,100 per person. Telegraph readers can get 20 per cent off on bookings for two people sharing a room – contact The Thinking Traveller on 020-7377 8518. Full itinerary at thethinkingtraveller.com/merlin

At the covered market, vendors burst into song to drive custom

Opposite Rocca delle Tre Contrade is encircled by lemon groves. The cavernous custom-made demo kitchen in the house’s cellar.This page In-house chef Dora Caltabiano and owner Jon Moslet with his dog, Blondie

From top Moslet and Labron-johnson stock up at the market in Riposto. Nearby is their fishmonger, Ricardo. They also use the villa’s own citrus fruits for cooking