Cettina Vicenzino’s Sicilian potato salad

This salad embellishes a Sicilian speciality, and it’s oh-so-simple!

Potato salad with capers, tuna and olive crumble.

Potatoes with large local capers in dressing is a highly acclaimed speciality on the Sicilian island of Salina. So simple! At home, you can add a couple more ingredients, as in this salad recipe. The pan d’aranci, made with a whole unpeeled orange, is thought to have been invented by the Benedictine monks in Catania.

Potato salad with capers, tuna & olive crumble

800g waxy potatoes, cooked and peeled

1 fennel bulb, very finely sliced

300g best-quality tuna from a jar

200g red grapes, halved

100g large capers

4 sun-dried tomatoes in oil, roughly chopped

1 red onion, finely sliced into rings

Handful each of mint and basil leaves, roughly torn

1 small red chilli, finely sliced into rings

1 teaspoon dried marjoram

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar, plus extra to taste

80ml olive oil, plus extra to taste

Sea salt

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For the crumble

15g fresh breadcrumbs

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

50g black olives, pitted

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Chop potatoes, mix with other salad ingredients in a large bowl, season with salt and leave to infuse for a few minutes. Meanwhile, toast breadcrumbs and sesame seeds in a dry frypan; leave to cool. Chop with olives to a rough crumble consistency. Season salad to taste with more red wine vinegar or olive oil; adjust salt. Serve on 4 plates, scattered with crumble. Serves 4

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Traditional Sicilian orange cake

1 small organic orange

3 medium eggs

Seeds from ½ vanilla pod

80g demerara sugar

50g caster sugar

1 generous tablespoon almond or orange liqueur

100g unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus extra for greasing

Fine durum wheat semolina flour, for the tin

100g “00” pasta flour

50g ground almonds

1 teaspoon baking powder

Pinch of fine sea salt

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For the icing and decoration

2 teaspoons orange juice or liqueur

100g icing sugar, extra to dust

Grated zest 1 organic orange

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Wash the orange in hot water and chop into pieces (do not peel). Remove any pips. Purée the orange in a food processor. Use an electric whisk or free-standing mixer to beat the eggs with the vanilla, both types of sugar, and the almond or orange liqueur for about 5 minutes until the mixture is pale and creamy. Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a large loaf tin (800–900ml) and dust with semolina flour. Gradually stir the orange purée and butter into the egg mixture. Mix the flour with the ground almonds, baking powder, and salt. Fold the dry ingredients in batches into the egg mixture. Spoon into the tin and bake in the bottom of the oven for 45-50 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre emerges clean. Leave to cool, then turn out of the tin.

To make the icing, gradually stir drops of juice or liqueur into the icing sugar until you have a viscous glaze. Dust the cooled cake with icing sugar, drizzle over the icing and sprinkle with orange zest. Serves 8-10

Edited extract from The Sicily Cookbook by Cettina Vicenzino (DK, $34.99). Photography: Cettina Vicenzino