Paglina onion of Castrofilippo: Sicilian sweetness

Its lower acidity and absence of spicy notes also make it ideal for raw consumption in salads. It is available in June-September and has historically been grown in the Castrofilippo area, in the province of Agrigento, so much so that its inhabitants are referred to in neighboring towns as the cipuddari. The Paglina is now a Slow Food Presidium, and the production specification does not provide for any chemical treatment or weeding, allowing, when necessary, only treatments authorized by organic farming. Cultivation management is manual, with full respect for the soil and the maintenance of its fertility; the seeds are selected and reproduced by the growers themselves.

Directly from the field

Flavors of the earth

Sicily is a kind of immense and generous vegetable garden, where the cuisine of the poor, that of the people who were forced to engineer with what they could find, has always been able to count on raw materials of excellent quality. The factor that had the greatest influence on Sicilian cuisine was precisely the land, its soil and its sea. Although it was the Arabs who brought, many centuries ago, oranges and lemons, sugar and spices, it is always the territory that determines what to grow, the quality of the products. In Sicily one encounters true simplicity: one consumes and offers, what is available, what one has.

An idea that is summed up in the term companatico, or "what you eat with bread." Vegetables are a great resource, they are a valuable companion, and the onion is certainly one of them, typical of the poor peasant cuisine. It is not uncommon to find at Sicilian bakers already cooked vegetables, prepared by exploiting the thermal inertia of the ovens used to bake bread. But now we give you the few directions that are necessary to prepare Castrofilippo pagline at home as well. Two quick and easy recipes to savor all the sweetness of these golden nuggets!