A friend of mine makes something called “coat-on sauce”. You may well know the recipe – it is Marcella Hazan’s. A big tin of plum tomatoes, a peeled onion cut in two, a thick slice of butter and salt put in a pan with the lid ajar, then left to blip and burp for 45 minutes, in which time everything welds felicitously into a rusty red, richly flavoured tomato sauce. While it does, you boil some pasta.
It is a divisive recipe: not everyone is a fan, I know. Those of us who are fans love it for its deep flavour and the fact that most of the work is done in a little less than 2 minutes – possibly the moment you have walked in the door, still with your coat on – hence “coat-on” sauce. By the time the sauce has come together, you have not only cooked the pasta, but taken your coat off, and done other things besides.
I make a coat-on cake, for which everything is measured in a yoghurt or ricotta pot, and several coat-on soups, and a coat-on baked vegetables. Not that I am generally wearing a coat when I make them, but the sense is the same: things that you have made so many times that the process is almost automatic, and economical with time, energy and equipment. Dishes that, once pulled together, simmer or bake away slowly while you get on with other things. Fast, then slow. There is also fast, then fast: coat-on bowl of cereal, coat-on Heinz tomato soup and – my absolute favourite – coat-on cold sausage eaten in front of the fridge.
I have coat-on biscuits too. Although I don’t think I have ever worn a coat when making them. Like Marcella’s sauce, they require four things: ground almonds, icing sugar, lemon zest and eggs. They are based on Sicilian pasticcini – the almond sweet or biscuit you find in every pasticceria in Sicily. Depending on where you go, pasticcini vary in form – some round, some pinched, other the shape of a crescent moon – and texture; some soft like a lozenge of marzipan, others crisper. Depending on who you ask, you might be told to use sugar syrup, glycerine, honey or eggs (just the whites or the whole things) – opinions are strongly held.
At the pasticceria almost under our house in Gela (southern Sicily) – a time capsule of glass-fronted cabinets, sugar, almonds and religious icons run by a man whose lack of teeth should put you off. They use sugar syrup and pinch the pasticcini into an S-shape, some of which are covered with flaked almonds or pine nuts. Whatever the recipe, the principle is the same, ground almonds and sugar brought together into a marzipan-like mixture, which is shaped and baked.
I buy ground almonds in 350g bags to have at the ready, and icing sugar in Rome comes in 100g packets, meaning they can go straight into a bowl with no need to measure! Then I remember I don’t have any eggs. Do I grab my shoeless son, shove him under my arm and run to the shops, or just pour everything in a bag and and try again tomorrow? Try again tomorrow.
When you have all four ingredients, you don’t need to be too fussy about absolute measurements. The Italians say “qb” – quanto basta; how much is enough – which isn’t a question, but the assumption you know when the mixture looks, feels and tastes right, which is always down to practice and experience, even with baking.
I err on the side of not too sweet, and I grate in lots of lemon zest, a task that should be prescribed as an everyday antidepressant. Alternatively, you could use a few drops of orange flower water. The mixture is like sticky marzipan, so you need to dust your hands well with icing sugar, which also gives a nice finish to the pasticcini. For even less mess, roll the balls over the bowl rather than on the work surface.
Baking – how long is enough? Well, it depends. Do you want them golden, firm, but chewy (14 minutes in my oven), or still pale and soft and fudgy like marzipan (11 in my oven) or somewhere in between – you decide.
Pasticcini di mandorle – soft almond biscuits
Makes 12-16 biscuits
350g ground almonds
150–200g icing sugar, plus more for dusting
Zest of 1-2 unwaxed lemons
2 medium eggs
1 Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4 and line a baking tray with baking parchment.
2 In a large bowl, mix together the ground almonds, icing sugar, lemon zest and eggs to form a soft, slightly sticky dough.
3 Dust your hands with icing sugar, and scoop out a walnut-sized ball of dough. Then gently roll it between your palms. You can also roll it on the work surface as long as it is dusted with icing sugar. Repeat. Put the balls on the baking tray and make an indentation in the centre of each.
4 As they bake, the biscuits will crack gently. For soft and marzipan-like biscuits bake for 11-12 minutes, for a firmer, chewier biscuit 14-15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. They will keep in an airtight tin for a month.
- Rachel Roddy is a food writer based in Rome, the author of Five Quarters: Recipes and Notes from a Kitchen in Rome (Saltyard) and winner of the André Simon food book award
