A Review of Maltese Cooking II

So picking up where I left off the other day with a bit more insight into traditional Maltese cuisine: fish. I love going to the fish market in the fishing village of Marsaxlokk early on a Sunday morning, and picking up some beautiful super fresh fish for dinner. You have to know what to pick out, but you're usually safe with fish that you know is Mediterranean. I love finding beautiful, thick cut tuna steaks, and cooking them on the BBQ with nothing but a little brush of olive oil. But if you really want to go the traditional Maltese way, you'd pick up a lovely fish called the Dolphin fish, or lampuka and turn it into lampuki pie. I'll get round to putting a recipe for that on this blog at some point in the future.

fresh lampuki

lampuki pie

And of course there's plenty of other fish that you can pick up super fresh from the market. They are always salt-water fish, because as you all know, the Mediterranean is filled with salty sea water, and we have no rivers or lakes in Malta to pick up fresh-water fish. Here's a great list of all the fish that can be found in the Mediterranean, including their English and Maltese names. Cerna (or grouper) makes for a handsome meal, and Dentici (Dentex) and Dott (Wreckfish) are also popular with the Maltese. BBQ them, fry them, bake them, make Aljotta (fish soup) - we do it all! Yum!!

Let's move on from fish. One very popular thing in Malta is the alternative to the chippy. We call it the pastizzeria and no, it absolutely does not sell fish and chips. It sells Maltese baked and fried savoury pastries and other snacky items. They're very cheap. They're totes delicious. And some of them have more calories than you can imagine!!

So what are pastizzi? Image cornish pasties, but oval or triangular shape, made of filo pastry, and filled either with mushy peas (pastizzi tal-pizelli) or ricotta cheese (pastizzi tal-irkotta). They are extremely popular in Malta, and amazingly delicious. And they only cost about 20 cents each!! The downside is they are both addictive and high in calories so you need to steer clear of them when on a diet.

pastizzi

Other items obtainable from the pastizzeria include square slices of pizza, usually either margherita or with tuna and olive toppings. They have little trays of imqarrun or ross fil-forn (see my previous blog post for a description of these). They've also got more traditional items, such as little pies, sausage rolls and other such items that you find in Greggs here in the UK. But pastizzi are certainly their top sellers.

The local pastizzeria

I've given a pretty hefty overview of some favourite tasties in Malta now, but of course I've barely made a dent, as Maltese food has so many varieties and flavours that it would be impossible to cover them all.  However, I would class any meal as a Maltese or Mediterranean dish as long as it has most of the following characteristics:

-tomato based

-fresh meat or veg as the main ingredient

-high in flavour, with herbs, olives, capers, garlic and good quality olive oil contributing highly

Further examples of such dishes are the Maltese Kapunata (essentially a ratatouille) and Soppa ta l-Armla (Widow's Soup), filled with the delicious Maltese cheese gbejna. I promise to present the recipe for this one very soon!

Which brings us to the end of my whirlwind tour of Maltese food. Next time, I'll start talking about how I bring my Maltese personality into the British kitchen, to make the most delicious meals I can imagine.