Out to lunch

GUY MIRABELLA shares his favourite childhood recipes from Sunday lunch drawing on his Sicilian heritage in his cookbook Pranzo.

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“MANY OF MY FAVOURITE RECIPES COME FROM SUNDAY PRANZO; lunch at Cumbrae Farm was surrounded by Italian flavours with all roads leading to Sicily,” says Guy Mirabella of his childhood memories in Pranzo. Mirabella, a former book designer, describes himself as “a home cook” who writes recipes for the food he grew up eating and preparing at the café he used to own in Mount Eliza on the Mornington Peninsula. “The food I love to eat and make is layered with Sicilian heritage and history. I grew up hearing the call to lunch: pranzo e pronto. This is not simply a book of Sicilian recipes,” he says. “Pranzo aims to inspire your excitement about cooking, to help you feel the food at the end of your fingertips – because cooking is good for you. “Pranzo had its origin in my home kitchen during the first Melbourne lockdown,” says Mirabella. “While contemplating how to move forward with my café business amid the pandemic, I began to cook simple, quick recipes and post them in Instagram accompanied with little stories from my childhood. I had so many comments suggesting I turn the recipes into a book that I began to collate them.”

PASTA CU LI SARDE

Pasta with sardines

SERVES 4-6

• 400 gm fresh sardines, 8 left whole and the remaining deboned

• 2 tbsp mild olive oil, plus 1 tbsp extra for frying the sardines

• 1 small onion, diced

• 2 garlic cloves, crushed

• 60 gm (1 cup) wild fennel fronds or dill, coarsely chopped, plus extra to serve

• 1 heaped tbsp tomato paste (concentrated purée)

• 60 gm (½ cup) raisins, currants or sultanas

• 125 ml (½ cup) dry white wine

• 400 gm can chopped tomatoes

• 400 gm dried bucatini

• 80 gm (½ cup) lightly toasted pine nuts, to serve

• Chopped flat-leaf (Italian) parsley, to serve