Easy Italian Recipes

These beautiful, freshly made panini are filled with the glorious colours and flavours of Sicily. My Sicilian friends use their local fresh sheep's cheese called primo sale because its mild flavour complements the salty anchovies - but mozzarella does just as well. Although pane con sarde means 'bread with sardines', this recipe has salted anchovies because my friends prefer their sharper taste. Sicilians from the east of the island use pane nero, a dark loaf similar to crusty wholemeal or rye bread. A white loaf with sesame seeds works really well, too, provided the loaf is well cooked; we have a habit of undercooking bread in the UK, which means we end up with soggy sandwiches. If in doubt, use a loaf of sourdough bread instead.

Serves 4
4 anchovy fillets in salt or oil, or 2 tinned sardines
1 loaf of white crusty bread with sesame seeds or 1 wholemeal loaf a good pinch of salt and pepper
30ml olive oil
2 ripe tomatoes, ends discarded, thinly sliced
10 green olives, stoned and torn roughly
1 x 125g ball of mozzarella
a small handful of basil leaves, washed and roughly chopped

Prepare the fish by removing any obvious bones and rinsing them if they are salted. Pat dry. Cut the loaf in half horizontally separating the crusty top from the base. Scatter a little salt over each cut side. Use a sharp knife to make diagonal slashes over the soft part of the loaf, taking care not to cut right through. Now make more slashes along the opposite diagonal. Pour over half the olive oil and lay over little pieces of anchovy or sardine. Put the lids on and press down to squeeze the oil into the bread. Open them again and lay over the tomatoes and the olives. Sprinkle over more salt and pepper to taste and pour over the remaining olive oil. Top with pieces of the cheese and the basil leaves. Press down the lids, cut and serve.