THE CUISINE OF MALTA

One of the most famous Maltese dishes is Bragioli. Click the picture on the right for a larger view. Often known as Beef Olive in English speaking countries. The "olive" refers to the beef slice - cut thin and then then beaten even thinner. Bragioli has no olives it!
This is available in many Maltese restaurants. It consists of a thin slice of beef wrapped around a filling of breadcrumbs, chopped bacon, garlic, parsley and slice of boiled egg. The filled beef is first fried to seal it then braised in a wine, onion and carrot sauce. The braising should be at a low heat for around two hours. For this reason many restaurants require that you order the Bragioli a day in advance. Serve with a salad and chips.
We tasted this in Malta and it is truly delicious!

PICTURE COMING SOON

Possibly even more Maltese than Bragioli is Stewed Rabbit. It is sometimes incorrectly referred to as Fenkata. Fenek is Maltese for rabbit and from that word comes Fenkata which is a meal with rabbit as the main dish.
The rabbit is cut into pieces and marinated overnight in red wine. Fry the rabbit in olive oil and garlic until it is browned. In another dish, fry the onions and cubed carrots. Add the rabbit, marinade and chopped tomatoes and cook at a low heat for an hour and a half. Be careful when eating, because the rabbit may well have small bones in it.
The dish is normally served with fresh vegetables which can be cooked separately or added to the pot around 40 minutes before serving.

Baked Macaroni (Mqarrun fil-Forn) is a Maltese dish that is served at home and in restaurants. This is a heavy dish of macaroni mixed with a bolognese sauce, bacon and chopped vegetables, often peas or beans. Grate cheese over the top and bake in the oven for 40 minutes.

Pizza appears on the menu at many Maltese restaurants and they cook it as well any Italian! Thoroughly recommended is a Maltese pizza. It's the normal thin pizza base covered in mozzarella topped with ricotta cheese chunks, Maltese sausage sun dried tomatoes and whole olives.

Maltese Sausages are a mix of pork, corriander, parsley, salt and pepper. Sometimes garlic is added. They are normally cooked as a standard sausage but occasionally they are dried and eaten without cooking.

Imqaret (date slices) are a Maltese pastry. These are a really delicious snack which is often served from street markets. The picture on the right shows one served as a desert with ice cream at a restaurant. The ingredients are simple, pastry filled with a date mix. The imqaret is then cooked in hot oil and served immediately. This is one of the most traditional and well known Maltese sweets, with good reason.

Common to every restaurant we visited during our stay in Malta is a bottle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar on the table.

Maltese Salad is often a meal in itself. The restaurants serve the salad of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, olives mixed in with feta cheese, peppered ricotta, chunky slices of cooked Maltese suasage, Maltese biscuits and Bigilla.

Bigilla (picture on the right) is the traditional Maltese bean dip. Chick peas or skinned broad beans are mashed. Olive oil, parsley, garlic, salt and pepper is mixed in well. It can be a bit bland, in which case add a sprinkling of Tabasco.

The filling varies with some varieties being filled with a mashed pea mixture. These are a bit bland so stick to the cheese variety.

just so you know, pastizzi is a slang word in Maltese for something that I'm not going to mention here! You have been warned.

The Maltese make great use of vegetables in their soups. Most famous perhaps is Minestra, vegetable soup. The Maltese version contains a mix of numerous vegetables making a thick soup.

On the right is a simpler Maltese pea soup. Another famous soup from Malta is Soppa tal-armla which translates as Widow's Soup. Named because it contains the cheapest of vegetables. Whatever the soup, it is always served with chunky, chewy and delicious Maltese bread.

Fish in Malta is whatever is in season. We tasted fresh grilled sword fish with a salad and it was delicious. So chunky, it was almost like tender meat. The most famous Maltese fish is the Dolphinfish or Lampuki. The season for catching these fish is August to January. The method used to catch the fish is interesting. Lampuki tend to gather in shadow so the fishermen take kannizzati (basically floating rafts) several miles out to sea and wait for the lampuki to gather underneath them. When enough fish have been attracted they are netted and stored in the boat. Because the fishermen have to travel several miles out to sea they often spend two days and nights at sea before returning to port to land their catch.

No mention of Malta would be complete without a reference to the island's soft drink, Kinnie. It was launched in 1952 in Malta and has a distinctive bitter sweet orange taste. It's never caught on anywhere else in the world but the locals and tourists who have tasted it, swear by it. It is an acquired taste. Bring me back a bottle if you visit Malta, I have definitely acquired the taste!

Cisk Lager is produced in Malta by the same company and is the leading lager in the area. It has a very clean and refreshing taste, great for the warm climate in Malta.