Seadas con Miele — Fried Cheese and Lemon Pastry with Warm Honey

Sardinia — seadas are documented from the 16th century in Sardinian sources. The preparation was originally a savoury dish (without honey, or with very little); the sweet version with corbezzolo honey became the dominant modern preparation. The fresh Pecorino filling reflects Sardinia's ancient cheese-making tradition.

Seadas (or sebadas) are the most celebrated Sardinian dessert — large discs of pasta (made with fine semolina and lard) filled with fresh pecorino (or a mix of fresh pecorino and ricotta) mixed with lemon zest, fried in lard or olive oil until golden and blistered, and immediately dressed at the table with warm Sardinian honey (corbezzolo honey — the bitter honey from the strawberry tree that grows throughout the island's macchia, or acacia honey for a sweeter version). The contrast of the hot, slightly salty, cheese-filled pastry with the warm, intensely aromatic honey is the experience. The lemon zest in the filling cuts the richness of the cheese; the honey sweetens and perfumes the exterior.

Seadas from the oil, drenched with warm corbezzolo honey, are one of the great hot dessert experiences in Italian cooking — the thin, golden pastry shell cracks to reveal the molten, lemon-scented cheese within; the honey, bitter and aromatic, runs into every crack. The salty-sour cheese against the sweet-bitter honey produces a flavour combination of considerable complexity from four ingredients.