Ferdinando’s Focacceria

Near the BQE, where Carroll Gardens meets Red Hook, sits a jewel of disappearing Brooklyn, a century-old restaurant specializing in authentic Sicilian dishes. This is the real old-fashioned deal: faded photos of Palermo and scenes of the owner with family and the famous, statues of St. Francis and the Virgin Mary, and a plastic prosciutto hanging above the kitchen door. Regulars favor arancina — massive rice balls crammed with spiced ground beef and peas, encased in bread crumbs, deep-fried a golden brown, and served plain or smothered in a crimson tomato sauce and velvety ricotta. A fluffy potato-and-ricotta focaccia and chickpea croquettes called panelle are hard-to-find Mediterranean comfort treats, but the vastedda, baked flat rolls stuffed with layers of funky calf spleen, ricotta and pecorino, are a real rarity. The triumph of the menu is the classic pasta con sarde, spaghetti in a nut-brown sauce of sautéed fennel, onions, pine nuts, raisins, and sardines, pungent and evocative of seaside winters.