About Italian Food

Had Enough Tomato? Think Basil!

2009-07-11T01:18:57Z

Tomatoes are (justly) one of the favorite summer vegetables, and pasta without an abundance of marinara (or pomarola) sauce wouldn't seem quite right now. But it is nice to do other things, and one of the most refreshing is Liguria's Pesto Sauce, made with fresh basil, olive oil, garlic, pine nuts, and cheese. It's a supremely pleasant addition to pasta, minestrone, and other things, for example boiled potatoes (which will be perfect at a cookout or picnic). Pesto sauce is easy to make, too!

Take a Grill and a Fish...

2009-07-09T01:34:29Z

Grilling (in my opinion) makes just about everything taste better, and fish is certainly no exception, especially fattier fish along the lines of salmon, which emerge considerably leaner from their time over the coals. A few ideas:

Pesce alla Griglia, or Basic Grilled Fish
Seasoned with herbs, it reaches perfection.
Trota in Gradela, or Grilled Trout
This recipe from the Vicentino calls for fario trout, a variety that lives close to the bottom, in running water. They rarely exceed 8 inched in length, reach maturity at 2-3 years of age, and have firm, delicately flavored flesh ideally suited to the grill. In short, perfect for home or campground.
Tunnu a Palirmitana, or Palermo-Style Fresh Tuna
Grilled with lemon, rosemary, and sage. Perfect, and you could do the same with pieces from other large fish, for example swordfish or salmon.

And onto a couple of picnic ideas!
Diana says this delicious Potato Salad is perfect for the picnic cooler, and it always tastes better outdoors! (She's right.) And with it? Fabulous Southern Fried Chicken prepared the night before the picnic or early in the morning. Refrigerate to chill and keep it cold until it's time to leave for the picnic, then pack it on ice to keep it cool until serving time.

Quick Summer Greens

2009-07-07T01:07:08Z

Summer is -- no getting around it -- hot, and Italian cooking reflects this in many ways: People enjoy cold dishes, ranging from all sorts of pasta salads through vitello tonnato, tend to cook their foods quickly, and eat much lighter than they do in the winter months. Here are four quick, simple modern Italian summer recipes for greens that will take on average 20 minutes to prepare, and are also figure friendly -- 100 to 120 calories per serving.

Blanched Vegetables with Mustard Sauce, or Ortaggi Scottati con Salsa alla Senape
Chicken Salad with Mint Tzaziki, or Insalata di Pollo con Tzatziki alla Menta
Blanched Greens with Herb Sauce, or Verdure Cotte con Salsa alle Erbe
Pinzimonio with Bell Pepper Cream, or Pinzimonio Con La Crema di Peperoni

Buon Appetito!

Verdure Ripiene: Stuffed Vegetables

2009-07-05T01:01:45Z

What could be better, when it's so hot that even the grass starts to shimmer (and you don't want to even think about the asphalt), than a platter of pleasantly chilled stuffed vegetables? Refreshing, cool, and light on the digestion. They're versatile too, and while some will do perfectly as entrees, others can also double as antipasti. Enjoy!

Kyle's Burgers

2009-07-03T01:46:39Z

Once Again,
A Happy Fourth to all who celebrate it! These aren't exactly Italian, but all my Italian in-laws, even those who normally recoil from Svizzere, as hamburgers are known in Italy, ask for more of these:

2 pounds (900 g) not-too-lean ground beef (too lean makes for a dry burger)
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/4 cup finely minced parsely
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon lemon-herb mix (bought in the US)
8 slices cheese -- either prewrapped packaged or (preferably) hand-cut Fontina
A couple of large sprigs of rosemary

Combine all the ingredients except the cheese and the rosemary and mix well; divide the mixture into 8 patties, pressing them flat between your palms. Since they will contract and thicken as they cook, you'll want them at the most 2/3 of an inch (1 1/2 cm) thick. Grill the burgers over hot coals, seasoning them with a little salt after you flip them -- exactly how long you cook them will depend upon your taste, though I prefer to cook ground beef medium (no blood) for safety's sake. At some point during the cooking add the rosemary sprigs to the fire to add a smoky rosemary taste to the meat, and when the burgers are just shy of being done lay the slices of cheese over them. Serve them on toasted buns, with a good dry Lambrusco.

Last Thing: If you have the time, and want to be rather sinful, grilled peppers are a fine accompaniment!

A Happy Fourth to All Who Celebrate It!

2009-07-01T01:50:15Z

Many 4th of July cookouts feature burgers, or Svizzere, as they're known in Italy.
A steak would also be quite nice, but there are many other more strictly Italian grilling options, for example grilled pork loin, with a zesty sun-dried tomato and olive filling, or Vittorio's Grilled Chicken, which continues to be one of my personal favorites in the summer months. To go with them a variety of grilled vegetables (I'll often do the peppers the day before), including potatoes, a pasta salad, and also insalata di riso and other picnic foods that are nice served cool. To wash it all down, Lambrusco (ice water with fruit syrups for the kids), and Gelato at the end.
Again, Happy Fourth!

More suggestions from the Food Channel:
During the long, hot days of summer this cool and refreshing Cucumber Salad makes a great addition to any picnic or potluck. The kids love it, and with just 5 ingredients it is easy to make. Giora also suggests Tabbouleh Salad , a light, tangy, refreshing combination of bulgar wheat, vegetables and herbs.
And finally, if you like Potoato Salad, Peggy Trowbridge has all sorts of potato salads, including one that's red, white and blue.

We're in the Midst Of Fruit Season...

2009-06-29T04:54:07Z

I agree, as a title the above is not very good, but it is true: There are still strawberries in Italian markets, cherries are being sold by the box, plums have begun to appear, and so have peaches. Italian (as opposed to Spanish) peaches, and since peaches stop ripening when picked, and a really ripe peach is too soft to travel far, with the arrival of locally grown peaches we're beginning to get really good peaches.

And yes, wild berries are also beginning to ripen -- not blackberries, which are still green, but I've seen raspberries and a few others. And one mustn't forget either cantaloupes or watermelons, both of which are quite tasty this year.

So what does this mean? Much good eating, to begin with: Few things as as tasty (I think) as a voluptuously ripe peach sliced into a glass of wine, and then eaten by spearing the slices on the tip of a knife. Or as refreshing as a slice of crisp cold watermelon.

But now is also the time to put some of this bounty away:
Jams and marmalades to enjoy at breakfast (or use in desserts) during the winter months, Mostarda (zesty fruit in syrup) to accompany boiled meats or cheeses, and fruit liqueurs to sip on long cold winter evenings.

A few personal favorites:

Confettura di Lamponi e Pesche: The combination of peaches and raspberries makes for a wonderful jam.
Many Jams, including plum, raspberry, blackberry, currant, and cantaloupe: Recipes from Il Re dei Cuochi, which was published anonymously in Florence in 1885.
Mostarda di Cremona: A most voluptuous mostarda.
Mostarda, Illustrated: A rich mostarda with all sorts of fruit.
Cigliegiolo: Ciliegiolo is a perfect after dinner cordial, to be enjoyed with friends on a cold winter night when cherry season is far away.
Conserva Antica: This drunken fruit can be quite spectacular; I recall a restaurant in Rome that kept a big jar of it on the counter, adding more fruit or alcohol when the level dropped.

Winding down, another thing to do with fresh fruit: Make a Crostata! Elisabetta used freshly picked blackberries here, but other fruit will work well too.

A Summer Grigliata

2009-06-26T01:00:41Z

A grigliata is a bit different from a standard Italian meal with first course, second course, and so on: People gather round the grill, eying the meats as they cook, and when it's all ready, dig in! Some ideas:

To Start Things Off
Melanzane alla Griglia
Marinated eggplant grilled and returned to the marinade to be eaten cool -- very nice!
Grilled Zucchini
Thin-sliced zucchini, grilled, then spread with breadcrumbs and grated parmigiano, and lightly browned.

Accompaniments
Panzanella
An extraordinarily refreshing bread salad that's great picnic food too. Peasant cuisine at its best.
Insalata di Riso
Wonderful in summer, and unbeatable on a picnic.
Farfalle Con Peperoni e Rucola
Butterflies with a zesty summer sauce of peppers and arugola. If you add tomato, mozzarella, and chill, you've got picnic food!
Insalata Caprese
Mozzarella and tomatoes: In small portions this is a nice summer appetizer; in larger amounts it is refreshing summer meal or fine picnic food.

From the Grill
Bistecca alla Fiorentina
The classic porterhouse cut done over the coals is a rare treat.
Pollo al Mattone
An old, possibly even Etruscan way of grilling a chicken.
Braciole di Maiale alla Calabrese
Pork chops rubbed with hot pepper and fennel, and grilled.
Pancetta alla Griglia
An unusual recipe for uncured pancetta (fat back), rubbed with spices and herbs, and grilled.
Agnello Scottadito
Properly grilled lamb chops are an inspired gift of the Gods.

Il Dessert

Gelati and Sorbetti
About ice creams and sherbets, which are wonderful in the summer and perfect year round.

It's Time to Make Tomato Sauce!

2009-06-23T03:15:26Z

Italian markets are beginning to fill with San Marzano tomatoes, the wonderfully rich plum tomatoes that grow on the flanks of Mount Vesuvius, and supermarkets are also putting out racks of canning jars for those who will be transforming pounds of those wonderful tomatoes into sauce, to go over pasta (witha sprig of basil and a dusting of cheese), spread over pizza, make pappa al pomodoro, or simply to set aside for the winter months. A few recipes:

Pomarola: The Classic Tuscan tomato sauce.
Dino's Marinara Sauce: A treat from Dino Romano. Make a LOT.
Quick Cooking Neapolitan Pummarola: Simplicity, and as it says, quick.

And things to use your sauce for:

Pasta alla Carrettiera: A Carrettiere is a cart driver, and this is the sort of thing one expects to find in a truck stop -- simple, tasty, and satisfying.
Bucatini all'Amatriciana: This zesty pancetta and tomato sauce is commonly associated with Lazio and Rome, but is actually from the town of Amatrice, which was just over the border into the Abruzzo before Mussolini redrew the maps
Sugo alla Puttanesca: There are a number of stories about the origins of puttanesca sauce, the raciest being that a Puttana, or (ahem) Lady of the Evening, could cook it in the time it took her to take care of a client, and enjoy it while recovering from her exertions. Whatever, it is good.
Spaghetti alla Norma: When I was quite little my father worked on an excavation in Sicily, and Spaghetti alla Norma, spaghetti with rich, sensual tomatoey eggplant sauce, is one of the earliest dishes I remember.

On The Naming Of Italian Recipes

2009-06-22T10:23:01Z

A number of years ago I was watching TV and saw the mayor of a Ligurian town show how to prepare Panissa, an extraordinarily frugal chickpea farinata. It looked good, so I dug out my Ligurian cookbooks and wrote up a recipe; a couple of Ligurian residents commented upon it, and Maria sent me a recipe for Calentita, A Gibraltarian fried version of Panissa, which came by way of Genoese sailors.

Today, however, I got a note from Marla, who says Panissa is a northern Piemontese rice dish -- not the farinata made in Liguria. I dug out my Piemontese cookbooks, and By God, she's right: In the Vercellese Panissa is a rich rice-and-beans-with-pork dish, and in the nearby Novarese there's Paniscia, which is made with fewer beans, pork, and more vegetables.

So which is the real McCoy? Both.

The areas where the two versions of Panissa are made are several hundred miles apart, and while this might not see important today, in the past the peasants who made these dishes wouldn't have traveled that far, and even if they had chanced to meet, would have been unable to communicate because their dialects would have been so different as to be unintelligible (until the middle of the last century, outside of Tuscany only the wealthy and educated could speak Standard Italian, which derives from Tuscan). Put simply, the names arose independently.

I've run across this sort of thing before: The word Migliaccio can refer, among other things, to a rich, sweet pig's blood pudding or a sweet or savory fritter made with flour and pig's blood (these kinds of migliaccio are now rare because fresh pig's blood is difficult to find), or to a flat chestnut flour dessert made in Tuscany, or to a delicate Neapolitan Easter cake. Again, very different dishes from different places share a name.

Artusi touches upon the problem too, in La Scienza in Cucina E L'Arte di Mangiar Bene, the most influential turn of the (last) century Italian cookbook:

"Cacciucco! Let me say something about this word, which is probably understood only in Tuscany and along the Tyrrhenian coast, since the word brodetto takes its place in the towns along the Adriatic Sea. In Florence, on the other hand, brodetto is an egg soup served at Easter, made by crumbling bread in broth and thickening the mixture with beaten eggs and lemon juice. The confusion between these and other similar sounding words from province to province in Italy is so bad that it wouldn't take much to make a second Babel.

"Now that our country is unified, the unification of spoken Italian, which few promote and many hinder, perhaps because of misplaced pride, or perhaps because they are comfortable with their dialects, seems to me a logical consequence."

Unfortunately, uniformity still hasn't come, more than a century after Artusi's request.

But we can enjoy Panissa, and given the uncommonly cool wet weather we're having any of the three versions I know of would be appropriate today in Italy:

Panissa alla Ligure, a frugal chickpea farinata.
Panissa alla Vercellese, rich pork, rice, and beans.
Paniscia alla Novarese, pork, rice, and beans with lots of vegetables.