Linguine with White Clam Sauce is the dish that taught me the unwritten Italian rule of no cheese on seafood. When I first started working at my father’s restaurant as a busboy, we would bring cheese to the table and offer to sprinkle it on the pasta dishes. I was told early on not to…
Clams Oreganato. Baked Clams. Stuffed Clams. No matter what you call them, they are a great appetizer and a perfect starter for your Christmas Eve fish dinner. It is very important that the stuffing stays moist and does not become dried out. If the bread crumb mixture feels too dry, you may have to add…
Our cousins Paul and Dee can tomatoes every year. They usually give me a few jars, and I use them mostly for my pizza sauce, which comes out great. This year Paul invited me to his aunt’s house in Mineaola, NY to participate in the canning. Oddly enough, even though it is a tradition among…
There may not seem like a lot to this dish, but boy is it tasty. Pork chops with vinegar peppers is an old Italian-American stand-by. I have always made this with sweet vinegar peppers, but if you prefer you can use hot, or a mix. For a different variation on this dish you can home…
Lingue di Pizza are a street food snack that can be found in bakeries all over Rome. The word lingue means tongue, which describes the elongated shape. I have been seeing videos from Italy of people making these all over my social feeds, and I decided I had to try making them. My first question…
Here is another excellent Sicilian variation on pesto. This is different from the Trapanese Pesto that I featured last week in that there is no tomato, and it uses pistachios instead of almonds. Think of it as closer to Genovese basil pesto, but with pistachios rather than pignoli. The difference is that instead of just…
I was looking to do some kind of new fish on the grill. I have my standards that I go to all summer long, usually involving swordfish, or steelhead trout, but was in the mood for a change. I decided a simple grilled swordfish with pesto would be a good idea. The reason I do…
We are having a bit of a heat wave here in Connecticut this week. I figured what better way to fight the heat than to try out a new flavor of gelato. I wanted to make a Sicilian style gelato, so I decided to go with a very popular flavor in Sicily, pistachio. Sicilian style…
Sweet ripe cantaloupe wrapped in paper-thin prosciutto. One of Italy’s simplest and most perfect combinations. Prosciutto and Melon is a simple and classic Italian combination. Quality ingredients are key here, use good imported Prosciutto di Parma or if you want to try something different, Prosciutto di San Daniele from the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy….
Pasta alla Norma is one of Sicily’s most celebrated dishes, a simple combination of pasta, tomato sauce, fried eggplant, and ricotta salata that has become a symbol of Sicilian cooking. The dish comes from Catania, on the eastern coast of Sicily. The name is said to be a tribute to Norma, the opera composed by…
