Recipes

These melt-in-your-mouth ricotta gnocchi were a staple at my father’s restaurant, and I never really saw them on the menus of other Italian places back in those days. Potato gnocchi seemed to be much more prevalent—probably because they’re a bit easier to work with and hold up well to heavier sauces. But these ricotta gnocchi…

Penne Arrabiata translates to Angry Penne, which is an apt name for this spicy pasta dish. My father didn’t typically put too much spice into his cooking, but this was one exception. If people wanted the pasta angry they got it angry! If you look at and try different people’s versions of Penne Arrabiata, you…

A few weeks back I was talking to my Mom about quick and easy pasta dishes. She mentioned that my grandfather used to make pasta and toss it with fresh ricotta cheese, a little grated pecorino and salt & pepper. I thought that was a great idea and planned on trying it out, eventually. I…

When I went to the pasta shop this weekend to buy tortellini, I noticed that they had two types – meat and cheese. This seemed odd to me because I had always know those little rings of pasta as being stuffed with meat. Back when I was working at my Father’s restaurant, some nights he…

Just about every region of Italy has it’s own version of a Ragu, a slow cooked meat sauce, but perhaps the most famous is from the city of Bologna in Emilia-Romagna, Ragu alla Bolognese. Where in other areas, especially in Southern Italy, the Ragu typically starts with large cuts of meat which are cooked slowly…

Every once in a while I pick up my copy of Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan, and flip through it looking for inspiration. Most times that inspiration comes in something that is so simple, that I kick myself for not thinking of it on my own. Prosciutto, cream and Parmagiano-Reggiano makes an…

Marinara derives from the Italian word for sailor, marinaro. Due to these origins I have seen many people say that marinara sauce must contain something from the sea, usually anchovies. Actually this is not the case, the origins of marinara sauce are that it is the sauce that they made in Naples for the sailors…

From The Da Fiore Cookbook: Recipes from Venice’s Best Restaurant by Damiano Martin (Harper Collins, 2003)When Mara and Maurizio return from Alba with the first white truffles of autumn, it means that these pillowy, bite-size bundles of pumpkin gnocchi will be on da Fiore’s menu. Slicked with sage butter and topped with just a few truffle slivers,…

From Marcella Says…: Italian Cooking Wisdom from the Legendary Teacher’s Master Classes, with 120 of Her Irresistible New Recipes by Marcella Hazan (Harper Collins, 2004) At the hour that some of my neighbors in Florida are already halfway into their night’s sleep, many Italians are beginning to feel a gnawing emptiness that needs to be filled with…

From A16: Food + Wine (Ten Speed Press, 2008) Eggplant vies with zucchini for the distinction of Campania’s most common summer vegetable, and its meaty texture is a natural for pasta. Toothsome penne tossed with chunky bits of eggplant, olives, and tomatoes is so hearty that I almost forget that this dish is vegetarian. Serves 4 as…

We have received many requests for this recipe, which in many peoples’ minds is synonymous with Italian food. In actuality, this is more of an Italian-American dish, since in Italy they do not serve their meatballs on top of pasta. This recipe comes from Chef Paolo’s wife, Frances, who in my humble opinion makes the…

When preparing for large parties, baked pastas are a very popular menu choice, especially if time is an issue. The advantage of preparing a dish ahead of time and then popping it in the oven just before your guests arrive, so that you can spend more time enjoying their company than working, is very appealing….

This typically Roman pasta dish was traditionally made with guanciale, but since that ingredient used to be very hard to find outside of Italy, and the Lazio region in particular, pancetta has became a common substitute. This is changing and guanciale can now be found at certain specialty food stores here in America. While you…

I feel like I have been beating the simplicity theme into the ground the past few weeks, but the fact of the matter is, this is how I cook in the summer. There are so many great seasonal ingredients that I look forward to all year, and I want to put them front and center…

My last blog post featured Pasta alla Puttanesca, a classic Italian sauce made from tomatoes, olives, capers, anchovies and garlic. Tonight I was craving some of those flavors but did not want to make a tomato based sauce. So I thought why not make kind of a Linguine Aglio e Olio (Linguine with Oil and…

Spaghetti alla Carbonara is a classic Roman pasta dish, that has become a standard on menus in Italian restaurants around the world. As with any dish that becomes this ubiquitous, many variations tend to crop up, with people adding different ingredients along the way. One addition that pops up frequently is cream. While I am…

Last week I posted a recipe for Tortellini Pasticcio. What I did not mention in that post is that the tortellini I used were homemade.  I had still been tweaking the recipe for the filling and wanted to wait until I settled on a final combination of meats before I shared it.  The filling that…

Tortellini alla Panna is a classic Northern Italian preparation of meat filled Tortellini tossed in a cream sauce. My father used to serve a Tortellini Pasticcio that consisted of Tortellini alla Panna layered with Bolognese Sauce and then baked in the oven. I have been wanting to make this at home for a quite a…