Coda alla Vaccinara is a classic dish from Rome: oxtail stewed in tomato sauce. It is usually served as a secondo, but you can also eat the sauce over pasta as a primo before that. Another less common variation is … Continue reading Conchiglie alla Vaccinara (Pasta with Oxtail Ragù Sous-Vide)
The nice thing about cooking vacation memories is that even after having returned two months ago, it still keeps the memories fresh. When I saw Spaghetti alla Carbonara di Mare on the menu of La Perla in Calasetta on Sardinia, … Continue reading Spaghetti alla Carbonara di Mare
We love risotto and make it quite often. The nice thing about this recipe for bell pepper risotto is that no flavor is lost because the bell peppers are cooked in the stock that will be used for the risotto … Continue reading Bell Pepper Risotto (Risotto ai Peperoni)
I did not have any cinghiale al mirto in Sardinia, but I did bring home dried myrtle berries. In Sardinia they may also use the greens and fresh berries, but those are hard (if not impossible) to come by here … Continue reading Wild Boar with Myrtle Berries Sous-Vide (Cinghiale al Mirto)
There are more recipes from Sardinia to follow, but for now let’s go to Emilia-Romagna for some classic meat-filled cannelloni. Cannelloni can be made using fresh pasta or store-bought pasta, and they can be filled with either spinach and ricotta … Continue reading Cannelloni
Fregola or fregula is one of the typical pasta shapes from Sardinia (the other one is malloreddus). It is like very thick spaghetti made from durum wheat, cut into short pieces and then toasted. It is a bit like large … Continue reading Fregola Sarda con le Cozze (Fregola with Mussels)
At Trattoria La Saletta in Alghero, Sardinia, I enjoyed some delicious mutton ravioli (ravioli di pecora) with crunchy vegetables. Since mutton (the meat of a mature sheep) is not available in the Netherlands, I decided to make something similar using … Continue reading Lamb Ravioli with Crunchy Vegetables
A seàda (also written as sebàda, seatta or sevada) is a typical dessert from Sardinia that we saw on restaurant menus everywhere. It is a large ravioli that is filled with unaged local sheep’s milk cheese (pecorino sardo primosale), then deep-fried in olive oil and … Continue reading Seadas con Miele
Our vacation to Sardinia provided a lot of inspiration for dishes to cook. Yet another one from La Perla in Calasetta is stuffed calamari braised in tomato sauce. This reminded me of a recipe by Biba Caggiano that I still … Continue reading Stuffed Calamari Braised in Tomato Sauce (Calamari Ripieni)
Another delicious seafood antipasto at La Perla in Calasetta was scallops gratin with almonds. The nice thing about Italian cooking is that once you know the ingredients (vocabulary) and cooking techniques (grammar), you can very easily reconstruct dishes (sentences) without … Continue reading Scallops Gratin with Almonds (Capesante gratinate con le mandorle)
At seafood restaurant La Perla in Calasetta on the island of Sant’Antioco in the south-west corner of Sardinia we had many great seafood appetizers, including an octopus and radicchio salad. The combination works very well, not just because of the … Continue reading Octopus and Radicchio Salad (Insalata di Polpo e Radicchio)
You can’t see it very well in the photo, but inside that rolled up eggplant under the melted mozzarella, basil and tomato sauce is a juicy piece of monkfish. Parmigiana di Melanzana is one of my favorite dishes: eggplant baked with … Continue reading Monkfish alla Parmigiana (Coda di Rospo alla Parmigiana)
Veal scaloppine is one of my favorite Italian secondi di carne (meat dishes) and I prepare it often. (Please note that the Italian singular is scaloppina, plural scaloppine. The American “scaloppini” is as wrong as talking about “one panini” (which … Continue reading Veal Scaloppine: To Sous-Vide Or Not To Sous-Vide?
Can you guess what this is? No, it is not smoked chicken breast. Hint: we’ve just returned from a wonderful vacation on the Italian island of Sardinia. It is bottarga di muggine, or the salted and dried roe pouch of … Continue reading Spaghetti con la Bottarga
If it’s too hot right now to turn on the oven where you are, save this recipe for later, because it is easy and delicious. Cod, potatoes, and tomatoes are all cooked together in the oven with garlic and herbs … Continue reading Baked Cod, Potatoes, and Tomatoes (Merluzzo, Patate e Pomodori al Forno)
Pasta con le sarde is a very typical pasta dish from Sicily with a unique flavor. The main ingredients are pasta and sardines as the name implies, but also wild fennel (finocchietto). The latter ingredient may be hard to find … Continue reading Pasta con le sarde (Pasta with Sardines and Wild Fennel)
Although primavera means spring, this is also a great risotto to make in summer. Also because in March and April, certainly in this part of the world, the vegetables used for this are not in season yet. There are many … Continue reading Risotto alla Primavera
These fennel ravioli are heavily inspired on these fennel ‘meatballs’ (polpette) that I discovered in Sicily at the great trattoria Tischi Toschi in Taormina. I prepare a lot of fennel, either in a salad, in pasta, or braised as a side. … Continue reading Fennel Ravioli (Ravioli ai Finocchi)
Scaloppine are a popular secondo in Italy because they are delicious and quick to prepare. Thin slices of meat are pounded even thinner and then served with all kinds of sauces, like balsamic, Marsala, with eggplant, mozzarella and tomato, or … Continue reading Veal Escalope with Mushrooms and Marsala (Scaloppine ai Funghi e Marsala)
Erbazzone is a savory pie from the town of Reggio Emilia in Northern Italy that is filled with chard (and sometimes also other greens, including spinach). I was reminded of it when Stefano posted his version of it. As usual … Continue reading Erbazzone (Chard Pie)
In Italy many recipes have a “rosso” version (with tomatoes) and a “bianco” version (without tomatoes). For instance, a “pizza bianca” means a pizza without tomatoes. This also goes for pasta sauces, amatriciana is usually rossa, but amatriciana bianca also … Continue reading Pasta with ‘White’ Wild Boar Ragù (Pappardelle al Ragù Bianco di Cinghiale)
Stefano of Italian Home Cooking has done it again: he posted a delicious traditional Italian recipe that I had not heard of before. I love Ragù alla Napoletano, which is a large piece of beef braised in tomato sauce. The … Continue reading La Genovese alla Napoletana Sous-Vide (Ziti and Beef with Onion Sauce)
Spring is really arriving here in the Netherlands, but on some days it is still a bit chilly and perfect for a hearty pasta dish with the last of the season’s savoy cabbage. This humble pasta dish with cabbage and sausage … Continue reading Pasta with Savoy Cabbage and Sausage (Pasta Verza e Salsiccia)
There are so many food blogs out there that it is hard to find the really good ones. But once in a while I discover a new food blog that I really like, and one of those is Stefano’s Italian Home … Continue reading Duck ‘in Salsa’ with Radicchio (Anatra in Salsa con Radicchio di Treviso)
I don’t prepare artichokes very often, because they are usually too expensive for what will be left after you clean them. This is what I commented when Jo of Frascati Cooking That’s Amore recently blogged about a recipe from Lombardia … Continue reading Roasted Artichokes (Carciofi al Forno)
When you have guests over for dinner, you want to please and possibly even impress them (in Italy this is called fare la bella figura). Over the years you have developed some dishes that you can always rely on in such … Continue reading Ravioli with Spinach and Ricotta (Ravioli Ricotta e Spinaci)
In Italy there are two kinds of pizza. Round and thin pizza, cooked for a couple of minutes in a very hot (wood-fired) oven, is available in pizzerias. That type of pizza is difficult to make at home with a … Continue reading Sheet Pan Pizza (Pizza in Teglia)
You can encounter baby octopus in a hot red sauce all along the long Italian coastline. “Alla diavola” refers to the use of chilli flakes. You can make it as hot or as mild as you like. If you are … Continue reading Baby Octopus Alla Diavola (Moscardini alla Diavola)
After reading Conor’s post in which he showed us how to prepare delicious roast leg of goat, I got curious and wanted to try goat meat, too. Now there are a lot of goats in the Netherlands, kept primarily for milking, … Continue reading Goat Stew from Abruzzo (Capra alla Neretese)
Calamari and squid are both types of cuttlefish. You can use any type for this recipe. Squid can be cooked in two ways: either very short or very long. Something in between, and it will be tough. Since I was … Continue reading Pasta with Calamari and Bell Peppers
