Tag: Italian food

Torta di Zucchini (Crougettes Pie)

This is a very simple and fast Italian recipes that you can prepare when you come back later from your job and you haven’t any delicious recipes to eat. You need only some zucchini, a flaky pastry that you can easily found at the supermarket, cheese, in this case I used ricotta cheese from cow but if you don’t have this Italian cheese you can also use what you have at home better a soft Italian cheese like Stracchino or Asiago cheese, and salame that gives a salted taste to the pie of zucchini. If you like you can even add an egg. Just cook a little bit the zucchini, add all the other ingredient to them, and fill the pastry and bake. Easy, fast and a delicious Italian recipe is ready!

INGREDIENTS (for 6 people)
1 Round flaky pastry
1 / 2 Onion
6 Zucchini
250g or 2 cups of Ricotta cheese
8 Slices of Salame
40g or ½ cup of Parmesan
3-4 Tablespoons of Extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Pepper

PREPARATION TIME: 25 minutes

COOKING TIME: 30-40 minutes

WINE: Golfo del Tigullio Vermentino (White Wine)

PREPARATION
Clean and cut in thin slices the zucchini. Preheat the extra virgin olive oil in a large pan, cut the onion in thin slices then add them to the extra virgin olive oil and let them brown. Cook the zucchini on a low flame for about 15-20 minutes.

Pie of Zucchini

When the zucchini are ready put them in a bowl, add the ricotta cheese, the slices of salame, Parmesan, a bit of salt and pepper and mix all together. Better if the ricotta cheese is from cow.

Pie of Zucchini

Place a sheet of baking paper on the bottom of a baking-pan, place over it the pastry and makes some little holes on its surface with a fork.

Pie of Zucchini

Fill the pastry with the mixture of zucchini and ricotta cheese.

Pie of Zucchini

Bake at 180-200 degree for about 40 minutes until the surface becomes golden. Serve warm.

Pie of Zucchini

Fegato alla veneziana: irresistible and traditional in Venice

fegato alla veneziana

Are you ready to rock your world (and your kitchen) with a delicate, intense, flavoured and typical Italian dish? If the answer is YES, please have a close look to one of our favourite main courses coming from Venice: fegato alla veneziana, an ancient recipe still very spread in Veneto and in Italy. You can’t always look out your window and enjoy the gondolas, the astonishing Piazza San Marco or the maze of bridges and “calle”. But you can always learn how to cook the liver (fegato) the way Venetian do!! Bring the flavours of venice’s amazing cousine into your own flat, apartment, home. The liver was a precious food also for the Romans (especially the pieces coming from the pig and the goose). You can find a description in “De re Coquinaria” by Apicius. Today it is still an important ingredient in very traditional Venetian recipes: fegato à la sbrodega, liver sausage,  salsa peverada (made with chicken liver).

Fegato alla veneziana: irresistible
 
Author:
Recipe type: Main
Cuisine: Italian
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 2 large onions, sliced thin
  • 4 sage leaves
  • 125 ml white wine
  • 500 gr. calves liver
  • 3 tablespoons flour
  • 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
  • 5 spoon of olive oil
  • ¼ cup of butter
  • Salt and black pepper to taste
  • 4 servings polenta
Instructions
  1. Heat the oil and the butter in a larget pan. Add the onions and sage leaves. Cook over medium-low heat until soften.
  2. Season with salt and pepper and add the white wine cook. Cook for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat.
  3. Put the onions to another dish, lightly dust the pieces of liver in the flour and put it in the pan with the remaining oil to medium-high heat.
  4. Stir-fry the liver pieces until seared.
  5. Put the onions back to the skillet, remove the sage leaves, and reheat the onions and liver.
  6. Stir in the white wine vinegar, season with salt and pepper, and serve with white polenta.

 

Flavor of countryside: Herb Bread “alla Italiana”

herb bread

Here we go for this tremendous recipe from ancient Italian tradition. We already showed Sardinian speciality, Pane Frattau. In the countryside 100 years ago everybody was making their own bread. And nowadays? we can try to spread this fresh, easy-to-make and easy-to-bake recipe on Herb bread!!!

 

Herb Bread alla Italiana
 
Huuummmmm crunchy Italian Herb Bread. The preparation of the loaf is going to be quick and easy.
Author:
Cuisine: Italian
Serves: 10
Ingredients
  • Water 1 Cup
  • Yeast 1 Teaspoon
  • Salt 1 1⁄2 Teaspoon
  • Italian herbs 2 Teaspoon (1 tsp basil/oregano/santoreggia)
  • Milk 1 Tsp
  • Parmesan cheese 2 Tsp, grated
  • Butter 2 Tsp
  • Flour 2 3⁄4 Cup
  • Sugar 1 Tsp
Instructions
  1. Put in a bowl the water and the flour, mix it up and add the milk, the sugar, the salt, the Parmesan cheese and Italian herbs.
  2. Add the pieces of soft butter, mix up with the yeast in the middle of the hole you have created.
  3. Create an elastic dough. Shape a long loaf.
  4. Put the oven on and bake the bread for 1 hours and 40 minutes.
  5. Once done, let it cool down on the rack for 15 minutes before slicing the loaf.
  6. Slice the Italian bread and serve with a bowl of hot soup.

 

The queen Parmigiana: the original Aubergine based recipe

parmigiana_1An easy and delicious recipe of Aubergine-based Parmigiana,  a popular Italian dish to serve on your dinner table. Well-known also as a rosticceria food, you can easily buy a bite in many Italian little shops of delicacy in UK and in USA, but the best is to make it yourself! How? Give it a go with this recipe and let us know how it was.

The queen Parmigiana: the original Aubergine based recipe
 
Author:
Recipe type: Easy
Cuisine: Italian
Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
  • Aubergine - 2
  • Tomato sauce - 3 cups
  • Parmesan – 3 tablespoons, grated
  • Part skim ricotta cheese – 1 ½ cup
  • Egg – 1, beaten
  • Fresh parsley - ½ cup, chopped
  • Fresh mozzarella - 3, diced
  • Garlic
  • Olive oil - as required
  • Salt and Pepper - to taste
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 400° and cut the aubergines into half an inch rounds.
  2. Sprinkle salt over it and transfer it into a colander for 30 minutes. then, lay the aubergine on a paper towel to let the excess moisture be absorbed.
  3. Pat them dry and lay them on a baking sheet which has been already prepared with a little bit of cooking oil.
  4. Season the aubergines chuncks with salt, freshly ground pepper and garlic cloves. Flip them and season it in a similar manner.
  5. Bake them in the oven for 20 minutes, until they are golden.
  6. In a bowl, put the ricotta cheese, add beaten egg, freshly chopped parsley, salt and freshly ground pepper.
  7. In the baking dish, spread the tomato sauce, lay the first aubergine row over it . 8. Take the ricotta cheese mixture and spread over the top of the row a bit. Finish with a tablespoon of parmesan cheese.
  8. Prepare the same layers of tomato sauce, egg plant, ricotta cheese and parmesan cheese. After 3 layers, top it all with diced mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese.
  9. Bake it in the oven for 30 minutes.
  10. Serve after 15-20 minutes of cooling.

For a Happy New Year, enjoy your Lentils (Lenticchie Stufate)

For a Happy New Year, enjoy your Lentils (Lenticchie Stufate)
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Lentils are a traditional food to make a fantastic recipe. On New Year's Eve in Italy people eat "lenticchie stufate" or in a soup. Why? This is an old symbol of good luck in the Italian tradition, because of their round shape, which is resembling coins. So you need to eat a lot with "cotechino", meaning a mild-tasting, slow-cooked pork sausage and in this way you will ensure money and prosperity for the coming year.
Cuisine: Italian
Serves: 6
Ingredients
  • ½ pound lentils
  • 2 rosemary branches
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • ⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil
  • 3 cup vegetable broth
  • salt and pepper
  • 1-2 tomatoes
Instructions
  1. First soak the lentils for 1 hour in cold water to cover.
  2. Then drain; and place them in a pot.
  3. Cover with cool water, then add some rosemary together with 2 cloves of garlic.
  4. Bring to a gentle boil, and simmer for 20 minutes.
  5. Drain and discard the rosemary and garlic cloves.
  6. Heat the olive oil in the same pot and add the remaining rosemary and garlic.
  7. Add the lentils, some broth, salt, pepper, and tomatoes. Stir well.
  8. Cook until the lentils are tender and most of the liquid has been absorbed, about 20 minutes.
  9. Serve hot.

Biscotti and the ancient art to make it

Biscotti are the beloved cookies of every Italian family. The term means twice-cooked, and comes from the habit of baking cookie dough in long bars. Then the dough would have been cutting into half-inch thick cookies, which will be having heated again in order to dry them out and keep better and longer. Many variations in the way biscotti were made reflects the regional differences.

Home-made biscotti are in most Italian families beloved and they prefer to bake cookies, also following the traditional recipes of grannies and mothers but also coming from excellent chef like Pellegrino Artusi and his classical crunchy Biscotti, as he shows in his famous book  La Scienza in Cucina: simple ingredients and great impact!

Ingredients:

  1. 3 1/3 cups (400 g) flour
  2. 1 cup (200 g) sugar
  3. 2/5 cup (50 g) unsalted butter
  4. 1/2 cup less two tablespoons almonds
  5. 1/4 cup raisins
  6. 1/4 cup pine nuts
  7. 2 teaspoons candied citron or melon
  8. A pinch of powdered anise
  9. 2 tablespoons aquavit
  10. 1 scant teaspoon bicarbonate
  11. 1 whole egg + 3 yolks

How to make it

  • You need to peel the almonds, leaving them whole.
  • Then mince the candied fruit and scoop out a hole in the mound of flour.
  •  Put together the eggs, the sugar, the butter, the aquavit, and the bicarbonate.
  • Knead a dough without working the ingredients too much, then make an opening in it, add the almond and the candied fruit, knead again the dough to distribute them, and roll it out.
  • Cut the roll into five pieces, grease and put flour in a pan, brush them with egg yolk, and bake all at 350 F (180 C) for about fifteen minutes, or until lightly browned.
  • Once they are cooked, you need to slice them into round cookies, and put them again into the oven for 10-15 min. more.

Piemonte festivals in Fall: take a walk on the truffle-wild side

This is the time of the year to discover the wonderful and expensive world of truffles!!! White or black, this gourmet addition to your meals is luxurious: thousands of pounds to spend on it beacuse it grow only in the wild, while only  expert foragers and highly trained dogs can find it! So you can understand why it is called oro bianco and oro nero, meaning white and black gold.

In the Langhe area, there is the truffle’s hearts, exactly in the hills of the Monferrato region. A “trifulau” is the one you are looking for: he/she can guide you in exploring the traditions related to the local truffle varieties.

October is  “the” month for Italian food festivals, not only truffle but also  mushrooms, chestnuts, chocolate. On Fall Italy is ripe of  food festivals and wine harvest celebrations! Not to miss is the Slow Food’s big International Food Event in October!

Asti is waiting for you too. Its beautiful Gothic cathedral is the heart of a lively medieval city, and of the most famous Barbera producer. A taste of heaven along with Barolo and Barbaresco wine you can find in Piemonte region.

Alba White Truffle Festival is in October in the Piedmont town of Alba and it is one of the biggest truffle festivals in Italy, peculiar also for its donkey race. Instead if you lok for an historical walk, check the Maschera di Ferro, a festival and a historic reenactment of the Man in the Iron mask which takes place in the Piedmont region the first weekend of October exactly  in Pinerolo.

According to the legend, the man in the iron mask was held in captivity for 11 years in the French fortress of “Pignerol” (ancient word for “Pinerolo”), in Piedmont. Each year Sunday afternoon after the performance, the mask is finally removed and the face of the man wearing it revealed.

 

Cheese and Nero d’Avola wine: from Ragusa and Sicily with red passion

Sicily: what a triangle to visit! But again where to start? Going to the south? There is the Channel of Sicily, the door to Africa. From the gorgeous beaches or the countryside, made of hills and farms, necropolis and amphitheatres coming form the Greek: all is to be discovered in Sicily! Do not panic and stay with us for a little tour of a peculiar town in the north of the triangle!

Going to the North? There is Mount Lauro, the highest peak of the Iblei mountains, the province of Ragusa, the centre with Modica – of a gastronomy that counts artichokes, tomatoes and the olive with the Dop “Monti Iblei” quality brand on it and the biggest centre where to find delicious pecorino and ricotta cheese from the  sheep!

Here we can taste also the original Nero d’Avola wine, the red heart of many Sicilian red wines. let’s have a look at the town. Rich in History and fascination, Ragusa can surprise you for the variety of things to visit here.

Ragusa Inferiore is well-known since ancient time with the name of Ibla: baroque churches and buildings belonging to the old feudal nobility are surrounded by narrow alleys and mixed up with the ancient Arab traces. The Duomo of  St. George is another gorgeous piece of church coming from the baroque architecture!


Ragusa Superiore is instead an eighteenth- century city of late baroque buildings; here the  Ibleo archaeological museum which has six sections, ranging from prehistoric stations, to the necropoles and the Syracuse colony of Camarina, archaic Siculean towns, Hellenistic centres, late Roman settlements, collections and acquisitions.
The Cava d’Ispica (near Modica) is something you can’t forget if you have the luck to visit it: it is a narrow gorge of 13 km.  where  necropoles, rocky dwellings, catacombs and  shrines come from the Eneolithic period!

Eating in Italy: where to go for a meal among the eateries you can find

Are you really aware of what kind of restaurants are you entering while you are travelling in Italy? If not, follow us in this nice guide to what has to be expected when you are in Italy and you nwant to dine out.

Looking  for the cheapest place ever to eat good food but sometimes Italian restaurant category puzzle you? No worries and no panic; here we are a list of the Italian eating out places:

The Ristorante, the Italian word for “restaurant” will welcome you with a full-service eating menu in Italy, with different levels of ristorante and not necessarily the most expensive chance you have to eat out. An Italian ristorante has the most high-end service of any other kind on this list.

Trattoria: the difference between a ristorante and a trattoria? Nothing substantial: the trattoria is smaller, on a side-street, and the food establishment  is strictly family-run, with the granma or grandpa or the mother or the father actually cooking  the menu! “La cucina della nonna” is waiting for you with its good and abundant portion!

Osteria is a quite relax estabilishment, no formal at all and cheap! Good wine, good food such as piada or main course can be found in a good osteria with a quite an ancient and rural touch! Taverna  is as well as rustic in its design, with  inexpensive menu and a strict selection of food: like a night bar for dinner time!

Pizzeria are of course the temple of pizza but you can easily find other things on the menu!

Rosticceria will usually offer you roast chicken or other meats, with a pretty good selection of all kinds of other pre-made meals really tasty like lasagne! Also Tavola Calda offer a counter full of pre-made dishes: you can ask for it by the piece or by weight; then they will be re-heated.

The Italian Bar is more like the cafeteria in UK and USA: if you want a quick cup of Italian coffee and a simple thing to eat. Worthy to go and  taste an aperitivo!

Vegetable Lasagna: an healthy choice among Italian dishes

Do you want to indulge in a fantastic meal but the normal Italian lasagna is too fat, even though ludicrous, or are you a militant vegetarian? Do not renounce from the ecstasy an home-made lasagna can bring to you at every bite! Just find another lovely recipe among the millions which surronds the lasagna world.  Your healthy choice will involve a vegeteian lasagna, made with the delicious veggie you have for sure in your fridge. This is suitable of course also for vegan if you change the lasagna noodle type, delete eggs and cheese from the recipe. Check it out in the best well-being shop. Let’s start with the ingredients’ list for vegetarian and lovers of veggies:

  • 1 (16 ounce) package lasagna noodles
  • 1 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced
  • 3/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
  • 3/4 cup chopped onion
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 2 (26 ounce) jars  sauce
  • 1 teaspoon dried basil
  • 1 (15 ounce) container ricotta cheese
  • 4 cups mozzarella cheese
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

How to make the vegeterian lasagna:

  1. Start cooking the lasagna noodles in a large pot full of boiling water for 10 minutes, or until al dente. Put a bit of olive oil to avoid the lasagna noodle sticking together. Then rinse in cold water and drain.
  2. In a large pan, you can cook and stir in oil the mushrooms, together with green peppers, onion, and garlic.  Stir in tomato sauce and basil and bring to a boil. After just reduce the heat, and start simmering about 15 minutes.
  3. Combine ricotta, the two cups of mozzarella cheese, and the eggs.
  4. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F- 175 degrees C. Put carefully one cup of tomato sauce on the bottom of the baking dish. Layer then lasagna noodles, cheese mixture and  sauce, sprinkle on the Parmesan cheese. Do again the layering, and top it all with the remaining from the two cups of mozzarella cheese.
  5. Bake uncovered for 40 minutes. After, let sit approximately 15 minutes before serving and enjoing.