Hi everyone…for the next few weeks you’ll find everything you need from my various radio shows posted here instead of my website while my webmaster is away. Oh, and my wife Ramona has a new blog called The Lasagna Project. Check it out. If you’re looking for info from yesterday’s Pacific Palate, it’s here.
Food For Thought, Jan. 11/06
Today I got a little closer to my Italian roots with Emily Richards, author of Italian Express, published by Harper Collins.
Emily and I strolled along a busy Commercial Drive, one of Vancouver’s last havens of Italian culture, where men still gather in the cafes to watch soccer, drink espressos and chat about life in general, and women shop some excellent delis, bakeries and green grocers. Emily’s book has some really great shortcuts to help you put Italian-themed meals on the plate in a hurry. I have two Italian Express cookbooks to give away. All you have to do is click on the ‘Comments’ link below and tell me what your very favourite Italian dish is.
For me, it was my Aunt Polly’s spaghetti and meatballs, because she would put some fennel seed in her tomato sauce, and also make some tiny sausages to mix in with the meatballs, some hot, some not, so every sausage was a gamble. After Sunday dinner, when everyone was watching the Ed Sullivan show, I would sneak back into the kitchen and steal a few more sausages and meatballs out of the tomato sauce. Somehow they tasted even better that way! I look forward to reading YOUR stories. Deadline for the contest is January 27th. Good luck!
My favourite italian dish is spaghetti – not very original I know. Maybe if I win the cookbook, I’ll get a little more adventurous!
My favourite Italian dish is Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese style meat sauce from her cookbook, ‘The Classic Italian Cookbook’. I love making it; sautéing the meat until translucent, adding the celery and carrot, adding the wine and letting it gently reduce, adding the milk and letting it evaporate, adding the tomatoes then letting it simmer lazily for three to four hours. Who would think making a simple meat sauce could be such a satisfying procedure? I love it over fresh pasta or straight from the pot, spoonful after spoonful. Richly delicious.
MINCED OR WHOLE ANTIPASTO? Use the recipe of Trailite Elena LeRose and DO NOT CUT UP (or food process) ingredients for antipasto. Being born in Trail BC, but not of Italian ancestory, I have sampled dozens of antipastos and the best by far are those with WHOLE olives, button mushrooms, silverskin onions…so what if they are a challenge to keep on the bread or cracker… just use a plate! And if you don’t like onions, just pick them out!
I heard your show on January 12, 2006 and was fascinated with Emily Richards book. You had mentioned a contest with this book and I would love to enter. I did not catch how to go about entering though. I have always loved Italian cooking but just cannot get the knack to make it as good as true cooks. I dabble and would love to be able to dabble and acheive better results than I have been able to get. Please let me know how to enter your contset. Ms. Richards methods sound exactly what I need. Thank you. Love your shows.
Ted
My favorite Italian meal is a simple pasta disk.
Artichoke hearts, sun dried tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, onions sauted and put over any pasta, thin spaghetti is great.
Add capers and fresh romano or parm and it’s a great and easy meal that tastes fancy.
Grilled shrimp or chicken breast makes a nice addition too.
My favourite italian dish is spaghetti with meat sauce. It is comfort food for me – it is one of my partner’s signature dishes. Whenever he makes it I feel loved.
My favourite Italian dish is homemade pizza. I’m not a big fan of pizza from just any old parlour; I prefer mine homemade, topped with whatever you have in the fridge/pantry. Pizza was one of the first meals my boyfriend and I made together and now, every time we get the pizza pan out and roll the fresh dough we take time to make a meal together which is a nice luxury we slow down to enjoy. Pizza is a relatively quick meal and each time we make it, it is different – sometimes more trendy pesto and chicken with sundried tomatoes and capers or apple and brie and others, more traditional pepperoni smothered in tomato sauce and bubbling, gooey mozzarella. Love the show & Emily Richards too! Thanks.
My very favorite Italian dish is anything with gnocchi; nothing beats the slightly spongy yet firm texture of a well made little potato pillow. I’ve tried my hand at this a few times with great results. I no longer play gnocchi roulette at various restaurants when I crave them.
My favourite Italian meal is probably a bit dated. It is dense, heavy and rich and could do with some healthier updating, but it is a crowd pleaser. I do a Lasagna with a very meaty sauce, featuring a number of different meats and a pork chop which simmers (for hours)in the sauce the whole time. The question at our place always is,who gets the pork chop at the end? The cheese sauce is also incredibly rich featuring sour cream, ricota, cheddar, eggs, and parmesan. The recipe continues to evolve as I made the mistake of lending out the cookbook it came from, and never got it back so now it changes slightly every time. It takes a full day to prepare and the kitchen is guaranteed to be a mess, but as I say, everyone loves it.
My favourite Italian meal is one I learned to make while at Badia a Colitbuono in Chianti, Italy. Lemon rice served with pork roast with almond sauce. Making it always reminds my husband and I of our wonderful experience with the gracious Lorenza de’ Medici,her family,and friends and it is a simple and elegant meal I am proud to serve to guests.
Imagine you have pulled up to a truckstop restaurant outside of Pisa, expecting trucker fare. Enter the low-slung non-descript building to be greeted by overflowing boxes and baskets of fresh-picked porcini, and assorted funghi. The aroma was intixicating! At the sage recommendation of the server, a risotto con porcini e vino bianco was ordered … it was pure unadulterated heaven! Since that fateful meeting, risotto in many forms has become a mainstay in my kitchen repetoire. Hmmmm, maybe I won’t be serving chili tonight after all.
When I was 17 I moved from Prague, Czechoslovakia, to London, UK and my parents moved to Turin, Italy. When visiting them I learned the true meaning of real Italian food, especially the pasta sauces.
When I returned to London, where I frequented the East Indian restaurants, I thought: Why not combine the two? So came to be a new pasta sauce: ground meat, onions , garlic, chilli, cumin and coriander with tomatoes.
This recipe is now a flagship of our family cookbook known simple as “The Pasta Sauce” (As in “the Open” or “the Regiment). A true cosmopolitan child of Italian parentage!
great podcast!
My favourite Italian plate of food is polenta, rapini, and veal sausage. In a big pan I fry a coil of veal sausage in olive oil–just to rare, though, so the inside is still a bit pink and the juice runs clear. Meanwhile the polenta is boiling away, I use a fairly coarse grind and cook it to a soft consistency so it spreads a bit when it hits the plate. When the sausage is done I put it aside and keep it warm, toss some crushed garlic into the oil and juice left behind by the sausage, and fry the rapini until softened but still bright green. This all goes great on the plate: soft polenta with shaved parmesan and cracked black pepper and some drizzled juice from the pan, the sausage coil chopped into smaller pieces, and the rapini adding the perfect bitterness to match the grease. A bottle of red wine is required, too.
My favourite Italian dish is a very quick and simple pasta that packs a whollup of flavour; pasta with hot pepper sauce (saute as many cloves of garlic as you like in some good olive oil and add some hot pepper flakes. Toss with hot cooked linguini, freshly grated parmesan and chopped parsley. Sublime!)
Far and away the favourite Italian dish of my family is pasta with pesto. Lots of fresh basil, pine nuts, garlic, parmesan and olive oil mixed in the food processor and dumped over hot pasta. Full of flavour, quick to make and redolent of summer. If its winter, I defrost frozen pesto made in the peak of the summer basil season and pour it over the pasta.
My favourite Italian dish is still lasagna, either with or without meat sauce. I find it very satisfying after a hard day of physical work.
It is enjoyed with a good red wine from the Puglia region. I recently took a pasta class at a Victoria restaurant/bakery so now I make my own pasta and sauces. Some home made antipasto is a good starter course.