Italian Food and Recipes

Radiatori with Small Meatballs (Radiatori con Polpettini) - Scordo Pasta Challenge #114

By Vincent Scordo on January 25, 2012 | Comments | 0 TrackBacks

(photo: radiatori with tomato sauce or ragu and tiny meatballs or polpettini)

Radiatori are medium sized (short) pasta shapes that look like older style radiators (hence the name). Radiatori are thick, have a ruffled edge, and are used like fusilli (with thicker sauces such as a ragu).

Pan Simmered Whole Dried Cod With Tomatoes and Potatoes (Pesce Stocco or Stoccafisso)

By Vincent Scordo on January 23, 2012 | Comments | 0 TrackBacks

(photo: pesce stocco prepared with green olives, wedges of potatoes, and cod)

There are certain foods that stimulate the brain like a night in downtown Tokyo (with it's neon glitter and masses of humanity). For us, stockfish or pesce stocco, the native Calabrian dish (specifically from the region around Cittanova) triggers tremendoud food memories of my grandmother Rosa and her basement kitchen in New Jersey.

Pesce stocco, the dried not salted cod fish, is often confused with baccalà which is dried salted cod fish. The Normans brought both variants of preserved cod fish to southern Italy by 1130 and they've remained popular food items to this day.

Oven Roasted Potatoes With Breadcrumbs and Herbs

By Vincent Scordo on January 18, 2012 | Comments | 0 TrackBacks

(photo: simple roasted potatoes that have been thinly sliced, pre-cooked, and topped with a standard, homemade, Italian breadcrumb)

This simple, satisfying, potato side dish compliments fish, chicken, and beef and requires very little preparation.

Ingredients:

3 large red skin or Yukon gold potatoes (sliced <roughly> to 3/16th of inch thickness)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1 cup of homemade seasoned bread crumbs

Cannelloni with Beef (Cannelloni di Manzo)

By Vincent Scordo on January 17, 2012 | Comments | 0 TrackBacks

(photo: cannelloni with tomato sauce, filled with ground beef)

Stuffed pasta, of any variety, is adored in Italy and it is served on special occasions and on ordinary Sundays. Stuffed pasta includes ravioli, tortellini, lasagna, cannelloni, manicotti, etc. The cannelloni with beef (or minced beef) recipe below is a variation on the traditional cannelloni with ricotta / cheese recipe.

Monkfish Braciola (Involtino di Pesce)

By Vincent Scordo on January 16, 2012 | Comments | 0 TrackBacks

(photo: courtesy of JS, completed monkfish braciola)

One of our favorite TV food personalities is Jacques Pépin. We enjoy and appreciate Jacques' culinary skills, love for European cuisine, and on-air modesty. In fact, beyond the great cooks in our family, Jacques Pépin is the cook we've often tried to emulate (although our cuisine is firmly situated in the Italian tradition).

Baked Salmon with Parsley, Onion, and Lemon (Salmone Con Prezzemolo, Cipolla e Limone)

By Vincent Scordo on January 13, 2012 | Comments | 0 TrackBacks

(photo: baked salmon with parsley, lemon juice, onion, and garlic).

This is a very simple recipe and takes advantage of a wonderful species of fish; that is, salmon. If you can find, and afford, wild salmon then use it but well managed, farm raised, salmon has an appealing fatty component that most consumers enjoy over the wild variety. Both farmed and wild salmon have challenges in relation to environmental issues, my advice is to do your research and think before you eat.

Chicken Cacciatore (Pollo alla Cacciatora)

By Vincent Scordo on January 12, 2012 | Comments | 0 TrackBacks

(photo: chicken cacciatore / chicken hunter's stew or pollo alla cacciatora with herbs, onions, and white wine)

There are hundreds of variations on the popular dish cacciatore or alla cacciatora (or in the style of the hunter, in Italian), including chicken, rabbit, and capretto (baby goat) cacciatore. Most versions of the dish include herbs, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms and a braising liquid such as white or red wine (and/or water).

Salad Pizza - Arugula and Margherita

By Vincent Scordo on January 11, 2012 | Comments | 0 TrackBacks

(photo: homemade pizza with arugula salad <including red onion>)

Growing up in the suburbs just outside of New York City our neighborhood had its fair share of pizza joints, including Vincent's Pizzeria, Sal's Classic, First Pizza Pan, Godfather II Pizzeria, Euro's Pizzeria, Villa Rosa Pizzeria, etc. All of the pizzeria's mentioned made pizza in the NY fashion, that is to say, a fairly thin crust, tomato sauce made from canned tomatoes, and a combination of authentic and inauthentic cheeses. One of the aforementioned pizzeria's produced a pie labeled as "salad pizza"; namely, a standard cheese pizza with the addition of chopped romaine lettuce with salad dressing. The salad pizza was surprisingly good, in the spirit of the Italian American pizza world, and I consumed the pizza only with friends who were loyal to the specific pizzeria in question (our family had long ago selected our local pizzeria and I wasn't allowed to stray).

Sweet Potatoes Italian Style

By Vincent Scordo on January 11, 2012 | Comments | 0 TrackBacks

(photo: organic sweet potatoes roasted with wild fennel seeds from Sicilia)

The sweet potato is a tropical plant and was brought to Italy by Columbus via South America. Today, the plant is grown in my home state of New Jersey as well as Japan, parts of Russia, and, of course South America. I'm a big fan of sweet potatoes and we use them in our (via Dr. K.) homemade ravioli, though our more everyday use includes roasting the potatoes in the oven with wild fennel seeds. Here's our quick recipe:

What We're Reading - New Cookbooks, Tuna Massacre, Artist Cook, the Manhattan, Pasta Science

By Vincent Scordo on January 10, 2012 | Comments | 0 TrackBacks

(photo: courtesy of the documentary: "La Mattanza - The Tuna Hunt in Sicily" * See below for a description of the yearly event)

Eater.com - Eater previews new, 2012, spring cookbooks and "food books." The preview includes a blurb on The Southern Italian Farmer's Table: Authentic Recipes and Local Lore from Tuscany to Sicily by Matthew Scialabba and Melissa Pellegrino. We reviewed Matt and Melissa's first book and it was fabulous.

NY Times Science - the headline for this article reads, "Pasta Inspires Scientists to Use Their Noodle" and it's about a bunch of math wizards who think about pasta in the scientific image.

Del Post presents Tuna Massacre - with an intense tribal beat the chef Hideo Kuribara from New York restaurant Ushiwakamaru breaks down a whole tuna. Leave it to the New York food scene to dramatize the act, but I'd rather see this performed off the coast of Sicilia by a dark haired Italian.

A Cook Blog - if you don't know about this blog you should, written by an artist and expert cook, drop it in your RSS feed. The highlighted post is about gnocchi and the writer's first trip to Roma.

Esquire Food and Drink - we've recently discovered the Manhattan cocktail after receiving a few fancy bottles of Rye Whiskey for the holidays and let me tell you it rivals some of the best Italian based aperitifs on the planet. Our favorite type of Manhattan is mixed with Carpano Antica red vermouth, Bullet Rye Whiskey, and a dash of Angostura bitters (no preserved cherries but we do add a dash of cherry liqueur)

New York Magazine - "cook don't dine" is one of my favorite food mantras; that is to say, always aim to make your own, from scratch, food at home and avoid restaurants. With the aforementioned said, this is a interesting story on one waiter's experience at Per Se.

* La Mattanza - The Tuna Hunt in Sicily - summary from the 2000 documentary

"Every year between April and May enormous swarms of tuna pass by the Sicilian coast. The fishermen of Favignana prepare for their biggest catch in an appropriate way. Under the direction of the experienced "Capo Rais," they build the biggest underwater trap in the world, the "tonnara," from which there is no escape. More than 100 fishermen work round the clock for months on the complicated trap 40 kilometers long. It has to work properly when the big moment comes. The Mattanza is a battle for life and death for the fish, and even for the fishermen themselves. Convoys of tourists from many countries come to witness this spectacle of death from the first row of boats. 90% of the tuna catch on Favignana goes to Tokyo as fresh fish. Japanese chefs come to Favignana to select the best fish. The rest is processed for the Italian market in cans. Nature conservationists are not heard on Favignana, since this is a matter of survival for the fishermen and their families."