| Vincent Scordo is an Italian American who writes all about Italian food and life. He believes in the Italian Life for Everyone! >> |
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When it comes to grilled cheese the basics are essential. One needs good bread, good cheese, a good cooking fat, and the right type of cooking heat. If you’ve ever had a bad grilled cheese sandwich, Italian style or not, then the panino was probably lacking in one or more of the items above! Our grilled cheese, Italian style, features good [...]
Ricotta has always been part of my culinary life. My mother makes ricotta on a weekly basis and I grew up eating it smeared on fresh bread, with pasta, extra virgin olive oil, and grated Parmigiano Reggiano, and, of course, stuffed in fresh pasta such as ravioli and tortellini. Given Ricotta’s versatile nature it’s no surprise many Italian cooks make [...]
One of the most ubiquitous panini (plural for sandwich) in all of the Italy is prosciutto and cheese. In fact, I made so many of the aforementioned panini in Italy one summer (helping Zia Teresa in her small shop) I thought all Italians survived on prosciutto (or prosciutto cotto <steam cooked Parma ham>) and cheese alone. Italian’s fascination with panini are easily understand and well placed when [...]
(photo: courtesy of Dr. K.; from a clockwise position: raw onions, reduced onions, water added to reduced onions, onions prior to cooking, and finished product). When our die hard fan Dr. K. mentioned he tried a new recipe from Michael Ruhlman’s excellent new cookbook Twenty I was eager to hear which dish he attempted. And when Dr. K. sent us photos [...]
You have to love any establishment that sells over 200,000 pounds of Italian cheese in a given week, in turn we’ve fallen deeply in love with the Pittsburgh based, Pennsylvania Macaroni Company. The Italian food store was started in 1902 by Sicilian immigrants from Trabia and they now carry well over 5,000 Italian specialty items, including an online business that will slice [...]
(photo: small block of Pecorino “Monte Poro” from Calabria)Sit down for a meal at any restaurant or home in Calabria and you’ll most likely encounter some variation of sheep’s milk cheese; specifically, Pecorino. During our recent trip to Calabria, for example, we ate Pecorino 4-5x per week and often mixed in a platter with local salumi and olives.
(photo: a piece of Italian Gorgonzola or blue cheese that I used with our basic salad dressing recipe) Condition Yourself to Love the Foods You Hate I’m always surprised when folks tell me they don’t like a particular food or ingredient such as cilantro, baby goat, rabbit, blue cheese or Gorgonzola, etc. When I ask folks why they don’t like a [...]
One of my favorite ways to consume olive oil is via the simple and humble tomato salad. Our tomato salad is prepared with red onion, basil, dried oregano, Kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper and the best extra virgin olive oil we can get our hands on. Recently, we’ve fallen in love with two extra virgin olive oils that [...]
One of our standard pasta dishes here at Scordo is Pasta with Ricotta, Tomato Sauce, and Parmigiano Reggiano. Our ricotta is often homemade (see our recipe) and the tomato sauce comes by way of our canned tomatoes. The pasta condiment produced here is the ideal representation of tomato, rich cream, and hearty flavors (think of it as lasagna or pasta al [...]
(photo: Capezzana Olio Nuovo 2010 with fresh whole milk mozzarella dried oregano, Kosher salt, and freshly ground black pepper) About 25 minutes northwest of Florence in the small wine growing region of Carmignano you’ll find the estate of Tenuta di Capezzana – an estate that has been producing olive oil since the year 980. I was lucky enough to sample the 2010 Capezzana November [...]
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