Recipes are meant to be shared! On this blog can be found classic Italian and Italian-American recipes that can be made at home, courtesy of the Italian-American Society of Peoria cooking classes. We’ve already tried out each and every one of these recipes. And not in a restaurant or chef’s kitchen – in our own homes! They’ve worked for us so we know they will work for you, too!
Food is a big part of any culture, and that said, especially of Italian culture. Italians take great pride in the food they prepare and serve at home and in the many family run restaurants that dot the Italian landscape. Wonderful chef-driven restaurants abound in Italy as well.
That is why the Conversational Italian for Travelers Phrase Book contains a special section on Restaurant Vocabulary! Take this pocket book of phrases along on your visits to Italy and read descriptions of the food you will be eating while in the restaurant, before you order!
You may want to use our pocket reference book or our Conversational Italian for Travelers textbook even before leaving for your trip to Italy to learn how to read those restaurant menus ahead of time!
But, for now, experience some Italian cuisine at home by sampling our recipes!
Learn how to make classic Italian desserts, like Tiramisù:
Recipe: FamousTiramisù
Learn how to make wonderful Italian main courses:
Recipe: Bolognese Meat Sauce
Recipe: Shrimp Scampi
And classic, hearty Italian soups:
Recipe: Italian Lentil Soup
Follow our blog for a new recipe you will surely want to try about once a month! And visit our website at Learn Travel Italian for cultural notes and interactive audio dialogues to really feel a part of Italian life and culture!
Italian chicken broth with wispy strands of eggs is called “Egg Drop Soup” at my family’s home but is known better as Stracciatella, or “Rags Soup.” For the perfect children’s chicken soup, instead add tiny pastas called pastina stars to your homemade chicken broth. Which is better? Make them both and you decide!
When I was a child, my mother’s chicken soup was a welcome treat that accompanied the cool breezes of fall and sustained us through the cold winter months. We children loved when she returned home from the “chicken farm” down the road with stewing chickens because we knew that her delicious chicken soup would soon follow!
Italian chicken soup starts with a hearty chicken broth, or “brodo.” Chicken broth is simplicity to make, with just a few ingredients most home cooks have around the house. My mother would drizzle beaten eggs into her chicken broth to make wispy yellow strands of scrambled eggs, for “Egg Drop Soup” as my family called it, also known by its more traditional name of “Stracciatella “ or “Rags Soup.” And, I think every Italian adult has fond memories of their lunches at home as a young child, especially when they discovered tiny star-shaped “pastina” pastas in their chicken broth for “Pastina Soup!”
To make the most flavorful Italian chicken soup, start with a broth made with “stewing” chickens. Stewing chickens are the older, tougher chickens that will soften but not loose their flavor entirely and make a nice broth after even just 1 to 1 1/2 hours of cooking in liquid. The meat of stewing chickens usually can be removed from the bones and added to the soup if desired. Younger frying or broiling chickens can also be used to make chicken broth, but in this case the cooking time should be increased to 2 or 3 hours and by this time most of the chicken’s flavor will have been given up to the soup, rendering the chicken flavorless.
Italian moms know that adding a small tomato will make the chicken broth sweeter, a small potato will add a little starch for body, and if you leave the outer leaves on the onion the broth will become a golden color. Try my family’s simple method and I’m sure your children will agree: Italian chicken soup is the quintessential comfort food!
1 stewing chicken, 3-4 lbs., rinsed, quartered
with fat trimmed off
4 carrots, rinsed and chopped coarsely
2 celery sticks, rinsed and cut in half
1 onion, (skin on or off), rinsed and cut in half
1 small tomato, quartered
1 small waxy potato (not russet), yellow or red
Optional: Small bundle of fresh parsley stalks from garden
salt to taste
Method for Italian Chicken Broth
Rinse the stewing chicken well. Ask the butcher to quarter it for you, or cut the chicken into quarters if needed. Rinse again to clean off again.
(Additional step if desired to give a clearer broth: Pre-cook the chicken briefly: Put chicken in a pot of cold water and bring to the boil slowly. Skim off the foam that comes to the top, then discard the water and continue with the rest of the method.)
Place the quartered chicken into a large soup pot. Add cold water 3/4 to the top of the pot.
Add the carrots, celery, onion, tomato and potato.
Bring to the boil and then quickly turn down heat to keep the broth cooking at a simmer.
Continue to cook the soup uncovered. Skim off any “skuzz” or “foam” that floats to the top periodically, but do not stir the broth, which will yield a cloudy soup.
When the soup has cooked down to desired flavor — at least 1 1/2 to 2 hours, remove the chicken and the vegetables.
Taste the chicken and if it remains flavorful, remove it from the bones and reserve the meat to add to the soup if desired. The vegetables will usually lose all their flavor and should be discarded and new, finely-chopped vegetables added to the finished soup. (If not, the soup should probably be cooked for a little longer time, but that is of course a matter of taste!)
Strain the broth to remove any small particles that may have formed.
(Additional step that can be omitted: If you do not need the broth right away, or if on a low-fat diet, store the strained broth in a pot in the refrigerator. By the next day, the fat will have floated to the top and hardened and can easily be skimmed off with a spoon.)
Add salt to the broth as desired and then finish as below and make into a soup.
Italian Egg Drop Soup
Ingredients
(Makes about 4 cups)
4 cups Italian chicken broth, homemade or canned
2 eggs, beaten lightly
1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
salt to taste
Optional: Fresh parsley stalk and leaves from garden for garnish
Method for Egg Drop Soup*
Use a small bowl or large measuring cup with a spout, if possible. Mix the eggs and Parmesan cheese together lightly.
Place the 4 cups of cold chicken broth into a pot that can hold about 6 cups.
Adjust salt as desired.
Use medium-low heat to gradually bring the broth to a boil. Watch closely as the broth comes to a boil.
When small bubbles start to appear, and the broth is almost at a simmer, while mixing, drizzle the egg/cheese mixture into the pot slowly, allowing the eggs to cook briefly before adding more of the mixture.
When all egg has been added and partially cooked, mix lightly with a fork to keep the egg separated until the egg has completely cooked.
Watch the Instagram video below to see this method in action!
*For an alternative method, that will yield small strands of egg mixed more completely into the soup,called Stracciatella soup, omit the Parmesan cheese. Mix about 1 cup of the warm broth into the lightly mixed eggs and then pour all of the egg/broth mixture into the warm broth. Bring to a boil and watch the smaller egg strands form.
To make larger “rags,” omit the Parmesan cheese and very lightly beat the egg mixture so that some of the white remains visible. Bring the soup to a low boil, and drizzle in the egg mixture a bit at a time while stirring gently with a fork.
When the egg is cooked through, it is ready to eat, topped with Parmesan cheese of course!
Italian Pastina Soup for Children
Ingredients
(Makes about 4 cups)
4 cups Italian chicken broth, homemade or canned
1/3 cup pastina (little stars) pasta
Method for Pastina Soup for Children
For 4 cups of chicken broth, use 1/3 cup pastina star pasta
Place the 4 cups of cold chicken broth into a pot that can hold about 6 cups.
Cook as you would for any other pasta:
Set the chicken broth on the stove over medium high heat and heat to a rolling boil.
Add salt to taste, cover, bring to boil again, and then uncover and add pastina pasta.
Stir pasta, cover and bring to a boil again.
Take cover off and stir.
Let the pasta cook until al-dente (“to the tooth”). In this case, you will see the pasta stars grow. When pasta has finished cooking, ladle the soup into a bowl .
Present to small children with Italian bread for a warm and satisfying lunch!
— by Kathryn Occhipinti
Kathryn Occhipinti, MD, is the author of the Conversational Italian for Travelersseries of books and a teacher of Italian for travelers to Italy in the Peoria and Chicago area. “Everything you need to know to enjoy your visit to Italy!”
Visitlearntravelitalian.com/download.html to purchase/download Conversational Italian for Travelers and find more interesting facts and helpful hints about getting around Italy!Learn how to buy train tickets online, how to make international and local telephone calls, and how to decipher Italian coffee names and restaurant menus, all while gaining the basic understanding of Italian that you will need to know to communicate easily and effectively while in Italy. —From the staff at Stella Lucente, LLC
Italian Chicken Broth: Make Egg Drop Soup or Make it with Pastina Stars
Growing up as I did with two Italian-American parents means that to me, summertime will always be the time for gardening—and enjoying the fresh vegetables and fruits of that garden!
As I’ve written in my last blog under Italian and Italian-American Recipes, both sides of my Italian family have established summer vegetable gardens here in America. My grandfather was a master gardener, and used knowledge he brought over from Sicily to create his perfect garden in a very small patch of land in Brooklyn, New York.
Most of my grandfather’s yard was dedicated to all kinds of vegetables and fruits, perfectly staked in neat rows so that no space was lost on his small plot of land. There were all kinds of tomatoes, both large and small, and green and red peppers of all types. Vines of zucchini, or in Italian, molte zucchine, were somehow trained to grow between the rows of tomatoes and peppers. My grandfather grew the “typical” dark green zucchini found in all American supermarkets today, harvested at about 5-6″ long.
Recently, though, I’ve learned of a squash called cucuzza, which is so popular in the south of Italy that the word cucuzza has replaced the word zucchinewhen people talk about squash grown in the summertime. Read below for some “fun facts” about this type of squash and Italian-American culture.
A famous long, thin, light green squash that is harvested in the summer from southern Italy and Sicily is known as “cucuzza.”Cucuzza (pronounced “goo-gooz” in Sicilian dialect) typically grows from 1 to 3 feet. Unlike a true summer squash, the skin from this squash must be peeled before cooking. There is a well-known Sicilian proverb that states, “Cucinala come vuoi, sempre cucuzza è!” meaning, “However you cook it, it’s still just squash!”
Cucuzza is also used as an endearing term for a young girl in a 1950’s Italian novelty song sung by Louis Prima called, “My Cucuzza.” He sings about the vegetable, “Cucuza grows in Italy down on the farm. It’s something like zucchini flavored with Italian charm… I call my girl cucuzza because she’s as sweet as can be.” To hear the song sung by Louis Prima in it’s entirety, click this My Cucuzza link.
To continue with the story of my family, while my grandfather was busy gardening, my grandmother was busy in the kitchen! She created wonderful dishes from zucchini, which was a favorite summer vegetable in my mother’s house and is in my house today.
Pasta with zucchini and fresh tomatoes and basil is a classic Italian combination that my grandmother and mother made frequently. In this dish, chopped tomatoes are cooked in olive oil just to soften, and left chunky, which is different than the more usual pureed tomato sauce of winter in Southern Italian households. In the recipe below, I’ve used bow-tie pasta, which makes it fun for kids of all ages to eat their zucchini! Note that basil, not oregano, is the herb of choice for any type of pasta and “fresh tomato sauce” combination.
My mother recently remembered my grandmother’s summer version of “Spaghetti Aglio Olio,” or spaghetti with garlic in olive oil, which was modified in the summer to include zucchini slices fried gently in the garlic-flavored olive oil until a light golden color. I made this simple recipe for my family’s dinner one recent summer evening, and topped with Parmesan cheese it quickly disappeared.
Yes, with the zucchini and pasta combination recipes that I share below, children of all ages will love to eat their vegetables! I hope your family enjoys this zucchini recipes as much as my family does! -Kathryn Occhipinti
Zucchini with Bow Tie Pasta and Fresh Tomato-Basil Sauce
Ingredients
(Serves 1-4)
3 cloves of garlic, chopped coarsely
2 medium-size zucchini, chopped coarsely
4 plumb tomatoes, chopped coarsely
1 large bunch of fresh basil,
leaves stripped from stems and hand-torn
1 box (1 lb.) bow-tie pasta, cooked al-dente
1/2 cup coarsely grated Parmesan cheese
salt to taste
Method
Set a pot of water on the stove to boil for making the spaghetti. When the water does boil, add salt, cover, bring to boil again, and then uncover and add bow-tie pasta. Stir pasta, cover and bring to a boil again. Take cover off and stir. Let the pasta cook until al-dente (“to the tooth”), or slightly firm, stirring occasionally, while you cook the zucchini below.
The rest of the dish is made in a large frying pan with high sides.
Add enough olive oil to almost cover the frying pan and then heat gently on medium-high heat.
Add chopped garlic and let soften.
Add chopped zucchini and a sprinkle of salt, and let soften, stirring frequently, so the zucchini does not burn, but browns lightly.
Add chopped tomatoes and freshly torn basil leaves, and stir.
Add a bit of the pasta water and turn the heat down to simmer. Let the sauce cook for 10 – 15 minutes, until all vegetables have softened, but are still a bit firm, stirring frequently.
When the “sauce” is ready, drain the pasta and add to the frying pan. Depending on the size of zucchinis and tomatoes you use, you may have a little less or more sauce than needed for 1 lb. of pasta. Add “enough” pasta to the frying pan so when it is mixed it is coated lightly with the “sauce.”
Add the coarsely grated Parmesan cheese and mix again. Salt to taste.
Serve with additional grated Parmesan cheese on the side and enjoy!
Check out my Instagram post if you’d like to see me actively making this zucchini and pasta dish. A delicious dinner or side dish will be ready in no time with this classic Italian combination!
Zucchini with Spaghetti Aglio Olio (Zucchini with Spaghetti in Garlic and Olive Oil)
Ingredients
(Serves 1-4)
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 to 4 medium sized zucchini, sliced into thin rounds
(cut the zucchini cross-wise from one end to the other,
as in photo of cucuzza above)
1 lb. of spaghetti
1/2 cup coarsely grated Parmesan cheese
salt to taste
Method
Set a pot of water on the stove to boil for making the spaghetti. When the water does boil, add salt, cover, bring to boil again, and then uncover and add spaghetti. Stir spaghetti, cover and bring to a boil again. Take cover off and stir. Let the spaghetti cook until al-dente (“to the tooth”), or slightly firm, stirring occasionally, while you cook the zucchini below.
The rest of the dish is made in a large frying pan with high sides.
Add enough olive oil to almost cover the frying pan and then heat gently on medium-high heat.
Add the crushed garlic cloves and let soften to flavor the oil.
Add sliced zucchini, spreading over the pan in one layer, so the zucchini can fry in the oil evenly. You will need to do this in 2 or more batches if cooking more zucchini slices than the size pan you have can accomodate.
After a about 5 minutes, when the zucchini rounds have softened, turn and let the other side soften.
Continue to cook until zucchini rounds have shrunk and turned a light, golden brown.
When the zucchini is ready, drain the spaghetti and put into a large serving bowl.
Add the fried zucchini from the pan, without draining the olive oil from the zucchini rounds. Mix. Add additional olive oil from the pan as needed to coat the spaghetti lightly and evenly.
Add the coarsely grated Parmesan cheese and mix again. Salt to taste.
Serve with additional grated Parmesan cheese on the side and enjoy!
Check out my Instagram site (soon to be posted) if you’d like to see me actively making zucchini and spaghetti aglio olio. A delicious dinner or side dish will be ready in no time with this classic Italian combination!
— by Kathryn Occhipinti
Kathryn Occhipinti, MD, is the author of the Conversational Italian for Travelersseries of books and a teacher of Italian for travelers to Italy in the Peoria and Chicago area. “Everything you need to know to enjoy your visit to Italy!”
Visitlearntravelitalian.com/download.html to purchase/download Conversational Italian for Travelers and find more interesting facts and helpful hints about getting around Italy!Learn how to buy train tickets online, how to make international and local telephone calls, and how to decipher Italian coffee names and restaurant menus, all while gaining the basic understanding of Italian that you will need to know to communicate easily and effectively while in Italy. —From the staff at Stella Lucente, LLC
Growing up as I did with two Italian-American parents means that to me, summertime will always be the time for gardening—and enjoying the fresh vegetables and fruits of that garden!
Both sides of my Italian family have established summer vegetable gardens here in America. My grandfather was a master gardener, and used knowledge he brought over from Sicily to create his perfect garden in a very small patch of land in Brooklyn, New York. As a small child, I knew that my fondest memories of summer would begin as I opened the large, decorative, black iron gate to enter what to me was a miraculous place – my grandparent’s a two story attached brick building that had my grandfather’s grape vines growing happily along the only free side. Out back, there was a small cement landing where the family gathered amid large decorative clay pots of herbs, with a pergola for the ripened grapes to hang from and provide shade, of course!
The rest of my grandfather’s yard was dedicated to all kinds of vegetables and fruits, perfectly staked in neat rows so that no space was lost on his small plot of land. I loved picking the perfectly red, vine-ripened tomatoes, green peppers and fresh, soft purple figs to take home. Yes, my grandfather even managed to keep fig trees alive during the cold NYC winters by bundling the branches up a pail and covering them with blankets, just so we could enjoy baskets of fresh figs for the summer. And enjoy them we did!
While my grandfather was busy gardening, my grandmother was busy in the kitchen! She created wonderful tomato salads for summertime with our fresh tomatoes and our favorite herb—basil, with its leaves freshly pinched off right from the stem of the plant. Even today, the women in my family keep a small pot or glass with water by the kitchen window with cuttings of fresh basil ready to make a cool tomato Caprese salad or a Panzanella salad for lunch.
Making Caprese and Panzanella salads entails following a couple of simple methods, using whatever you have on hand, rather than following a strict recipe step by step. However, it is best to come as close as possible to the recommended ingredients, as the ingredients themselves will be the stars of each dish.
For the most mouth-watering Caprese salad imaginable, use fresh, vine-ripened tomatoes and soft, fresh buffalo mozzarella. In fact, do not make this salad if you do not have a soft, buffalo mozzarella, as this is the mozzarella that is used in the island of Capri, just outside Naples, where the salad originated. The hard mozzarella is for cooking, as it melts easily; it is too rubbery to be eaten with the soft, vine-ripened tomatoes and will not meld with the tomato juices and olive oil properly.
Coarse sea salt adds extra flavor to the tomatoes and will draw out their juices to meld with the olive oil for the dressing. Top all with a generous drizzle of your favorite pungent or fruity, extra-virgin olive oil from Italy, rather than the a more bland olive oil that you would use for cooking on the stove top.
A note about extra-virgin olive oils: A truly fresh extra-virgin olive oil will have a bit of a peppery flavor. Most olive oils sold in the US are old enough to have lost this peppery overtone, but will retain varying degrees of fruitiness and grassiness. Taste a few first press, 100% extra-virgin olive oils from different regions of Italy and you will be surprised at the nuances in flavor each brings!
For Panzanella salad, which probably originated as a clever way to use up day-old, stale bread with red onion for flavor, be sure to use a crusty loaf of good* Italian bread that is at least two days old and has dried out and hardened. Bread that has become stale naturally will need to be sprinkled with water to soften a bit prior to making this salad. Place the bread in a small bowl and sprinkle it with water the morning before you are planning to make the salad. The end result should not leave the bread mushy; the bread should spring back to life after the water is added if you are truly working with real Italian bread. If the crust is still too hard, it can be removed. Remember that the bread will continue to soften when it is combined with the vinegar and tomato juice when you make the salad.
If you want to make Panzanella salad with fresh Italian bread, you can always cut it into slices and dry it out in the oven just enough to be crunchy, or even add a bit of olive oil and brown it a bit to make croutons.
Panzanella salad originally did not contain mozzarella, but I like to include buffalo mozzerella in small pieces (bocconcini are nice), even though this is not traditional.
And, of course, large, sweet, fresh basil leaves from the garden are an essential ingredient for both Caprese and Panzanella salads!
But, whatever ingredients you have on hand, I’m sure you will enjoy these simple and refreshing tomato and basil salads on a hot summer day! -Kathyn Occhipinti
*Good Italian bread means Italian bread made in a bakery with the correct flour and cooked so that it has the proper, crunchy crust and soft but chewy texture. Only bread that has a good texture to begin with will “spring back” to life when you sprinkle it with water! Do not attempt Panzanella salad with cheap, grocery store bread labeled “Italian bread,” which will usually have a very soft grain and often even a soft crust and turn to mush when moistened again with water. And of course, no American “white bread” please!
In an individual or large dish, create colorful layers of tomato slices (sprinkled with sea salt), mozzarella slices, and basil leaves.
If making in a large plate of Caprese salad for a crowd, have the tomato and mozzarella slices lengthwise once they are assembled and place a piece of mozzarella in the center to create a “flower” pattern, as in the picture above. Decorate with extra basil.
Let sit for about 15 minutes for the tomato juices to develop. Drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil.
Serve with Italian bread to mop up the tomato juices and enjoy!
Check out my Instagram post if you’d like to see me actively making a Caprese salad that can be shared by two people. Remember, the correct choice of ingredients is the key to this simple “salad. A touch of sea-salt to bring the juices out of the tomatoes that provide the acid for the “vinaigrette” and a drizzle of your favorite extra-virgin olive oil makes an exquisite summertime treat!
Panzanella Salad
Italian Panzanella salad with halved cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, fresh torn basil and bread
Ingredients
(Serves 1-4)
Dry Italian bread, cubed, or large croutons
Sprinkle the dried Italian bread with water to soften
(see comments about the proper bread to use above)
1-2 large, vine-ripened tomato, cut into small wedges
or several cherry tomatoes, halved
sprinkle lightly with sea salt
1/2 red onion, sliced thinly into crescents
Extra-virgin Italian olive oil
Italian red wine vinegar
Mozzarella, preferably soft, cubed or small bocconcini (optional)
Large, freshly picked basil leaves, hand torn
Method
In a large dish, combine small wedges of fresh tomatoes or halved cherry tomatoes and dry Italian bread (as pre-processed as above) and red onions.
Drizzle on extra virgin Italian olive oil and red wine vinegar and combine. Make sure the bread has softened enough to be edible. If not, you may want to let the ingredients sit for a bit before finishing the salad.
Then add the optional mozzarella and torn basil leaves.
Mix gently.
Taste and drizzle with extra olive oil and vinegar if needed.
Mix again gently to combine all and enjoy!
— by Kathryn Occhipinti
Kathryn Occhipinti, MD, is the author of the Conversational Italian for Travelersseries of books and a teacher of Italian for travelers to Italy in the Peoria and Chicago area. “Everything you need to know to enjoy your visit to Italy!”
Visitlearntravelitalian.com/download.html to purchase/download Conversational Italian for Travelers and find more interesting facts and helpful hints about getting around Italy!Learn how to buy train tickets online, how to make international and local telephone calls, and how to decipher Italian coffee names and restaurant menus, all while gaining the basic understanding of Italian that you will need to know to communicate easily and effectively while in Italy. —From the staff at Stella Lucente, LLC
Caprese and Panzanella Salads with Fresh Tomatoes and Basil
When I was growing up in New York, my mother made a version of light, fresh-tasting cheesecake that my family loved. After I became older and moved away from home, I would often order what was called “New York Style” cheesecake in restaurants, hoping for a dessert that that would come close to the memory I had of my mother’s heavenly version.
What I came to realize over the years was that “New York Style” cheesecake is not at all like the cheesecake that my used to make while we were living in New York. I could not understand why the restaurant cheesecake served to me often had an off flavor (can you say artificial ingredients?) and a texture that was heavy, and even gooey or sticky.
Of course, as I discovered when I finally asked my mother for her recipe, the reason the cheesecake I had at home was so different from what I found in restaurants was the type of cheese my mother used. The ricotta cheese that my mother would get freshly made from the Italian deli after church every Sunday yielded a delicious, light, and almost crumbly cheesecake, gently held together by a few fresh eggs, flavored lightly with vanilla and given a fresh taste with a bit of lemon zest. Which is not to say the other, more creamy versions made with cream cheese are not good if made with fresh ingredients. They are just not Italian ricotta cheesecake!
The Italian crust my mother makes for her ricotta cheesecake also yields another subtle layer of flavor. The method used to make the Italian version of a smaller fruit “crostata” or “tart” transfers to the thicker cheesecakes made in Italy. A “pasta frolla,” or “sweet pastry” crust lines the bottom of the tart and a lattice crust nicely decorates the top of the tart, and a true Italian cheesecake will have a lattice crust! The crust for this cheesecake is flavored with a bit of lemon zest and brandy, which nicely compliments the taste of the fresh ricotta.
I modified the traditional lattice crust for Valentines Day by cutting an open heart into the top lattice crust. After baking the cheesecake, I let it cool a bit and then I spread some good raspberry jam into the center of the heart for color and a little extra flavor.
Making the Italian ricotta cheesecake in the recipe below was even more fun for me than usual because I was able to use my new time-lapse photography software for my cell phone. If you want to see the video of my home cooked Italian ricotta cheesecake in the making, just click on the link below for the magic of Instagram!
My family loved this cheesecake as an early Valentines Day present. I hope your loved ones will too! -Kathryn Occhipinti
Slice of Italian Ricotta Cheesecake with Raspberry Jam topping and coffee
Ingredients
(Makes One, 9″ Cheesecake)
Pasta Folla for the Crust 2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cups unsalted butter
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 Tbsp brandy
1 tsp grated lemon zest
Ricotta Filling
2 1/2 lbs. fresh ricotta cheese* 1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon zest
2 large eggs beaten lightly
Topping powdered sugar
raspberry jam
fresh raspberries
Method
Before starting to make the cheesecake, set an oven rack into the lower third of your oven and preheat your oven to 350°.
Assemble the Springform pan and lock the bottom in place. (If you don’t have a Springform pan, you can use a deep dish pie pan.)
For the crust:
In a large, wide bowl, mix the flour, sugar, and salt together with a fork.
Cut in 3/4 cup unsalted butter with a pastry cutter or your hands, running your thumb across your fingers to create small, flat, “flakes” of butter (method shown in Instagram video).
Add the lightly beaten eggs, brandy and lemon zest.
Mix together with a fork gently and then your hands gently until the dough comes together to form a disk.
Pull off pieces of the dough and use this to line the bottom of a 9″ Springform pan. Reform the remainder of the dough into a disk and refrigerate in plastic wrap 30 minutes.
Pop into the oven and bake 8 – 10 minutes at 350°, or until lightly brown and set, but not cooked through.
Take out of oven and let cool before filling.
For the filling:
Using a large spoon or an electric mixer on low, gently mix together the ricotta cheese, sugar, flour salt, vanilla and lemon zest.
Add the 2 beaten eggs and mix gently to combine.
Pour the filling into the pre-baked, cooled crust in the Springform pan.
Take out the disk of reserved dough from the refrigerator. Roll the dough out on a floured board.
Cut one side of the rolled out dough into 4 long strips and place each strip onto the periphery of the filling to create the four sides of a square. Cut out a heart the size to fit into the center of the square. (You can cut the heart out of paper at first until you get the right size and then use this as a stencil to trace when cutting the dough if you are not comfortable cutting the heart free hand. And if it doesn’t work the first time, just put the dough back together and try again!)
Place the cheesecake in the oven and bake at 350 degrees about 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until set and lightly brown on the edges.
Complete the Cheesecake:
Let the cheesecake cool a bit.
Sprinkle all over with powdered sugar.
For a special occasion such as Valentines Day, spread a thin layer of raspberry jam into the cheesecake, in the center of the heart and/or between the lattice crust.
Top with fresh raspberries if desired.
Let set in the refrigerator overnight or at least 3 hours before enjoying!
*How to Find Good Ricotta Cheese Today, I live near two small grocery store chains that make ricotta cheese fresh daily, and I would advise using this ricotta cheese instead of the mass produced (and preservative filled) ricotta cheese found on the shelves in most grocery stores. If you have access to good, farm-fresh milk, it is actually easy to make your own cheese – but that is the subject of another blog!
— by Kathryn Occhipinti
Kathryn Occhipinti, MD, is the author of the Conversational Italian for Travelersseries of books and a teacher of Italian for travelers to Italy in the Peoria and Chicago area. “Everything you need to know to enjoy your visit to Italy!”
Visitlearntravelitalian.com/download.html to purchase/download Conversational Italian for Travelers and find more interesting facts and helpful hints about getting around Italy!Learn how to buy train tickets online, how to make international and local telephone calls, and how to decipher Italian coffee names and restaurant menus, all while gaining the basic understanding of Italian that you will need to know to communicate easily and effectively while in Italy. —From the staff at Stella Lucente, LLC
Pasta with lentils or lentil soup is a New Year’s tradition in many Italian households. The lentil dishes are said to bring to luck to the family on New Year’s Day. I am not sure if anyone really knows exactly why lentils are supposed to be good luck. Maybe it is because they are shaped like small coins?
Whatever the reason, pasta and lentils is a hearty and delicious winter combination. Lentils are rich in protein, and the pasta/lentil combination was probably an important contribution to family nutrition in the days of the “cucina povera” cooking in Italy. Flavored with a bit of pancetta (Italian peppery bacon), garlic and tomato, the lentils make a delicious sauce that coats the pasta beautifully.
I used “maltagliati” or “poorly cut” pasta for this dish, which to me is reminiscent of its “cucina povera,” origins but also because the lentils cling nicely to the short, flat noodles. If you cannot find maltagliati pasta, lasagna noodles broken by hand into small, irregular pieces will give a similar effect.
Buon anno 2019 a tutti! Try my pasta and lentils dish on a wintry day for a warm and comforting meal. -Kathyn Occhipinti
Pasta and Lentils ready to serve for Italian New Year’s Sunday dinner
Ingredients
(Serves 4)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup pancetta (Italian bacon), diced finely
1 small carrot, chopped finely*
1 stalk of celery, chopped finely*
1 small onion, skin removed, chopped finely*
1 small clove garlic, chopped finely
1/2 cup dry Italian wine, such as Chianti
1 cup Italian lentils, rinsed
1 bay leaf
pinch of dried thyme or rosemary
3 cups of water
1/2 cup of chicken or vegetable broth
1/2 cup chopped tomatoes
1 Tbsp. tomato puree
1 lb. maltagliati pasta or lasagna noodles, coarsely broken into small pieces
1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Pecorino Romano cheese *See below for note about how to chop soup vegetables.
Method
Before starting to make the lentil sauce, put a large pot of salted water to boil on a back burner. Cover so it will come to a boil quickly and be ready when you need to cook the pasta.
Use a large frying pan or Dutch oven to cook the lentils on the stove top. Coat the bottom of the pan with olive oil, which will take about 1/4 cup or so. Let the oil heat a bit over medium heat.
Add the chopped vegetables: carrots, celery, onions, and garlic, and saute in the garlic until they soften, about 5 minutes.
The pour in the red wine and then bring to a boil. Boil off about half of the wine.
Put the lentils to the pan. If you want firmer lentils, you can saute them at this point. Otherwise, add the water. Stir. Bring back to the boil and then lower heat and simmer the lentils about 20 minutes.
When the lentils have softened a bit, remove the bay leaf. Then add the chopped tomatoes, tomato paste, and chicken or vegetable broth. Add more water if needed. Bring up to a simmer again and cook 10 – 15 minutes more, or until lentils are of desired tenderness.
Meanwhile, put the pasta into the boiling water. Stir. Cover the pot to return to the boil Remove cover, stir again and let pasta cook, stirring occasionally. Cook for less time than the package directions, to a very firm al dente, as the pasta will finish cooking with the lentils.
When the pasta is ready, drain, reserving some of the pasta water.
Add the pasta to the lentils. Add the pasta water if needed. The sauce should be fairly thick and coat the pasta nicely as you mix.
Cook over medium low heat another 5 minutes or so, until all is heated through and pasta is al dente.
Add the grated cheese and mix again to coat.
Serve steaming hot with crusty bread. Serve additional cheese and black pepper on the side to be added as desired.
New Year’s toast: Buon Anno! Buon Appetito!
*How to Chop Vegetables Carrots: Cut lengthwise to half, and then lengthwise again to get quarters. Line them up side by side and then cut crosswise from the tips to the base of the carrot to get small, even pieces that look like quarters of a circle. Celery: Cut lengthwise through each celery stalk as many times as needed to give pieces the same thickness as the carrot pieces. (You will need more lengthwise cuts at the thicker part of the celery near the base.) Then cut crosswise from the tip to the base to get small, rectangular pieces of celery about the same size as the carrot pieces. Onions: Cut lengthwise through the onion. Turn one of the halves flat side down. Holding the onion together with one hand, cut lengthwise along the green lines through the onion, except for the root holding the onion together at the base. Turn and cut horizontally, from the side away from the stem toward the stem. Just before reaching the stem, flip the onion flat again and make the final cuts. Discard the piece that contains the stem.
— by Kathryn Occhipinti
Kathryn Occhipinti, MD, is the author of the Conversational Italian for Travelersseries of books and a teacher of Italian for travelers to Italy in the Peoria and Chicago area. “Everything you need to know to enjoy your visit to Italy!”
Visitlearntravelitalian.com/download.html to purchase/download Conversational Italian for Travelers and find more interesting facts and helpful hints about getting around Italy!Learn how to buy train tickets online, how to make international and local telephone calls, and how to decipher Italian coffee names and restaurant menus, all while gaining the basic understanding of Italian that you will need to know to communicate easily and effectively while in Italy. —From the staff at Stella Lucente, LLC
Italian Pasta and Lentils for New Year’s Good Luck
What makes my Thanksgiving turkey soup Italian, you ask? Well, maybe it actually is an American soup – since turkey is the quintessentially American bird – but made with an Italian touch! Let me explain.
Of course, here in America it is not Thanksgiving without turkey. And, the Italian cook hosting Thanksgiving dinner will not want anyone to miss out on their fair share (read enormous share) of turkey. Which means a large turkey for every family size. Which means the best part of Thanksgiving – leftovers!
Working under the Italian traditions that demand: (1) no food be wasted and (2) all left overs be transformed into a new and delicious dish, one Thanksgiving evening I decided that it would be a waste to throw out the left over turkey bones with all the small bits of meat still clinging to them. Instead of putting the turkey carcass into the garbage, I broke it up a bit and put it into my large stock pot. Then I added a few coarsely chopped vegetables, left over fresh parsley, covered all with water and let the pot simmer on the stove top.
When my 6 year old daughter came down from her room on the second floor of the house and made her way back into the kitchen to ask why I was still cooking and what is was that smelled so good, I knew I had a hit! She insisted on having some of the soup that very night.
I have had a standing request from my family to make Thanksgiving turkey soup every year since that time. The slightly sweet, mild flavor of the roasted turkey comes out beautifully with the long cooking that a soup requires. And, with virtually no effort on my part, the family has a warm, easy meal to heat up themselves for the rest of the weekend.
For the quintessential “Italian” contribution to the soup, add a box of pappardelle noodles or small soup pasta in your favorite shape to make your Thanksgiving turkey soup complete!
I have broken up the steps to make my Thanksgiving turkey soup into two separate days, but once the family smells the broth simmering on the stove, they may want you to finish the soup for a light evening meal that very same night!
Thanksgiving turkey soup with pappardelle noodles ready to serve
Ingredients
For the Turkey Broth (Day 1) 1 (12-16) pound roasted turkey carcass
3 carrots, each cut into 3–4 pieces
2 stalks of celery, cut into 3–4 pieces
2 medium onions, skin removed, cut into halves
1 small clove garlic, skin removed
1 large bundle of fresh parsley stems or 1/4 cup dried parsley
For the Soup
(for 16 -20 cups of broth)
(Day 2) 2 carrots, peeled and chopped finely*
1 stalk celery, chopped finely*
1/4 cup dried parsley or 1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
salt and white pepper
4 rounds of pappardelle pasta, coarsely broken into desired length
(Granoro N. 134) or 1/2 cup Ditali Rigati 59 pasta (Granoro brand) or miniature pasta of choice
Pre-cooked, left-over turkey breast meat, chopped to desired size
*See below for note about how to chop soup vegetables.
Make the Turkey Broth (Day 1)
Put the turkey carcass and any left over bones desired into a large stock pot.
Make turkey broth for the Thanksgiving turkey soup in the largest pot you have!
(This step can be skipped, but for the clearest broth: Cover the bones with cold water, bring to a rolling boil and then turn down to a simmer. Simmer for 10 – 15 minutes and skim off the “froth” that will come to the surface. Pour out this water and then continue with the steps that follow.)
Add the vegetables and whole garlic clove into the pot with the turkey bones.
Note that these vegetables will be cooked until they have released all their flavor and will be removed before making the final soup, so there is no need to peel and chop them finely. Just wash, chop coarsely, and add to the soup pot.
Tie a bunch of parsley stalks together with food string and add them to the soup pot.
Turn the heat up to high and cover the pot to get it to boil. When the water comes to a boil, remove the lid and lower the heat to medium. Keep the water at a low boil/simmer and let the bones and vegetables cook slowly for 3–5 hours.
Skim any surface froth that may develop during cooking with a large spoon, but do not stir, or the broth will get cloudy.
Add additional water if necessary and continue cooking until the broth has the desired flavor. The broth should reduce during the cooking time, and the final amount will vary, depending on the size of the bird you start with and how long you let the soup cook. But expect enough soup to make about two pots of soup of 16 -20 cups each.
When the broth is done, the carcass should be falling apart, the meat should be falling off the bones and the vegetables will be very mushy.
Turn off the heat and let cool. Remove larger pieces of bone and vegetables with a straining ladle to leave the broth in the pot.
Pour the broth through a colander with fine holes to remove any particulate matter, then store it in a large plastic containers in the refrigerator overnight.
(I usually get enough broth to fill at least 2 large bowl-shaped plastic containers when using a turkey 12 lbs. or larger, so I put one in the refrigerator and freeze the rest to make turkey soup later in the month.)
Make the Soup (Day 2)
The next day, remove the broth from the refrigerator. Skim off the fat that will have floated to the top and hardened overnight and discard.
Place the desired amount of broth into a large pot.
Add the chopped carrot and celery and bring to a boil, cooking until the vegetables have softened a bit.
Add salt and a bit of white pepper to taste.
When the water is boiling, add the pasta of your choice, and cook according to package directions. The pappardelle pasta I use takes only 6 minutes to cook.
Cook to “al dente” (a little firm) according to package directions. If not serving the soup right away, under cook it a bit, because pasta will absorb water as it sits in the soup.
Prior to serving , add the pre-cooked, left over turkey breast (or dark meat if preferred) cut to desired size and chopped parsley to warm through.
Serve in a large soup bowl garnished with fresh parsley.
Refrigerate leftovers to eat later in the week, if there are any!
*How to Chop Soup Vegetables Carrots: Cut lengthwise to half, and then lengthwise again to get quarters. Line them up side by side and then cut crosswise from the tips to the base of the carrot to get small, even pieces that look like quarters of a circle. Celery: Cut lengthwise through each celery stalk as many times as needed to give pieces the same thickness as the carrot pieces. (You will need more lengthwise cuts at the thicker part of the celery near the base.) Then cut crosswise from the tip to the base to get small, rectangular pieces of celery about the same size as the carrot pieces.
— by Kathryn Occhipinti
Kathryn Occhipinti, MD, is the author of the Conversational Italian for Travelersseries of books and a teacher of Italian for travelers to Italy in the Peoria and Chicago area. “Everything you need to know to enjoy your visit to Italy!”
Visitlearntravelitalian.com/download.html to purchase/download Conversational Italian for Travelers and find more interesting facts and helpful hints about getting around Italy!Learn how to buy train tickets online, how to make international and local telephone calls, and how to decipher Italian coffee names and restaurant menus, all while gaining the basic understanding of Italian that you will need to know to communicate easily and effectively while in Italy. —From the staff at Stella Lucente, LLC
The blog title, “Mom’s Best Italian Meatballs,” came about during an event I attended with the Chicagoland Italian American Professionals (CIAP) this fall. The executive director, Salvatore Sciacca and his group, feature Italian-American “cooking competition” events several times a year, and I have to say, they are always a delicious and entertaining way to spend a Sunday afternoon with my family.
So, when I was invited to be one of the home cooks for this fall’s event, The First Annual Meatball Fest, I quickly checked my calendar, noted I was available, and signed up for another Sunday afternoon of Italian-American food and fun.
I had learned my family recipe for Italian meatballs from my Sicilian-American mother and grandmother long ago, and have been preparing meatballs for my own family for Italian Sunday dinners for about 20 years now. I was happy to share my family’s recipe with other families at the event, and also looking forward to tasting what the other home cooks had to offer.
Growing up in an Italian-American household as I did, I really did not have to do anything special to prepare for the Italian meatball event held by the CIAP group – at least, I thought I didn’t have to do anything special !
As it turned out, though, after hearing the other home cooks talk about their method for making meatballs, I came home curious about the origins of this very common Italian-American dish and ended up doing a bit of research after the event!
The morning of the CIAP event, I rummaged around the basement to find my trusty crock pot, rinsed it off, and set a pot of tomato sauce to cook on the stove. I set a large bowl on the counter and followed the same routine as I have done many times before for my family: put ground beef and all other ingredients into the large bowl, mix gently, and roll into balls.
Italian meatball ingredients ready to mixOne Italian meatball ready to fry!
I am from the “Italian Mom’s Cooking School” that fries, rather than bakes meatballs to brown them. ( Sorry, I hope I haven’t offended anyone – I know there is a BIG debate about this in the Italian-American community, but I think browning dries out the meatballs and is better left to restaurants making large batches of meatballs at one time.)
I browned my meatballs in olive oil carefully, turning each with tongs to get them browned on all sides.
Italian meatballs frying in olive oilTurn Italian meatballs gently to brown all sides evenly.
After the meatballs had browned, I added them gently to the simmering pot of tomato sauce on the stove to finish cooking.
I was taught to always stir my tomato sauce with a wooden spoon, and have a small collection of wooden spoons – some with long handles, some with short handles; some I save just for sauteing onions and garlic, others for “non-onion” savory or sweet dishes – but recently have been using my favorite wooden spoon for my tomato sauce, which I bought as a part of a fundraiser for the National Italian American Foundation.
The NIAF recently started a “Make Sunday Italian Again” campaign, which I love, as it not only promotes Sunday time together with family, but also raises money for their scholarship program by selling these “Nonna spoons” that have the slogan “Make Sunday Italian Again” engraved on the wooden handle. Check out the NIAF website, if you like, after you finish reading this blog, of course!
Italian meatballs cooking in tomato sauce
After about 30 minutes, the meatballs had finished cooking and the sauce had a nice, meaty taste. I adjusted the salt and pepper, put all into the crock pot and left to join the event.
When I arrived at the event, with my tried and true “Mom’s Best Italian Meatballs”, I learned that I was one of 10 different contributors to the dinner! I named my meatballs “Mom’s Best”, because it seems to me that everyItalian mother’s meatballs are loved and considered the best by her family!
Author/Blogger Kathryn Occhipinti at the CIAP 1st Annual Meatball Fest, September 2018
I was happy to see Italian-American home cooks of all ages, and both men and women contributed their meatballs for the event. There were two long tables of meatballs and a long line formed as everyone tried to taste them all.
Enjoying Italian meatballs at the CIAP 1st Annual Meatball Fest
At first, I had thought this would be a competition, but as it turned out, just as I had suspected, although all the meatballs were made with different ingredients, EVERYONE’s meatballs were delicious, and in the end, no vote was taken!
Italian Meatballs to sampleMore Italian Meatballs
Even more Italian meatballs!
Below is a picture of those who participated, holding signs with the names of the type of meatballs they contributed. (I am in the back row and the Executive Director, Salvatore Sciacca, is just to my left.)
Italian home cooks holding signs of the names of their meatballs at CIAP’s 1st Italian Meatball Fest
Read on for the recipe that I used to make my “Mom’s Best Italian Meatballs”. Additional tips I learned from reading about meatballs are given in green italic lettering. As a bonus, I am including my family’s recipe for basic Italian tomato sauce. For tips on making Italian tomato sauce, please visit my blog Braciole – Italian Beef Rolls for Sunday Dinner. Of course, your own favorite tomato sauce will be fine as well!
But don’t stop after reading the first recipe, because when I went home I did a bit of research in Ada Boni’s cook book and discovered more tips on making “the best” meatballs in different styles that you may want to try yourself!
1 medium onion, chopped finely 1 clove garlic, chopped
2 Tablespoons olive oil +more for frying
1 lb. ground beef (80% lean best)
1 egg
3/4 cup Progresso brand Italian bread crumbs
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped finely
Salt and Pepper to taste.
This recipe will serve 4 people; it can easily be doubled or tripled for a crowd!
Coat a small frying pan lightly with some olive oil and add the chopped onion and garlic and a pinch of salt. Saute gently, stirring with a wooden spoon, until the onions and garlic have softened and given their flavor to the olive oil.
(I find that sauteing the onions and garlic gives both a nice mellow taste, and I would recommend not skipping this step. In fact, when my daughter was young, she insisted that she didn’t like onions, so I would remove the onions after competing this step and she never caught on to my trick!)
Put the sauteed onions and garlic, with the olive oil, into a large bowl.
Add the rest of the ingredients: 2 additional tablespoons of olive oil, ground beef, egg, breadcrumbs and parsley.
Sprinkle with salt and a grind of fresh pepper to taste (some people like more pepper, others less).
Mix gently with your hands, careful not to work the meat too much or this may make the meatballs tough!
Adjust amount of breadcrumbs as needed – more if you more, less to make a more “meaty” meatball. If too dry, add a few drops more of olive oil.
(What I learned from researching meatballs – moisten the breadcrumbs in a bit of milk to make for a more tender meatball.)
When the meatball mixture consistency is to your liking, pull a bit of the meat mixture off and roll into a ball to make a meatball. Size of the meatballs is to taste, but of course the larger meatballs will need to finish cooking longer in the tomato sauce.
Set a frying pan coated with olive oil over medium-high heat.
Place the newly rolled meatballs gently into the frying pan. Fry on medium high heat (adjusting as necessary during the frying time), turning each with tongs so all sides become browned.
(What I learned from researching meatballs – roll each in a bit of flour to aid browning if you want.)
After the meatballs have browned, immediately remove them with tongs and gently place into a pot of simmering tomato sauce (recipe below) to finish cooking.
Serve with spaghetti for the Italian-American presentation, or continue on to the following Italian recipes for other serving ideas.
1 medium onion, chopped finely 1 clove garlic, chopped
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 can (28 oz.) Contadina brand tomato puree or chopped tomatoes
1 can Contadina brand tomato paste
1/4 cup dried parsley or chopped fresh parsley leaves
1 Tablespoon dried basil or 2 Tablespoons torn fresh basil
1 Tablespoon of salt or to taste
Heat the olive oil in a large pot and sauté the onions and garlic with a wooden spoon until softened.
Add the tomato puree, tomato paste, parsley, and basil to the same pot.
Add 2 cups of water.
Cover, bring the sauce to a boil, and then reduce heat to medium-low.
Simmer on medium-low heat with the lid partially covering the pot, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon for at least 1 hour, so the sauce does not stick to the bottom of the pot and burn.
Cook for at least 1 hour; at least 1.5 hours if adding meat to the sauce. (Brown any meat in a separate skillet before adding it.)
Add additional water if the sauce becomes too thick, or cook for additional time with the lid of the pot off if the sauce becomes too thin.
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How to Make Italian Meatballs – My research…
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Ada Boni, (1881 – 1973) the author of one of my favorite Italian cook books, Italian Regional Cooking, was a well-loved Italian author and food writer. According to the back flap of the edition of my book, Ada Boni is known throughout Italy as the author of the classic bestselling cook book, Il Talismano della Felicità.
Boni worked as a magazine editor in Italy. This book is a collection of the series of food articles about regional Italian cooking that was originally written for the Italian monthly magazine “Arianna”. The magazine articles cataloged in depth recipes for the entire range of food served in the 14 major regions of Italy, long before the importance of regional cooking was understood here in America. Boni was and still is well-known for the authenticity and variety of her recipes.
The book Italian Regional Cooking is beautifully illustrated, with a spectacular photo montage of each Italian region to be covered at the beginning of each chapter that provides a backdrop for Italian tables laden with dishes from appetizer to dessert that evoke a special family gathering. (There are no images for each individual recipe, however). Although I have an edition from 1969 translated into English, the book is still listed on Amazon today. I found this book about 30 years ago in a book store in California and my cover is tattered by now!
The book cover from “Italian Regional Cooking” by Ada Boni
When I wanted to research Italian meatballs, I searched this cook book in particular for a couple of reasons. First, I wanted to discover if the way Italian-Americans now make meatballs differs significantly from how an Italian in southern Italy makes meatballs. Second, I wanted to see if I could figure out the origins of the meatballs I make today.
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The Ingredients in Sicilian Meatballs
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In answer to my first question – do we make meatballs differently over here than they do in Italy, I searched the chapter in Italian Regional Cookingthat lists the recipes for Sicily. I was pretty certain when I started my search that my family’s recipe was authentic, as it has been handed down from my grandmother, who spent her first 22 years in Sicily, and as the oldest child had been helping her mother with the household cooking since she was a young girl.
It turns out that the ingredients in Ada Boni’s Sicilian“Polpette di Maiale con Pitaggio” are almost identical to my family’s meatballs. “Polpette”* is the Italian word for what we call “meatballs” in America, but the translation given is, “Pork Rissoles with Vegetables”.
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The meat used for the meatball recipe from Sicily is pork, rather than beef, which of course would be more easy to come by in Sicily. If I have ground pork or ground turkey on hand, I occasionally will use this meat to “lighten up” the meatballs. The CIAP cooks used a variety of different meats (see about Neapolitan meatballs below). The meatballs were rolled in a bit of flour before frying, which is an idea I will use from now on.
Instead of breadcrumbs, the recommendation is to soften the “pith of a small roll” with milk and “squeeze it dry.” Several of the home cooks at the CIAP event mentioned using this method instead of bread crumbs, and I will have to try this on my next attempt at making meatballs. And, of course, Progresso brand is an American invention, so here is how we changed the meatball over in America for sure!
Other than that, the ingredients listed for Sicilian Polpette were about the same as the meatballs I had learned to make.The onion my family puts into meatballs was left out, but included were garlic, fresh parsley, grated Parmesan or Pecorino cheese, eggs, salt, pepper, and a bit of flour to coat the meatballs before frying. The flour is another good tip! Most of the CIAP cooks included these ingredients.
How to serve Sicilian meatballs: Suggested serving was with sauteed artichokes (with chokes removed), green peas and fava beans in the same oil used for frying the meatballs.
I have not seen meatballs served this way, but plan on trying this suggestion, which sounds good since true Italian meatballs (I am told, but am not quite convinced) should served with Italian bread, rather than pasta.
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The Ingredients in Neapolitan Meatballs
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When I searched the chapter in Italian Regional Cooking that lists the recipes for Napes-Capagna, I discovered “Polpette di Carne”, translated into “Meatballs in Tomato Sauce Neapolitan Style.”
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The meat used for the meatball recipe from the Naples region is beef, which is probably the most common meat used in America today, although the CIAP cooks used ground pork and a mixture of been and pork as well. One cook even made vegetarian meatballs of her own invention using zucchini flowers (Salvatore’s mother) and I have to say, they were delicious. Again, the meatballs were rolled in a bit of flour before frying.
Breadcrumbs were used in the Neapolitan recipe, of course grated from stale Italian bread, and first moistened with a little milk. This seems like a good idea to me, and I am going to include this tip from now on when I make meatballs.
The remaining ingredients listed for Neapolitan Polpette differed significantly from the meatballs we see most frequently in America today in that they called for yellow raisins, pine nuts, and a bit of lard. Onions were again left out. The remaining ingredients of garlic, parsley, eggs, and Parmesan cheese were the same basic ingredients given in the Sicilian recipe.
I tried the Neapolitan style meatballs one night for dinner (you might notice some pine nuts in the images of my mixing bowl from the first section of the blog!), warning my family that they would taste sweeter than our usual meatball. I have to say the addition of milk and a bit of lard made them the most tender meatballs I have ever had!
But it seems like Americans have lost their taste for a “sweet” meatball, however, and it was a consensus at the CIAP dinner that “no one” here in America used raisins anymore.
How to serve Neapolitan meatballs: Suggested serving was with tomato sauce, and a recipe for simple tomato sauce was provided, as noted in the title for the recipe.
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How to Make Italian Meatballs – My conclusions…
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It seems to me that there are as many ways to make and serve Italian meatballs as there are home cooks to make them! I do find it interesting, though, that here in America we have retained the idea of cooking meatballs in tomato sauce, whether the idea is from Sicily or Naples, and meatballs are paired with spaghetti is indeed an “American classic”.
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* A final tidbit of interesting information: when I looked up the word “polpette” in the dictionary, which means “meatballs,” I discovered that the Italian singular “polpetta” for the singular meatball, has several negative connotations. “Polpetta” can refer to “poisoned bait,” possibly because the reference is to little pieces of meat that are poisoned. “Polpetta” can also be used in a figurative sense, to mean that a person is a “dud” or a “drag.”
—Kathryn Occhipinti
Kathryn Occhipinti, MD, is the author of the Conversational Italian for Travelersseries of books and a teacher of Italian for travelers to Italy in the Peoria and Chicago area. “Everything you need to know to enjoy your visit to Italy!”
Visitlearntravelitalian.com/download.html to purchase/download Conversational Italian for Travelers and find more interesting facts and helpful hints about getting around Italy!Learn how to buy train tickets online, how to make international and local telephone calls, and how to decipher Italian coffee names and restaurant menus, all while gaining the basic understanding of Italian that you will need to know to communicate easily and effectively while in Italy. —From the staff at Stella Lucente, LLC
The recipe title, “One-Pot Italian Chicken Cacciatore,” refers to a type of meat stew made in Italy, presumably when a hunter would bring home a fresh catch. Or possibly, the hunter himself would make this stew with the one pot he had on hand while out in the forest. Exactly where the title comes from is no longer known, and many delicious variations of chicken stew are called “alla cacciatore”—meaning “as a hunter would make”—in Italy today.
For our Italian chicken cacciatore recipe, a whole cut chicken is cooked in one large skillet, using olive oil and fresh summer tomatoes and peppers. Although this dish started out “back in the day” as a stew (in cooking terms, a fricassee), I’ve omitted the flour to make less of a gravy and instead a light, fresh “sauce.” By taking the chicken out of the pot after browning and then putting it back in to finish cooking, the amount of chicken fat in the dish is reduced. I like mushrooms, which I often add to the dish as well.
Hearty, crusty Italian bread makes a perfect accompaniment to Italian chicken cacciatore, although I have to admit that my family does not follow the proper Italian food “rules” when it comes to this dish. If you’ve been to Italy, you know them: the first course (il primo) is pasta, risotto, or gnocchi, and the second course (il secondo) is the meat—all by itself in a sauce or gravy. Fresh vegetables are abundant in Italy, but in Italian restaurants, they must be ordered as a side dish (contorno) during the second course.
Like good Italian-Americans, we eat our chicken with the pasta on the side and cover both in sauce. Add Parmesan cheese if you like, but only to the pasta! I hope your family enjoys this recipe as much as mine does. —Kathryn Occhipinti
1 frying chicken, cut into 2 breasts, 2 thighs/legs, 2 wings
(or any chicken with breasts and thighs of similar size)
approximately 1/4 cup olive oil, and more as needed
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
3/4 cup Italian dry white wine
1 large medium onion, sliced thickly
2 bell peppers (1 green and 1 red preferred), sliced lengthwise
11 (15 oz.) can tomatoes or fresh tomatoes, coarsely chopped, in liquid
6–8 cremini (baby portabella) mushrooms, sliced lengthwise (optional)
(quickly rinsed, gently rubbed dry with a paper towel, stem trimmed)
1/2–1 cup good chicken stock, or water
2 sprigs of Italian flat-leaf parsley (chop off leafy parts and reserve; tie stems in a small bundle)
Full Method
(*Scroll to the end of this section for an abbreviated method for an even quicker weeknight dinner.)
Rinse the frying chicken inside and out, pat dry, and cut into pieces. Reserve the back for chicken soup to be made at a later date!
Sprinkle chicken lightly with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Use a large, shallow pot, Dutch oven, or skillet to cook all ingredients over medium high heat as follows:
Pour olive oil into your pot or skillet to coat the entire bottom of the pot with a thin layer of oil, using approximately 1/4 cup of olive oil.
Add 1 of the cloves of crushed garlic and cook under low heat until it softens and adds flavor to the olive oil, but do not brown.
Remove garlic. Raise heat to medium high.
When the oil has heated, add chicken to the pan skin side down, keeping each piece separate from the other. Let cook without moving the chicken for a few minutes. Lift up one of the chicken pieces gently to check. When the skin has browned lightly, turn chicken pieces once and cook about 5 minutes more.
Remove the chicken to a plate. Pour off any rendered chicken fat and a couple more tablespoons of olive oil so pan is coated lightly.
Add the second piece of crushed garlic, the onions, and the peppers and sauté until all vegetables have softened a bit but have not cooked.
Add the white wine and boil off about 1/2 of the wine. While the wine is boiling, use a wooden spoon to scrape off any browned bits that have stuck to the pan while the chicken was browning.
Add the chopped tomatoes with their juices, bundled fresh parsley stems and optional sliced mushrooms. Then add a few pinches of salt and a few grinds of pepper.
Add enough chicken stock or water to almost cover the chicken and vegetables.
Browned chicken with vegetables and Marsala wine cooking on the stove top.
Cover the skillet, leaving the lid slightly ajar, and cook on medium low heat about 30–40 minutes. The liquid should be simmering but not boiling in order to give a nice consistency of the vegetables and retain their shape. Turn the chicken over a few times gently as it cooks, to ensure even cooking, and add more water as needed. (Additional cooking time will depend on how cooked the chicken was initially, of course.)
Test the chicken to make sure it is cooked through by cutting a slit into one of the breasts. When the chicken is done, the juices should run clear. Just before the chicken is cooked through, you may want to uncover to boil off any excess liquid.
Chicken Cacciatore simmering on the stove top.
This dish is not quite a chicken stew,** and the “sauce” it yields will usually be a bit thin, because we have not added flour as a thickener.
Taste the sauce, and adjust salt and pepper before serving. Remove the parsley stems.
Place the chicken pieces on a large platter or on individual plates. Garnish with fresh parsley leaves.
The “sauce” can be served over the chicken and the dish eaten accompanied by bread, like a stew. But as I’ve noted above, I have to admit that here in America, my family breaks the “pasta first course and meat second course” rule and serves this chicken dish together with pasta. I think that this dish is a great way to introduce children to how delicious fresh vegetables can be. But only put grated Parmesan cheese on your pasta—not the chicken, please!
*Abbreviated Method
With this method, the chicken can be cooked on the stove top, with a large, deep skillet, or started on the stove top and finished in the oven with an oven-safe pot.
(Note: It is not traditional Italian to cook onions and garlic without softening them first in olive oil, but when simmered in hot, salted liquid, onions and garlic will mellow and add a sweet flavor to the sauce.)
Put 1/4 cup olive oil, crushed garlic, sliced onions, sliced peppers, tomatoes and their juices, optional sliced mushrooms, and parsley stalks into your cooking pot of choice. Sprinkle with salt.
Place the chicken, washed, patted dry, and sprinkled with salt and pepper, on top of the vegetables.
Add enough water or stock to just cover the chicken and vegetables. (Omit the white wine in the ingredients list.)
Cook on stove top over high heat to bring the liquid to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, on the stove top or in the oven at 350° until done, about 40–60 minutes. Turn chicken and mix vegetables so all remain in liquid every 15 minutes or so while the chicken is cooking. Add more liquid as necessary. When the chicken is cut with a knife, the juices should be clear when the chicken is cooked through to the proper temperature.
Plate chicken and vegetables in their juices and serve with bread or pasta on the side, as given in the first method.
Chicken Cacciatore served with pasta and sauce from the pot.
**In a stew meat is cut up, sautéed, and braised, with flour as a thickener. In this recipe, we use a generous amount of healthy olive oil. If you want to decrease the amount of fat, the same methods can be followed with skinless, bone-in chicken, browned for a shorter time initially.
—Kathryn Occhipinti
Kathryn Occhipinti, MD, is the author of the Conversational Italian for Travelersseries of books and a teacher of Italian for travelers to Italy in the Peoria and Chicago area. “Everything you need to know to enjoy your visit to Italy!”
Visitlearntravelitalian.com/download.html to purchase/download Conversational Italian for Travelers and find more interesting facts and helpful hints about getting around Italy!Learn how to buy train tickets online, how to make international and local telephone calls, and how to decipher Italian coffee names and restaurant menus, all while gaining the basic understanding of Italian that you will need to know to communicate easily and effectively while in Italy. —From the staff at Stella Lucente, LLC
This Italian chocolate hazelnut tart (crostata) blends two classic Italian ingredients that go perfectly with one another to create a delicious, sweet end to any meal. I think you will agree that a slice of this chocolate tart for dessert will add something special to any get-together or celebration. And it is very simple to make!
A basic, pre-baked pie crust and a no-bake filling of chocolate ganache, hazelnut spread, and real hazelnuts will turn into something special when combined. The filling is candy-like, similar to the flavored chocolate fillings found in truffle candies, so even a thin slice is very rich! Also included is an easy method for homemade whipped cream.
Try a slice of our chocolate hazelnut tart topped with a dollop of freshly made whipped cream and see for yourself! —Kathryn Occhipinti
A slice of Italian chocolate hazelnut tart topped with whipped cream and a raspberry. Serve with coffee and enjoy!
Make the tart pastry: Chocolate Pasta Frolla
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (Dutch processed)
1/3 cup sugar
¼ tsp salt
1 stick (8 Tbsps) cold, unsalted butter, sliced into 1 Tb pieces
1 egg + 1 egg yolk, lightly mixed together
1 tsp vanilla
about 6–8 Tbsps of chilled water
Method to make the tart crust:
Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, and salt.
Cut in the butter with a pastry blender or a fork or rub between your thumb and the tips of your fingers to make small, flat, flakes of butter.
Mix the egg with the vanilla and then add to the dry ingredients. Add 5 Tbsp of chilled water. Mix all together with a fork. Crumbs of dough will start to form.
Add an additional 1 or 2 Tbsp of chilled water.
Bring the dough together gently with your hands, and attempt to form a disk. If a dough will not form, mix in 1 or 2 Tbsp of water and try again. Continue to do this until a dough does form. The final dough will be a little bit sticky before it all holds together.
Complete the disk and wrap in waxed paper. Refrigerate 30 minutes.
After the dough has chilled, gently roll it out on a floured board until it is large enough to fit into an 11″ tart pan. The dough will be soft. Refrigerate 15 minutes.
Take the dough out of the refrigerator. It should have firmed up a bit. Prick with a fork. Line the tart shell with aluminum foil and then fill with pie weights (dried beans make good pie weights if you want to use something from around the house).
Bake the pie crust at 350° for 8–10 minutes.
Out of the oven, remove foil and weights, and cook an additional 8–10 minutes. When done, the edges of the tart will start to pull away from the tart pan.
Let the crust cool completely on a pie rack in the tart pan while preparing the filling.
Make the chocolate ganache filling and assemble the tart:
Ingredients:
1 cup whippng cream (cold)
10 oz. bittersweet chocolate (70% cocoa)
1/2 cup chocolate hazelnut spread*
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup hazelnuts, chopped**
*Nutella brand works well because it contains sugar. If using another brand, taste the mixture and add sugar as needed.
**If you buy whole hazelnuts, prepare as follows: roast whole nuts about 8–10 minutes at 350°, put into a small brown paper bag, and rub to remove as much of the brown “skin” as possible. Chop coarsely with a knife or a nut chopper/grinder device if you have one.
Method to make the filling:
Heat the whipping cream in a small saucepan until it just reaches a boil, and immediately pour over the finely chopped chocolate. (Use a heat-proof glass or CorningWare bowl for this step.)
Mix with a whisk until the chocolate has melted.
Add hazelnut spread, salt, and vanilla, and whisk again.
Whisk in the chopped hazelnuts. Keep mixing. The filling will start to thicken more and more as it cools.
Pour immediately into the cooled pie crust.
Refrigerate until the filling sets.
Take out of the refrigerator 30 minutes or so before serving to let the filling and crust soften a bit at room temperature.
Serve individual slices garnished with whipped cream and raspberries if desired.
Homemade whipped cream:
Ingredients: (1 cup of whipping cream will serve about 4 people)
It is a snap to make whipped cream if all bowls/whisks/beaters and the cream is cold to start. In fact, be careful, because it is easy to overbeat and then you will end up with butter!
This whipped cream has a very light, not-too-sweet taste. More sugar and vanilla can be added as desired, or even a splash of liquor.
Chill a large bowl and the beaters in the freezer before starting.
Take the whipping cream directly from the refrigerator and pour 2 cups into your chilled bowl.
Add the confectioner’s sugar and vanilla and mix together with a fork to dissolve.
Hand mix very briskly with a whisk, or set your electric or standing mixer to medium and begin to whip the cream/sugar mixture.
Gradually increase the speed of your mixer as you continue beating the whipping cream.
Stop every couple of minutes to test the whipped cream. Near the end, as the whipping cream thickens, slow the mixer down and watch carefully.
When almost done, it will start to form a pattern of “ridges” in the bowl as you move your electric hand mixer back and forth. Lift up your beaters at this point. The whipped cream will cling to the beaters and make a soft peak that stands up when done.
—Kathryn Occhipinti
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Kathryn Occhipinti, MD, is the author of the Conversational Italian for Travelersseries of books and a teacher of Italian for travelers to Italy in the Peoria and Chicago area. “Everything you need to know to enjoy your visit to Italy!”
Visitlearntravelitalian.com/download.html to purchase/download Conversational Italian for Travelers and find more interesting facts and helpful hints about getting around Italy!Learn how to buy train tickets online, how to make international and local telephone calls, and how to decipher Italian coffee names and restaurant menus, all while gaining the basic understanding of Italian that you will need to know to communicate easily and effectively while in Italy. —From the staff at Stella Lucente, LLC
The Easter holiday and the Easter lamb for dinner have been linked together in Italy far beyond recorded years. But I have to admit that here in America, my Italian-American family’s own tradition for Easter was (for many years) a special Sunday brunch with friends at our favorite restaurant. My children loved greeting the Easter bunny as he walked through, the Easter egg hunt, and of course, the special (and the children’s second) Easter basket filled with chocolate goodies provided with dessert.
Now that my family is a bit older and the charm of the Easter bunny has faded (although not the love of chocolate, mind you), we prefer to meet at home for Easter. Because the matriarch of the family, my mother, has had to give up cooking, making our Italian Easter dinner—which, as we all know should feature lamb—has fallen to me.
Another confession—I’ve never really liked the particular “gamy” taste of lamb. But luckily, I’ve taken up this family challenge with years of Italian cuisine to fall back on. I’ve tried several ways to make lamb known to Italians of different regions. And I think I’ve found a method that my family all agrees makes our lamb moist and delicious. (Hint: you may find some similarities between this recipe and the pot roast recipe I posted in February.) I hope if you try this recipe for Easter, or for another special family dinner, that your family will agree with mine that it is the most delicate and flavorful lamb you’ve tried.
Oh, and stay tuned for the next blog post for an after-Easter chocolate dessert treat!
3 large cloves of garlic,
sliced lengthwise into several thin slices
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, cut into small pieces
Optional: Juice of 1 lemon for marinade
For the Roasting Method:
1 clove of garlic, crushed
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
2 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. olive oil
2/3 cup dry white Italian wine
For the Vegetable Garnish
1 lb. of small red spring potatoes
1 lb of young thin asparagus
Method
Prepare the lamb shoulder:
Rinse the meat, pat dry, and cut slits all over the lamb shoulder with a paring knife in order to bury the garlic slices.
Bury the garlic slices in the meat, deep enough so they will not fall out during cooking. Bury a few cuts from the sprigs of the rosemary into the meat slits as well.
Italian lamb with garlic cloves inserted, ready to marinate
Sprinkle the meat on all sides with salt. Sprinkle the meat with rosemary leaves stripped from the stem.
A marinade with lemon juice will go a long way to taking the “gamy” taste out of the lamb meat. The marinade to follow can be omitted if you don’t have time or don’t mind the true taste of lamb meat.
Place the lamb shoulder in a large, nonreactive bowl (glass or Corningware works best) and pour over the juice of one lemon, turning to coat nicely. Leave to marinate 2 hours in the refrigerator.
When ready to start to cook the lamb, take it out of the marinade, rinse, and pat dry again.
Roast the lamb shoulder:
Put the butter, olive oil, and the remaining crushed garlic clove and sprigs of fresh rosemary into a large, deep, heavy pan and heat gently over medium heat until the butter foams. (Do not let the butter turn brown.)
Add the lamb and brown on all sides. Remove the garlic when it becomes brown, because it will just add a bitterness to the meat after this point.
Add a pinch or two of salt, a couple of grinds of fresh pepper, and the white wine.
Bring the wine to a boil, turn the meat once or twice to coat nicely with the wine, then cover, leaving the lid slightly off.
Cook on the stove top at a gentle simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours. Or, if your pot is oven safe, place in the oven and cook gently at 225-250°. Be sure to turn and baste the lamb every 30 minutes or so. Add an additional quarter cup of water or so if necessary while basting to keep the lamb moist.
Lamb cooking on the stove top
The lamb should be cooked until the skin is a deep brown and the meat is tender, and the meat will retract a bit from the bone when this point is reached. The final roast should be a bit pink in the center. Be careful not to overcook, or the lamb will become dry.
When the lamb has finished cooking, remove it from the pan. Place it on a large serving platter and tent with aluminum foil to keep warm while making the gravy.
Prepare the lamb juices for gravy:
Pour all but about 2 tablespoons of fat out of the roasting pan.
Then add a quarter cup of water or white wine and turn the heat up to high to deglaze the pan; that is, scrape off the delicious brown bits on the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon while the water is boiling.
Boil off enough water to get the desired consistency of your pan juices. Adjust salt and pepper.
(If a thicker gravy is desired, you can add 2 tablespoons of flour to the reserved cooking fat and cook the flour gently about 5 minutes on low heat, scraping the bottom of the pan and stirring constantly. Then add about a quarter cup of water and stir continuously to thicken. Add salt and pepper gradually, tasting to get the final result.)
Serve your lamb shoulder:
Italian Easter lamb dinner 2017: Lamb, new potatoes, and asparagus
When ready to serve, remove the aluminum foil tenting the lamb roast.
Drizzle some of the pan juices over the lamb roast and reserve the rest to serve in a gravy boat.
Surround your pot roast with prepared vegetables of your choice for the final presentation. Serve and enjoy!
—Kathryn Occhipinti
Kathryn Occhipinti, MD, is the author of the Conversational Italian for Travelersseries of books and a teacher of Italian for travelers to Italy in the Peoria and Chicago area. “Everything you need to know to enjoy your visit to Italy!”
Visitlearntravelitalian.com/download.html to purchase/download Conversational Italian for Travelers and find more interesting facts and helpful hints about getting around Italy!Learn how to buy train tickets online, how to make international and local telephone calls, and how to decipher Italian coffee names and restaurant menus, all while gaining the basic understanding of Italian that you will need to know to communicate easily and effectively while in Italy. —From the staff at Stella Lucente, LLC
Italian chicken broth with wispy strands of eggs is called “Egg Drop Soup” at my family’s home but is known better as Stracciatella, or “Rags Soup.” For the perfect children’s chicken soup, instead add tiny pastas called pastina stars to your homemade chicken broth. Which is better? Make them both and you decide!
