This easy veggie dish is one way to add a healthy cruciferous vegetable to a weeknight dinner.
The sprouts are steamed or boiled, and then dressed with almonds and lemon zest and topped with toasted bread crumbs. Its Italian name is the rather imposing Cavolini di Bruxelles con le Mandorle.
I saw this on menus all over Italy. I got the recipe from The Silver Spoon Cookbook, but I know that it was also a little different across that long country.
The main thing is that the Silver Spoon recipe calls for fresh Porcini mushrooms, which are not easy to come by in New England, but I had them with different mushrooms in different places.
I made this one with Baby Bellas, mostly to see if the technique would have any tricks. It is pretty easy, it just cooks a long time; now I want to try it with a variety of other mushrooms!
This simple dish is known in Sicily as Pasta alla Milanese, or "pasta for the people of Milan". That's because Milan is well inland, so Sicilians who went north for work could not get the fresh fish that features so prominently in Sicilian cuisine, so they had to used preserved sardines with their pasta.
This is a very simple dish, but the flavor is unique and the people who tried it all liked it. I suppose it helps the poor homesick Sicilians of Milan!
You can make this with fresh artichokes, but canned artichoke hearts in water (not marinated) make this an easy work-night option, and a nice change if you want something without tomatoes. I find this simple dish very summery!
You can really have this ready in just the time it takes to cook the pasta, so you can save some time if you don't boil more water than you need.
This is a great summer dish, light and easy enough to make after work. The contrast of the crunchy-buttery almonds and the tender sole is a delight. There's really not much to it, but with good ingredients the result is delicious!
We had this for a weeknight dinner with just a pasta dish, but I'd happily serve it to company with The Sultan's Onions and Molise Celery or Genoese Spinach, and a nice chilled Gavi di Gavi wine, or a small glass of cold dry vermouth (I know that's good match because that's what I had while cooking it!).
I first found this exquisite rice, known in Italy as riso venere nero, in Portland, but now I can get it at Lo Adoro on Route 6a in Sandwich, much closer to home!
This is attractive for a fancy dinner, and it has great flavor that pairs well with light dishes, especially seafood.
But it's tricky to cook; it's best to soak the rice first for at leat half an hour, longer is OK. Sometimes I set it out in the morning, that night it cooks up fine.
This is not a risotto rice. You cook it up more or less like white rice, but be sure to read the Instructions below.
I have seen recipes that say to cook it like pasta in a large surplus of water, but it still has to cook a long time and you have to keep checking it; this method is easier to cook and easier for timing when you are making a fancy dinner.
When I think of Italian cooking, trout is not the first thing that comes to mind. But Italy is a mountainous country, and especially in the north, seafood figures less prominently and freshwater fish are common. Of course, the cities are below the mountains, much closer to the sea, so you can find dishes that use both freshwater and saltwater ingredients.
This farmed trout was big enough for each of us to have a filet delicately perfumed with rosemary and sage, and then the mussels were enough to make a full dinner of it.
Many years ago, "Stuffed Eggs" roamed the buffet tables and canape trays of European and American high society. Today in the USA, "Devilled Eggs" are pretty much the sole survivor of this once-plentiful class of hors d'oeuvre. You can still find egg plates like the one in the photo at antiques shops.
The Escoffier Cookbook has many recipes, and The Silver Spoon Cookbook has some good recipes using Italian flavor profiles. This recipe uses anchovy and lemon juice with chopped walnuts.
Here's a very simple, flavorful way to bring a little-used vegetable into play with any rich heavy main course. The dripping-wet endives are braised in their own liquid in olive oil flavored with garlic and mint. Cooking reduces the natural bitterness of the endive without eliminating it completely.
Indivie Intere "a Crudo" are traditionally served with roasts, especially with veal, but they will do well with any heavy main course where cooked bitter greens do well. The bitterness helps to cut the unctuousness of the fat in such dishes.
I think this is likely to fight with a red wine that has any tannins in it; from that perspective the bitterness serves the purpose of the tannins in the wine. I might serve this when the best wines of the dinner are done and we're on to something softer, or maybe with a white wine.
I show this on a bed of Black Venus Rice, but I bet it would be a bang-up dynamic pairing with the Gorgonzola Risotto!
This pretty golden riff on the classic Sicilian Pasta con Sarde has plenty of goodness.
Pasta con le Sarde a Mare is literally "Pasta with the sardines (still) in the sea" - it contains no sardines at all!
It does have tender fennel, saffron, golden raisins, pine nuts, and other foodie goodness, so it's totally delicious, especially if you didn't have your heart set on those sardines.
It uses anchovies for a salty marine flavor, but if you used a teaspoon of salt instead then this would be a vegetarian dish.
