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Italian Recipes and Cookbooks
Italian cuisine is respected, loved, and eaten all over the world.
Outside of Italy, the best-known dishes
include pizza and pasta, but Italian food has much else to offer too,
including excellent meat and seafood dishes, superb cheeses, and a
wonderful range of desserts.
As far as pasta is concerned there are many times.
The most popular type is spaghetti, which is long thing strings of pasta
(spaghetti actually means "thin strings"). Other popular types
include vermicelli (also string-like), fettucine and linguine (ribbon-shaped),
lasagna (large sheets), rotelle and farfalle (decorative shapes), and,
ravioli and tortellini (stuffed pasta). Although all forms of pasta are
made from basically the same ingredients, the different shapes do affect the taste and
choice of recipe, because each individual shape interacts with sauce in a different
way.
Italy is a country of great regional contrasts,
and this fact is reflected in its food. Additionally, many outside
influences have contributed to Italian cuisine (although the legend
that Marco Polo introduced pasta from
China does appear to
be apocryphyl).
Some of the region dishes and ingredients that you may encounter in
Italian food include:
- Sardinia is famous for its lamb and pecorino (cheese made from sheep's milk).
- Arab influence played an important part in the development of Sicilian cuisine,
including the introduction of lemon and pistachio. Sicily is also known for its seafood,
particularly swordfish and tuna, but it is in desserts where the island has had the
greatest influence of all:
both gelato (ice cream)
and granita (a delicious semi-frozen
dessert made using sugar, water and flavorings) originate from Sicily.
- Calabria (the region corresponding to the "toe" of
Italy) is known for its spicy version of salami.
- Naples is the home of mozzarella, pizza and sfogliatelle (Italian filled pastries).
- Whereas Sicilian and Neopolitan pizzas are quite thick,
Roman pizzas extremely thin. Rome is also known for its use of
offal and pecorino (cheese made from sheep's milk).
- Tuscany is known for its meat, white beans and unsalted bread.
- Products from the North of Italy include
balsamic vinegar,
lasagna,
mortadella (a heat-cured pork sausage, served as a cold cut)
parmigiano (parmesan cheese)
polenta (a dish made from boiled corn-meal),
prosciutto (dry cured ham),
ragu (bolognese sauce),
rice and
tortellini (stuffed pasta).
Piedmont and Lombardy both produce their own distinctive (and different from each other)
variety of rice, and both forms are used to make risotto.
Here are some recipe books and cook books for
Italian food:
Related Links:
By Jennifer Denton & Kathryn Kellinger
William Morrow Cookbooks
Released: 2006-08-15
Hardcover (160 pages)
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With nothing more than a panini grill, a toaster oven, and a few simple ingredients, Jennifer and Jason Denton bring the fresh, robust flavors of Italy to your home table in Simple Italian Sandwiches. Eating in Italy is all about simple pleasures, relaxing with good company, and savoring fresh, no-frills foods like traditional toasted panini, crustless tramezzini, and crunchy bruschetta. In Simple Italian Sandwiches, Jennifer and Jason Denton offer up a collection of recipes for these classic bread-based dishes, plus condiments, antipasti, and salads that are easy enough for the novice cook yet tasty enough for anyone with a sophisticated palate. From Soppressata, Fontina, and Arugula Panini, to Mozzarella and Basil Pesto Tramezzini, to Roasted Butternut Squash, Walnut, and Asiago Bruschetta, the dishes can be prepared in minutes and require minimal cooking. With simplicity the governing rule for today's busy schedules, Simple Italian Sandwiches is the ideal cookbook for anyone who wants to prepare vibrant, flavorful food for family and friends, and then sit down and enjoy it with them. |
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By Mario Batali
Ecco
Released: 2005-05-03
Hardcover (528 pages)
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"The trick to cooking is that there is no trick." ––Mario Batali The only mandatory Italian cookbook for the home cook, Mario Batali's MOLTO ITALIANO is rich in local lore, with Batali's humorous and enthusiastic voice, familiar to those who have come to know him on his popular Food Network programs, larded through about 220 recipes of simple, healthy, seasonal Italian cooking for the American audience. Easy to use and simple to read, some of these recipes will be those "as seen" on TV in the eight years of "Molto Mario" programs on the Food Network, including those from "Mediterranean Mario," "Mario Eats Italy," and the all–new "Ciao America with Mario Batali." Batali's distinctive voice will provide a historical and cultural perspective with a humorous bent to demystify even the more elaborate dishes as well as showing ways to shorten or simplify everything from the purchasing of good ingredients to pre–production and countdown schedules of holiday meals. Informative head notes will include bits about the provenance of the recipes and the odd historical fact. Mario Batali's MOLTO ITALIANO will feature ten soups, thirty antipasti (many vegetarian or vegetable based), forty pasta dishes representing many of the twenty–one regions of Italy, twenty fish and shellfish dishes, twenty chicken dishes, twenty pork or lamb dishes and twenty side dishes, each of which can be served as a light meal. Add twenty desserts and a foundation of basic formation recipes and this book will be the only Italian cooking book needed in the home cook's library. |
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By Daniel Leader
Taunton
Released: 2008-02-26
Hardcover (152 pages)
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Panini are little sandwiches that are put through a press that warms up the filling and gives the bread a delicious grilled flavor. Ten years ago, you would have had to get on a plane and gone to Italy to enjoy one, but today you can find panini everywhere--in Italian restaurants, restaurant chains like Panera, even higher-end supermarkets are selling panini in their take-out foods sections. Because its popularity, the panini press (think a small George Foreman Grill) has become the hottest selling small appliance on the market. Everyone is selling them. Williams-Sonoma and Sur La Table carry brands like LeCreuset, All-Clad, and Krups, while Target sells a Hamilton Beach model for less than $50 and Wal-Mart a Breadman version for $39.95.
Panini Express contains easy recipes for 70 deliciously different sandwiches you can make using your panini press. Panini Express does not confine itself only to authentic Italian Panini recipes, but instead will explore a world of flavors (like the Catskill Cubano with ham, turkey, Swiss, and a hoisin-lime dressing). In addition to the sandwich recipes, there are recipes for four homemade breads if you want your sandwiches completely from scratch, as well as for mayonnaises, spreads, and other tasty sandwich slathers to up the flavor quotient. |
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By Lidia Bastianich
William Morrow Cookbooks
Released: 1998-09-02
Hardcover (320 pages)
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Lidia Bastianich moved to the United States in 1959 from Trieste in northern Italy. She was 12 years old. Her actual home was over the line, in what became Yugoslavia after World War II. So food, for Bastianich, was both what made her family different from everyone they lived around in their new home in New York State and the anchor that held her family together. Bastianich calls this visceral sense of food "Lidia's Italian Table." It's the name of her PBS series and of this book, which accompanies the series. In sections that include antipasti, soups, pasta, risotto, gnocchi, polenta, vegetables, game and chicken, meats, fish and shellfish, and sweets, Lidia sweeps readers up into her arms and hugs them with the likes of Baked Onions with Butternut Squash Filling; Sauerkraut and Bean Soup; Bow Ties with Sausage and Leek Sauce; Shrimp Risotto; Fennel, Olive, and Citrus Salad; Braised Venison with Polenta; Baked Squid and Potatoes; and Zucchini Cake. Notice how most of these dishes have a familiar "Italian" ring, yet stretch beyond whatever that notion typically includes--the soup with sauerkraut, for example. Lidia's table is set in a part of Italy that doesn't get a lot of ready play. It's Italian, but then some. A little extra. If you try it, you may find it difficult to get up from Lidia's table. You may just want to stay. --Schuyler Ingle |
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By Giuliano Hazan
Scribner
Hardcover (256 pages)
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In Italy there are no mothers who are bad cooks. Can this be possible? In the case of Giuliano Hazan, whose mother is Marcella Hazan, yes. Marcella is the doyenne of Italian cookbook authors published in the United States. And Giuliano is no slouch, either. Though his first cookbook, The Classic Pasta Cookbook, is lamentably out of print, it is a laurel upon which he could have rested. Fortunately, Giuliano Hazan appears to be a restless man. "I learned to cook because I like to eat well," he writes in Every Night Italian. "Satisfying food does not have to be complex or take a long time to prepare. Often the simpler it is the better it tastes, and simplicity is what Italian cooking is all about." To this end, Hazan has compiled a collection of Italian recipes any cook can serve to any family every night of the week. He wisely opens his book with two sections: "The Italian Pantry," a list of all the basic ingredients to have on hand, and "Some Essential Techniques," such as chopping an onion, cutting a pepper, trimming an artichoke, and boning and filleting a chicken breast. The book is then divided by appetizers, soups, pasta and rice, fish and shellfish, meats, vegetables, salads, desserts, and menus--120 recipes total, all flavor-heightened and with an eye cocked at the clock. Chicken Braised with Porcini Mushrooms has a substantial sound, and yet you are only looking at 20 minutes of prep time and 60 minutes from start to finish, leaving plenty of time for a Insalata Caprese with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil. Hazan's version of Ribollita, the classic Tuscan soup, takes two-and-a-half hours from start to finish, but only 30 minutes to prep. The Bucatini with sausage and onions is a straight shot at 30 minutes, start to finish. Spend a little time with this book, master the recipes, and you will no doubt find yourself agreeing with Giuliano Hazan that Every Night Italian is a perfectly plausible idea. --Schuyler Ingle |
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