During the past year this has become my standard Italian red sauce. The key step is to hand crush a lot of canned tomatoes, and then to slowly roast and caramelize most of them, while reserving a smaller amount to add just at the end to add brightness to the final sauce. It takes a Read More …
On Friday night, I mixed the pre-ferment for a batch of Pane Francese without fully reading my recipe. When I did read it, I realized that the original recipe took at least 48 hours, and I did not have that long since the bread was intended to accompany Chicken Vesuvio for a family dinner on Read More …
This made an excellent Friday night dinner for company, with chicken breasts providing an economical alternative to the traditional veal. (Turkey cutlets would also work well here.) This recipe, which is an adaptation from Serious Eats, includes the trick of adding gelatin to the liquids to give the sauce a better mouthfeel. 1-1/4 Read More …
Focaccias are lightly topped Italian flatbreads which I generally make with the same dough I usually use for pizza. It should be very light and airy with the flavor of the bread shining through, and with the topping just as an accent. This posting is about the focaccia I made last night to go with Read More …
My son Nick brought me a pile of garlic scapes, which are the tough stalks of the garlic plant. He suggested we make a pesto out of it, which we have done and enjoyed with pasta and pizza. This is an example of the general principle that tasty pesto-like mixtures can be made with Read More …
This is a stuffed pizza from the Calabria region in southern Italy which is very much like the large empanadas of Spain. The filling is made from tuna, tomatoes, olives, etc., and is very tasty. The same basic idea can be done with other fillings as well. This was adapted from Aglaia Kremezi’s Mediterranean Hot Read More …
As the name implies, Pane Francese is a northern Italian version of a French baguette. It differs from a standard baguette because it enriched with milk and olive oil, which softens the crumb and thickens the crust. This posting is an adaptation of recipe posted in Leite’s Cuinaria, which was in turn adapted from Zachary Golper’s Read More …
Spaghetti Carbonara This is an adaptation of a recipe in the Wall St. Journal scaled down to 2 people. This Italian classic is quick and easy and makes a good weekday dinner. One difference from the traditional recipe is that I use bacon vs. pancella, since I like the smoky taste of bacon and Read More …
We learned how to make this Ligurian leaf-shaped flatbread at King Arthur Flour’s baking school in Norwich, VT in December 2012, and it has since become a favorite. This is our variation of their recipe: Preferment 1/8 tsp. instant yeast 4 oz. (1/2 cup) water 4 oz. (1 cup) King Arthur All Purpose Flour (this Read More …
A few years ago, I bought a backpacking cookbook, Fork in the Trail, by Laurie Ann March. The main thing I learned from this book was the concept that if you are willing to prepare food at home and dehydrate it, it is possible to have a wide variety of foods for dinner while Read More …