recipes

Melanzane ripiene della nonna Checchina: Puglian stuffed eggplants

This recipe is from Puglia.   To fully understand Italian cuisine, it’s important to note the major difference between it and, for example, French cuisine. French cuisine is the cuisine of the chef. Home cooks spend a lot of time trying to live up to the creations and recipes coming out of the important restaurants […]

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Azime dolci: Venetian passover cookies (recipe)

This recipe is from Veneto. As promised in the last post, here is a recipe for azime dolci, the Venetian jewish cookies I tried in the ghetto at the weekend. Pane azzimo, is the Italian for unleavened bread and these are called azime because they too are unleavened. And like pane azzimo, they are traditionally

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Risotto alla Trevisana: Risotto with radicchio (recipe)

This recipe is from Veneto. This recipe complements my previous post on Radicchio tardivo di Treviso. It’s a very common way of cooking it in Italy. The risotto takes on a lovely pinkish red colour thanks to the radicchio leaves and the gorgonzola adds a little depth of creamy flavour at the end.

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Torta di semolino: semolina cake (recipe)

This recipe is from Tuscany. No sooner is carnival out the way than we have an excuse for another sweet blow-out: San Valentino, or Valentine’s Day. And in a country famed for lovers and romance it’s seen as a big occasion—notwithstanding the fact that the original Saint Valentine was Italian. It’s also the very beginning

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Plum-cake (recipe)

  Despite its anglo-saxon name, plum-cake is an extremely Italian dessert. In fact, the name doesn’t exist in British or American cuisine. This version of the recipe is taken from La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiar bene written in 1891 by Florentine gourmand Pellegrino Artusi. Even though it contains candied peel and fruit, close

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Monte Bianco: recipe

  Although on a misty end-of-winter day like today you wouldn’t know it, La Madera is on the slopes of a mountain called Alpe Faggeta. A respectable height of 1,510 metres (4,954 feet) makes it taller than Ben Nevis, the highest peak in the United Kingdom. This appenine hill, however, would be dwarfed by the

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