regions

Finocchio

Finocchio gratinato: oven roasted fennel with parmigiano (recipe)

  One of the things that surprises most English-speaking tourists, when coming to Italy for the first time, is that in restaurants main dishes don’t come with vegetables. That’s not to say that Italians don’t eat vegetables with main dishes, but you have to order them separately. You find them on the menu in a …

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pasta 'ncasciata

Pasta ‘ncasciata: Montalbano’s favourite

  This post was inspired by my fellow blogger Vanessa who has a site I enjoy very much called Food in Books. It deals with the two things I love more than anything else: eating and reading. Vanessa scours the world’s literature looking for references to food and then she develops a recipe based on …

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Quick guide to Italian ingredients: ‘Nduja

This article is about Calabria.   ‘Nduja (pronouned ‘in-doo-ya’) is an incredibly spicy salame from the Calabrian village of Spìlinga. It’s made from pork mixed together with a high proportion of Calabrian chile (peperoncino), which gives it a bright red colour and fiery taste. It’s very soft which makes it easily spreadable on bread, which …

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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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