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Whenever you have a chance to visit Italy, and you love food, you should not miss one of the many food markets that are all over the country. Usually, they just work from the morning until lunch time.  I will list the most characteristic ones.

The fish market of Catania starts from the central square with the cathedral. You can see lots of different kinds of fishes. The sword and tuna fishes are quite impressive.

Another favorite and easy to find is the food market San Lorenzo in Florence, close to the church of San Lorenzo.  Although now crowded often with tourists, stands with local specialties are memorable. There is more than one that has fresh game like hare or wild boar. This is the place to buy also the local sausage called finocchiona. Inside the market there are also different food stands. The best for me is da Nerbone. Beside the many Tuscan dishes to try what is excellent is the sandwich with boiled beef inside. The place works like a self service and has a few tables where if you are lucky you can sit as it is very frequented. For a less touristic tour try in the same city the market of Sant’Ambrogio.  There are also excellent food served at stands here.

The structure (first photo) covering the market was designed by Mengoni the same architect of the galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan.

The last I mention is the fish market in Venice located close to the Rialto bridge.

Depending on the season you can find the moeche a soft shell crab that is typical of the lagoon and expensive (but worth it!).

Remember to take your camera!

Tommaso

There is an ingredient that is very much neglected, but very used in the past. I am speaking of the lard, that knew in the medieval times its biggest popularity.

The arrival of the barbaric tribes changed the large use of olive oil into the use of lard.

If you don’t know lard is produced from the layer of fat under the pigs’ skin. The pigs at that time where left free to pasture in forests and this is why the size of land was measured by how many pigs it could feed, proving us the importance of pork meat in the diet of that time.

Before dietary reasons the large use of lard was abandoned probably due to the  Christian tradition  not to eat meat on certain days, although it survived in certain recipes as you can read in a very important recipes book of the end of the 19^th century written by Pellegrino Artusi called science in the kitchen and the art of eating well.

Fortunately in Italy the tradition of seasoning the lard with spices and aging it survived to our days. The two most famous are lardo di colonnata and lardo di arnaud.  I tasted both and find them extraordinary due to the richness and consistence of the taste elevated by the spices. A good way to eat both for me is to toast the bread, and when still hot layer a thin slice of lard on top. The very best way for Colonnata is how they eat it on the nearby Tuscan coast from where it is producecd. With the lard they put an anchovy under oil on the top.

While in the states i was making my mouth watery thinking of food that i think i can’t find here

a light bulb flashed in my head, and believe me than I was very surprised myself. This is what I did

Ingredients for two

lard 2 oz you find it at the supermarket often with the name snowcap lard usually close to the butter incredibly cheap.

2 slices of bread

spices: i used garlic rosemary and pepper. You can add also coriander cloves cinnamon and sage, this are other spices they use in Colonnata.

Take the lard  melt it at low heat adding the spices. Toast the bread and than pour the melted lard on top

Inspired by the anchovy on top used on the Tuscan coast i had the idea of pouring a little bit of colata di Alici . Well this was the extra and i invite everyone to try. I always love to please my taste buds with new sensations.

I will write more about using lard as for certain recipes the use of lard is fantastic. You can also add the melted lard with spices on food like a sauce. For example on beef it gives a great flavor.

Dear reader don’t fix yourself with not eating certain food due to the overweight mania, because than you should explain me, why people in the past where thinner and not eating all this dietary food.

Believe me it is better what is natural like olive oil lard or butter to what is extracted with hexane an alkane hydrocarbon used in solvents to extract oils for cooking.

Try always to pare the lard based dishes with a good Italian lambrusco. When eating lard lambrusco  gives the pleasant sensation of cleaning your mouth.

Mangia! Tommaso

I was following a show on an American Tv. It was a show about Italian food and they where talking about drinking Montepulciano wine. They never explained if it was rosso or nobile di Montepulciano or Montepulciano D’ Abbruzzo as  this are two complete different wines. The rosso and the nobile are from southern Tuscany the Montepulciano D’Abruzzo from central-east Italy.Having the same name creates a lot of confusion and as there are many different producers of both wines, both wines have a wide range in prices. Generally speaking it is for the Montepulciano D’Abruzzo that you have low priced entry level bottles. For The Tuscan Vino Nobile the entry level is placed much higher usually over the 20 dollars. So what should i buy? It really does not make sense to compare them as they are from two completely different grapes, and climate and soil are very different too. The nobile is mainly made by one of the more than two hundred clones of  sangiovese varietal called prugnolo gentile. Some say it is because the taste and smell remember a plum (prugna). In my opinion this is always what i look for when tasting sangiovese, it is for me one of the main characteristic.For the Montepulciano  d”Abruzzo  the main varietal in the wine has the same name than the wine. In my opinion the usual taste reminds often of home made wines. It is enjoyable to drink with scents of red fruits and sometimes a note of liquorice. It is the wine we often order at restaurants, when we want to drink something acceptable for a good price. So it has been a great compabnion at the table in my young years.

Whatever you decide to buy remember that all this wines are doc or docg. here is the link explaining the Italian wine regulations.

Salute

Tommaso

This recipe is not only about salmon but about a sauce you can use on a lot of different dishes, like steak hamburgers chicken breast and so on.

Image Salmon

The green pepper sauce became very popular during the 80s, when the food trend of the moment covered our dishes with a lot of cream. This period saw the boom of dishes like penne alla vodka. You still find the meat filet with green pepper sauce in a lot of restaurants. Now checking the internet today i found out that is not prepared the way that for me makes the sauce tasty. The secret for a lot of taste is a little bit of anchovy paste. Adjust the quantity to your taste, i put about one teaspoon. To highlight your recipe you can replace the anchovy paste with garum at the end of cooking.

More taste and for the coloring you get with a table spoon of tomato paste, which really becomes important if you decide to prepare the sauce using pink pepper corns.

About pepper:

Originally from India, pepper was travelling already in the ancient times. Going back to the 13th century before Christ peppercorns have been found in the mummy of Ramses the second. Ancient Greeks knew the pepper, but it is with the Roman Empire that pepper becomes a much loved spice. In Apicius’ De re coquinaria the very famous ancient Roman cookbook pepper is present in mostly all recipes. As documented by writers of different periods like Strabo or Plinius the elder, the ancient Romans imported the pepper directly from India by ship. Since then pepper due to the many wars pepper disappeared and reappeared many times on European tables, until with modern times it became a steady presence. For the lovers of spicy food the discovery of America came to help, as chili peppers originate from there.

Ingredients for two

Two slices of salmon, one table spoon of butter, and one table spoon of flour

For the sauce:

One table spoon of butter, half pint heavy cream, four teaspoons green pepper corns, one teaspoon anchovy paste, one teaspoon mustard, one teaspoon tomato paste,one teaspoon of minced garlic, two teaspoons whisky, vodka or cognac

Possible add-on: a teaspoon of grinded capers.

GREN PEPPER SAUCE RECIPE

Prepare the sauce by letting all the ingredients beside the whisky simmer for at least twenty minutes. Then at the end add the whisky.

RECIPE

Pass the salmon slices in the wheat and cook them in butter on both sides. When ready pour the sauce on top.

WINE RISOTTO

  

How to make wine Risotto

I like to make risotto with wine. Depending  on the wine it will get an incredible purple color as you can see from the picture. I have to say that the best would be with amarone, a full bodied wine produced close to Verona. The drying of the grapes before the pressing and so more concentration of sugar, make it that this wine can have a very high content in alcohol for a wine, but also more taste.  In the same area with the same varietals there is a dessert wine called recioto, which to simplify is an amarone for which the fermentation was not finished and so sweeter. Also this wine  is very good for the risotto and a makes a typical  risotto recipe from that area, which you can find at local restaurants.

Well also a a nice barolo would be good for this recipe. Barolo the king of reds of Piedmont. If produced the traditional way it has the precious smell of goudron, considered a major quality. The French word goudron means tar. Although it might seem strange is something very appreciated by wine lovers.

Unfortunatly  there is only one problem about these wines, the price.

Being special rare and good they can cost a lot of money. For the recioto also it is really very difficult to find it in the U.S.A. .

As an Italian i say pazienza (patience) and reply to less expensive wines. What is important, the wine must have at least a good body, or else you don’t get much taste.

What could you use?

  From California red Frontier wine, a blend of different varietals

From Spain Yecla castano  monastrell varietal

Both are about 10 dollars and excellent for that price.

To enhance the colors use a red onion!

INGREDIENTS for two

 6 oz of rice, one small red onion, one cup of broth (you can also use bouillon), one spoon of butter, two glasses of wine, one tablespoon parmesan

RECIPE

Fry the onions in the butter add the rice pour a little bit of wine and continue cooking and stirring alternating the adding of wine with the broth. When ready add parmesan but not to much, because it takes the taste away.

Wine

to pare with

Just use the wine you where cooking with. A perfect companion

 

 

 

Italian Limoncello

How to make Limocello

On the main site i started to write about Italian liquors and how to make them. The very start is with the recipe of limoncello, and than other recipes will follow.

Learn also how to make arancello

Getting familiar with WordPress.  I started also the website  www.italianrecipesblog.com.  There I am going to post recipes from Italy, where I was born. Now I am living in the States and I like it very much here. The reason of writing is to share and keep a memory of 15 years’ work as a tour guide specialized in gourmet and wine tours. Well I will have always certain places in my heart, and I will try to give back the taste of what I tried there. All recipes will be posted with photos.

I will be pleased to receive comments and questions about places and recipes. Cooking for me is a hobby, since many years, and still love it very much.

Chicken cacciatore make it simple and you will love it. Although the original recipe is with red wine and tomato sauce as written by Artusi , i prefer it with white wine and no tomatoes. In any case if you like you can add some tomato sauce towards the end. The name of the recipe is due to cooking the chicken like you do for game as a hunter would do as cacciatore means hunter. As a matter of fact i used to cook hare that way that I could find in Florence at San Lorenzo market. 

Although other sites suggest a short cooking time for the recipe, i recommend a long cooking of about one hour. The meat that way will be tender and come off the bones very easily. You don’t have to stand at the stove, just keep it cooking with a lid on top.

I prefer this recipe to the one i listed the other day.

Ingredients

One chicken, but remember this way you can prepare also rabbit hare and generally game, two small onions, two cloves garlic, half a glass of white wine, two tablespoons olive oil, one bay leaf, chopped rosemary, a hand full of pitted green olives, pepper, chili pepper, salt

Especially for game i add one or two JUNIPER BERRIES 

Recipe

Cut the chicken in pieces and keep it for at least a half an hour covered with the oil and the spices.

Than add the wine and cook for one hour covered by a lid at medium low heat. If the sauce looks to liquid cook it for a while without lid. After 50 minutes add the chopped olives and cook for more ten minutes.

Tommaso

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