Italian Recipes
1424 recipes found
Turkey Scaloppine With Prosciutto and Cheese
Alice Waters’s Seasonal Minestrone
Alice Waters often recommends that cooks master a good minestrone. It’s communal and seasonal, two pillars on which she has built her cooking career. This summer recipe came from the cookbook that is her top seller: "The Art of Simple Food." It uses the best of the season’s green beans, tomatoes and squash. In the spring, fresh peas, asparagus and spinach would make a good vegetable trio, with some fennel standing in for the carrot in the sofrito. In the fall, cubes of butternut squash, a small can of tomatoes and a bunch of kale would star, with rosemary and a little chopped sage instead of thyme for seasoning. Winter might bring a soup built from turnips, potatoes and cabbage. If the turnips have greens, add them, too. Start with a large pot that has a heavy bottom. Always cook the vegetables through, about 10 minutes. They should look good enough to eat on their own. Add the beans about 10 minutes before serving. A cup or two of cooked pasta can be stirred in at the last minute. Don’t overcook the pasta. The olive oil and cheese garnish should be added once the soup is in the bowls. Ms. Waters likes to pass those at the table, once everyone is served. Pesto makes a lovely garnish, too, and gives a garlicky, herbal punch to the soup.
Roman-Style Spring Lamb With Fresh Sugar Snap Pea Salad
The Romans make a classic dish in the spring with very young milk-fed lamb. Such meat is hard to find in American supermarkets, but the technique, which involves a short braise in vinegar and water with a boost of anchovy at the end, works fine with chunks of lamb cut from a leg or roast of any young lamb. This recipe is built on the precise technique for abbacchio alla cacciatora that Marcella Hazan offered in "The Classic Italian Cookbook," with some freshening up. The braised chunks of meat are topped with a crunchy sugar snap pea salad that carries the heat of Calabria peppers, a recipe from Whitney Otawka, who grew up in California and now cooks in Georgia. (The salad is a great stand-alone recipe, too, and one that would be terrific alongside a ham, if yours is an Easter ham family.)
Cabbage With Prosciutto
Biscotti
These classic Italian cookies get their signature crispness from being twice-baked: First, the dough is cooked in logs, cut into slices, then baked again. Because they travel and keep well, a pile of them makes an excellent gift wrapped in a cellophane bag and tied with a ribbon. Feel free to experiment with add-ins: Sub in hazelnuts or pistachios for the almonds. Add mini chocolate chips or dried cranberries, or a teaspoon of citrus zest. Or take the cookies over the top by drizzling with melted chocolate, glazing with icing or dusting with sprinkles. You do you.
Fusilli With Broccoli and Anchovies
This is Italian country cooking at its best, a simple dish that requires few ingredients and very little time. Use the same pot of water that you use to cook the broccoli for the pasta. Then finish the broccoli and anchovy mixture in a pan while the pasta is cooking, and toss the pasta with the sauce right in the pan.
Creamy Pasta With Bacon and Red Cabbage
Smoky bacon and cabbage are a classic Eastern European combination, but tossing them with pasta and a bit of cream takes them in a heartier direction. Use a short, curvy shape, such as cavatappi or fusilli, that can catch the silky sauce in its crooks. Red cabbage is called for here, but regular green or Savoy cabbage would also work well. Top any leftovers with a fried egg and, of course, extra grated cheese.
Sugar Snap Pea Salad With Radishes, Mint and Ricotta Salata
There's a reason pea salad is usually slathered in mayonnaise. Just try to get those tiny rolling orbs to stay on your fork without it. That’s why when it comes to pea salads, choose sugar snaps. They have the same bright sweetness as shelled peas but, eaten pod and all (no shucking required), they’re easier to grab. Here, raw sugar snap peas are tossed with radishes, fresh mint, ricotta salata and a simple lemon-balsamic vinaigrette for a easy salad that's sweet, salty, creamy and fresh tasting.
Lasagna With Roasted Eggplant, Mushrooms and Carrots
This is like a combination of eggplant Parmesan and lasagna, with the added texture and flavor provided by savory mushrooms and sweet roasted carrots.
Farro e Pepe
While cacio e pepe, the classic Roman dish, is simple — made with only pasta and its cooking water; cacio, or Pecorino Romano; and abundant freshly ground black pepper — it’s not always easy to make. The trick to getting a thick, creamy sauce lies in combining the cheese and pepper with starchy pasta water in just the right way; this usually requires a lot of erratic stirring and sweat. This version bucks tradition in favor of simplicity and, well, farro. The technique for the cheese paste comes from Flavio de Maio, a master of cucina Romana and producer of one of Rome’s most beloved bowls of cacio e pepe. Simply blend grated cheese and a little cold water with freshly ground pepper until they come together into a creamy paste. Then toss a spoonful or two into just-cooked farro and watch it melt like butter to coat the grains in a layer of salt, pepper, richness and tang. The farro’s chewy, satisfying texture is a perfect foil for the creaminess of the sauce. Keep the leftover paste in the fridge — stir a spoonful into grits, toss it with boiled green beans and, of course, use it for a bowl of cacio e pepe. Use the technique with other hard cheeses: Asiago, Parmesan and even clothbound Cheddar make for fantastic versions.
Lamb Chops Scottadito With Crispy Kale
The word scottadito means burned fingers in Italian; these lamb chops are best eaten with one's fingers soon after they come off the grill. The recipe comes from Rachael Ray, who serves these at her homes in upstate New York and Manhattan. The lamb chops are best if they marinate for several hours, but turn out just fine with an hour or two under the anchovy and garlic paste. Ms. Ray's method for preparing kale produces crispy leaves; key elements are the lightest spray of oil, and baking racks to get them really crisp. They need to be made in batches, but a hot oven makes the job quick, and they can also be done a little bit ahead of time and served at room temperature. Don’t skip grilling the lemon: the slightly charred, acidic flavor adds an essential layer.
Rick Easton’s Pizza With Peppers
In order to bring out all their flavor and sweetness, you must sauté bell peppers before putting them on this variation of the Pittsburgh-based baker and cook Rick Easton's pizza; but that’s hardly any work at all. (If you like, add a couple of semihot peppers to the mix.) The mozzarella is a nice touch, as is the rosemary, but almost any herb will work beautifully here. Don’t skimp on the olive oil, and don’t underbake the pie; it should be good and brown on the bottom.
Home/Made Mushroom Lasagna
Monica Byrne, with her partner, Leisah Swenson, runs a tiny restaurant in Red Hook, Brooklyn, called Home/Made. A plurality of words that appear on the Home/Made menu: “cheese,” “smoked,” “bacon,” “caramelized.” Three of those four appear in Byrne’s lasagna, leaving out only bacon, which would be a fine addition. She layers smoked mozzarella over a painting of rich, garlicky béchamel and sheets of pasta, then radicchio roasted into sweetness and tossed in sauce. Sautéed mushrooms add heft and loamy funkiness, and a mixture of Fontina and Gruyère add zing.
Arugula Salad With Parmesan
Emulsifying a dressing isn’t essential for a sublime salad: Instead, think of the oil and acid as seasonings for a vegetable. For this recipe, that’s spicy arugula, dressed with olive oil, lemon and shards of Parmesan to create a salad classic in many Italian restaurants and homes. But whether olive oil or lemon should come first, like all seemingly simple questions, is complicated. James Beard, Marcella Hazan, Deborah Madison and Judy Rodgers all concurred: For a brighter-tasting salad, start with olive oil, which better adheres the liquids to the greens and doesn’t obscure the lemon. Be sure to use full-flavored greens, then taste the dressed leaves and adjust seasonings until the arugula tastes like its greatest self.
Lasagna With Collard Greens
Collard greens are so big and flat that they fill in for a layer of noodles in this easy, satisfying lasagna. When you make lasagna, be careful not to use up your ingredients on the first layers. You should have enough for three layers here.
Pasta With Gorgonzola and Arugula
The main characters here are Gorgonzola and arugula, the first of which appears in a number of different pasta sauces, all unsurpassed for their creaminess. But in many instances, to me at least, Gorgonzola-based sauces tend to be too slick and rich. This makes the addition of the fresh-tasting spicy arugula from the supermarket even more welcome. Not only does it provide a little bit of crunch, but its odd version of heat also gives a bit of an edge to what could otherwise be a soft, almost insipid sauce. Don't forget to finish up with a few hearty cranks of the pepper mill. A full teaspoon for the entire dish is not too much. (The original recipe called for 1/4 pound of Gorgonzola and 2 tablespoons of butter, but after many readers commented that the dish needed more sauce, we tested it and agreed. The figures you see below are for doubling the sauce, but if you prefer it the old way, just halve the Gorgonzola and butter.)
Tagliatelle With Mushrooms in Red Wine
This hearty, umami-rich pasta dish is easily assembled in less than an hour. For the best texture, use your hands and not the food processor. Chopping the mushrooms and crushing the tomatoes by hand ensures some uniformity. The sauce can be prepared in advance, since you will summon the powers of the cooking water from the tagliatelle. Use more, if needed, to moisten the mixture before serving.
Fresh Egg Pasta
This adaptable pasta recipe will work with whatever flour you’ve got in the pantry. Using the “00” gives the silkiest, softest pasta while bread flour will give you more of a satisfying chew, and all-purpose lands you squarely in the middle. Because flour absorbs liquid differently depending on its age and the humidity in the air, consider these amounts as a guide and not as the law. Use your judgment. If the dough seems too wet and sticky to work with, add a bit more flour; if it seems too dry to come together into a smooth, satiny ball, add a bit more oil. The pasta is wonderful cooked right away, but you could dry it for future use instead. Let it hang in strands over the backs of your kitchen chairs or on a washing line if you have one. Or you can curl handfuls of pasta into loose nests and let them dry out on the sheet trays, uncovered.
Seared Scallop Pasta With Burst Tomatoes and Herbs
Although usually designated as a “something special” ingredient, scallops make a perfect weeknight dinner because they cook in minutes. To get a good, crisp sear, be patient (it's hard for us, too) and let the pan get quite hot before adding the scallops. Once you do, leave them alone to ensure a deeply golden crust. Toss them with pasta and candy-colored cherry tomatoes that burst and get coaxed into a jammy sauce. Finish with a showering of fresh, tender herbs and a drizzle of olive oil.
Pasta, Green Beans and Potatoes With Pesto
The most elegant pasta dish that Italian cooks have ever invented is astonishingly simple to make. Here, the magical green sauce is tossed with trenette (or any long pasta you can twirl around a fork), tender slices of potato and barely blanched green beans.
Neapolitan Pasta With Swordfish
The lusty foods and intense wines of southern Italy provide inspiration to spare for cooks and connoisseurs. San Marzano tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, succulent olives, tender pastas and fragrant olive oils, alone or combined, spell sheer enjoyment. The roots of red-sauce Italian, ever popular in the United States, are in the south — in Campania and Naples (its capital city) as well as in Puglia and Basilicata. This recipe is a riff on the traditional pasta alla puttanesca, with tomato, capers, olives and garlic, but without the anchovies. The recipe goes bigger on the fish front, with chunks of seared swordfish to bolster the mixture with meaty, briny notes.
Evan Funke’s Handmade Tagliatelle Pasta
Evan Funke, a pasta maker and the author of the cookbook “American Sfoglino,” developed an exacting recipe for handmade tagliatelle that practically guarantees success for ambitious home cooks. It takes time to achieve the proper balance between elasticity and extensibility in the dough. If it is too elastic, it won’t stretch to the desired thinness, but if it is too stretchy, it is too hydrated and won’t maintain its shape. Keep at it: The more often you make it, the better it will be. If you find the dough springing back after you roll it out, it may need more time to rest, so let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before resuming, or refrigerate it for up to 24 hours. Because the dough is the result of just two ingredients — flour and eggs — use the freshest eggs you can find.
Linguine With Clam Sauce
Purists may object, but canned clams are a great weeknight pantry stalwart. When fresh ones are out of reach, or when you’ve decided you need a briny fix, the canned clam is reliable no matter the season. This recipe calls for dry vermouth, which adds a subtle herbaceous layer of flavor. (Vermouth has a long shelf life when stored properly, and it’s great to have on hand to make a last-minute pan sauce.) Canned clams are already salty, so be mindful of oversalting the pasta water or the sauce. The dish is finished with lemon zest for brightness and butter for silkiness. The best part? The whole thing can be on the table in the same amount of time it takes to boil water.
