Memorie di Angelina

Salsa verde, literally ‘green sauce’, is a quick, parsley-based raw condiment, intensely flavored with garlic, anchovies, capers, a dash of vinegar and, if you like, a pinch of hot red pepper, all bathed in fruity olive oil. It  is a culinary cousin to other such sauces like the Sicilian salmoriglio or the Argentinian chimichurri and the […]

Today is Pasquetta, or ‘Little Easter’, known in English as Easter Monday. A holiday in Italy and much of Europe, folks traditionally take to the roads to drive out to the countryside and enjoy a fresh air picnic. In Campania and elsewhere, one favorite item in the Pasquetta picnic basket is the pizza rustica, literally […]

This dish brings back some of my fondest childhood food memories. Calzone di cipolla, or onion pie, is one of the signature dishes of the cuisine of Puglia. My grandfather Lorenzo hailed from a small town outside of Bari, the capital of Puglia, called Grumo Appula. His sister, whom we called Zia Angelina (not to […]

Carpaccio is one of the most famous of Italian antipasti but the version most people are familiar with—thin beef slices macerated in olive oil and lemon, adorned with arugula and shavings of Parmesan cheese— is actually more precisely carne cruda all’Albese, a Piedmontese dish. The true carpaccio was invented by Venetian hotelier Giuseppe Cipiani, of Harry’s […]

A sformato, which literally means ‘unmolded’ is something like a soufflé without the puff: the main ingredient is mixed with a very stiff béchamel sauce and eggs, then baked in a mold until set. But since the eggs are left whole rather than separated and the whites whipped, a sformato only rises ever so slightly […]

The word pizza in Italian has a broader meaning than it does in English. Besides the savory disk we all know and love, it also refers to both savory and sweet confections that we would likely call ‘pies’ in English, including Angelina’s pizza dolce, which doesn’t even have a crust. Then there’s the classic pizza rustica, […]

  Scamorza is a cousin to the more familiar mozzarella. Like its famous relative, scamorza is a cheese made from stretched curd, formed into a ball. Scamorza, however, is tied with string and hung up to dry, giving it a more solid texture, as well as its typical ‘pear’ shape. And scamorza is generally made […]