This stew has a long history. The story goes that it was invented by the furnace workers (fornaciai) who baked the terracotta tiles for the Brunelleschi’s famous Duomo in Florence. They mixed roughly cut up beef shank, salt, lots of black pepper and red wine—Chianti, of course—in terracotta pots and let it all bake slowly […]
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 […]
Summer may be drawing to a close here in the Northern Hemisphere, but there’s still time to get in some more grilling. In fact, grilling is a lot more pleasant in the cooler temperatures of the late summer and early fall than at the height of the summer—standing over a hot grill during those […]
Braciole—beef slices rolled up with a savory garlic, parsley and cheese filling—is one of those dishes common to both Italian-American and ‘real’ Italian cooking—of the Neapolitan variety. Italian-Americans will often add them to the pot when making “Sunday sauce”, but they are equally good on their own, simmered in tomato sauce. Unlike the long simmering […]
Not everyone associates hamburgers with Italian cooking, but Italians have a long tradition of using ground beef in imaginative ways, for meatballs (polpette) and meatloaf (polpettone), as well as as a basis for the classic ragù alla bolognese. So it should really come as no surprise that they’ve also applied their culinary creativity those patties […]
It’s hard to believe, but in all the years that I’ve been writing this blog, somehow I’ve managed to avoid writing a post about Italian beef stew. I suppose that’s a tribute to the vast variety of Italian cooking or perhaps a reflection of the somewhat secondary role that beef plays in Italian cuisine. Or […]
Is there anything more comforting than baked pasta? If there is, I haven’t come across it yet. And while some baked pasta dishes in the Italian repertoire—especially the two ‘star’ lasagne dishes, the South’s lasagna di carnevale and the North’s lasagne alla bolognese—are elaborate affairs, there are everyday baked pastas that don’t require days in […]
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