Memorie di Angelina

A reader who I’ll call “Nancy T.” wrote me recently to tell me about a dish called zuppa that her Piedmontese grandmother used to make. The word is one of several in Italian that mean ‘soup’ (see our Glossary for details). A zuppa is rustic soup, typically the kind that you are meant to have with bread, […]

Bagna cauda or, more properly, bagna caôda, means ‘hot sauce’ in English. It refers to a typical Piedmontese dish for communal eating that is popular in cold weather months, a kind of cross between fondue and pinzimonio, if I can put it that way. It is, quite simply, a collection of raw and steamed vegetables, […]

If you’ve been reading this blog lately you may be wondering if we’ve been switching themes on you. Well, it’s true that summer somehow brings out the experimental side of my otherwise rather staid culinary character. But, fear not, gentle reader, Memorie di Angelina is still, first and foremost, an Italian food blog. Now that […]

Polenta is one of the most emblematic dishes of the northern Italian cuisines from the Veneto to Lombardia to Piemonte. It is also one of the oldest foods eaten in Italy, dating back at least to 990 BCE. In its original form, polenta—known to the ancient Romans as pulmentum—was a porridge made from spelt. In […]

  Here’s a wonderful way to ‘recycle’ leftover brasato or other pot roast—as a filling for stuffed pasta:   Prepare the filling by finely chopping the leftover roast in a food processor together with an egg or two, lots of grated parmesan cheese and, if you like, a few spoonfuls of the leftover sugo (gravy) […]

There’s nothing like a good pot roast on a cold winter’s day! Though it may come as a surprise to some, Italians also make pot roast, which is known variously as brasato or stracotto, but with a ‘continental’ twist: the favorite cooking medium for Italian pot roast is red wine. Although it is not absolutely […]

Here’s a neat idea for a really quick and savory pasta whenever you happen to roast  veal, chicken, beef or pork. Save the drippings and use them as a sauce for pasta—a sugo d’arrosto. It’s that simple. If your roasting pan is flameproof, you can even throw your pasta right into the pan. Otherwise, deglaze […]