Chances are, if you know anything about Italian food, you’ve heard of saltimbocca alla romana, veal scallops sautéed in butter with prosciutto and sage, then simmered in white wine. It’s a simple dish, full of robust flavor like much Roman cookery. But not as many people know its southern cousin, saltimbocca … Read More
Fusilli primavera
I had always thought of “Pasta Primavera” as a modern American invention, probably a product of the rage for “northern Italian” food in the 1970s and 1980s. I remember reading about it years ago in some gourmet magazine and asked Angelina to make me it for me. “What’s that?” she replied … Read More
Pastiera Napoletana
It wouldn’t be a proper Easter dinner in Naples without a pastiera napoletana for dessert, as essential to the Neapolitan Easter as struffoli are to Christmas. This wheatberry and ricotta pie is wonderfully perfumed with orange blossom water, cinnamon and candied fruits, a kind of ne plus ultra version of the … Read More
Migliaccio di semolino (Semolina Cake)
Migliaccio, a crustless Neapolitan Semolina Cake, is a traditional sweet dish for Carnevale, may be less well known than the more iconic Neapolitan Carnival treats like those fried dough ribbons called chiacchiere or the lasagna di Carnevale so dear to the hearts of so many Italian-Americans, but it’s well worth discovering. … Read More
Struffoli (Angelina’s Honey Balls)
Struffoli, small balls of dough fried and then covered in honey, is the quintessential Christmas sweet of Naples and its region of Campania. Although I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, it is very dear to my heart; it was one of nonna Angelina’s signature dishes, and it never … Read More
Spaghetti alla Nerano
We’ve featured pasta and zucchini before, but this celebrated dish from the Sorrento peninsula is a bit more elaborate and intriguing. Spaghetti alla Nerano, named after the beach town where it originated, could be the child that your basic pasta and zucchini would have if it got married with a cacio e pepe. … Read More
Melanzane al cioccolato (Chocolate Eggplant)
Chocolate Eggplant? It sounds like a culinary joke or some newfangled fusion dish. In reality, melanzane al cioccolato is a perfectly orthodox if unusual dish from Campania, more specifically the Amalfi coast, traditionally made for the Ferragosto holiday on August 15. I have to admit, although I had heard of this … Read More
Zucchine cacio e uova (Zucchini with Egg and Cheese)
Zucchini and eggs were meant for each other. They are found together in a whole assortment of Italian dishes, perhaps most notably as a frittata. Zucchini cacio e uova is another example of this pairing, where the zucchini rather than the eggs star. Zucchini is sautéed with onion and perhaps a … Read More