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Archive for the ‘italian cooking’ Category

I had thoroughly enjoyed my personal Sicilian history lesson provided by Alessandro Adorno, the Founder and Director of the Babilonia Language School. In addition he suggested that I attend one of the cooking classes organized by Babilonia that gives Italian language students an opportunity to create Sicilian delicacies first-hand.

Just a minute and a half from the language school is the home of Aurelio and Angela Ferrari, a couple who regularly host language students as part of the homestay program of Babilonia. Currently the couple have three language students staying with them, and they provide them with comfortable accommodation as well as three home-cooked meals a day.

Aurelio, now retired, has spent a life-time in the hospitality industry. He has lived and worked in different hotels and resorts in Rome, France and England and has held a wide variety of positions in the tourism business, including work in various hotel and restaurant kitchens and has gained a wide variety of operational and managerial experience. After all the years abroad during his international career he returned to live in Taormina, in the house where he was born. He said he loves living here, it’s beautiful, and it’s very safe since there is virtually no crime.

The pie is a ubiquitous symbol of both Italian cooking and Americana. Oven-baked, thin-crust or deep-dish, round or square, it is a common favorite throughout the United States, with a wide number of regional variations.

The most traditional pie is the pizza Napolitano, or Neapolitan pizza. Made of strong flour, the dough is often kneaded by hand and then rolled flat and thin without a rolling pin. The pizza is cooked in an extremely hot wood-fired stone oven for only sixty to ninety seconds, and is removed when it is soft and fragrant. Common varieties of Neapolitan pizza include marinara, made with tomato, olive oil, oregano, and garlic, and marguerite, made with tomato, olive oil, fresh basil leaves, and mozzarella cheese.

New York was home to the first pizza parlor in the United States, opened in Little Italy in 1905 by Gennaro Lombardi. It is not surprising, then, that New York-style pizza dominates in the Northeastern part of the country. It is thin-crusted, and made with a thin layer of sauce and grated cheese. The dough is hand-tossed, making the pie large and thin. As a result, it is served cut into slices, traditionally eight, which are often eaten folded in half. It can be served with any number of toppings, including pepperoni, the most popular topping in the United States, or as a “white pizza”, which includes no tomato sauce and is made with a variety of cheeses, such as mozzarella and ricotta.

Do you need easy Italian recipes that you can cook up fast that are delicious and inexpensive?

Below are three very simple Italian recipes that do not require much time to prepare and only use several ingredients that you may even have on hand.

This is the beauty of Italian cooking. You do not need a ton of ingredients to cook up a delicious meal.

The key with cooking great Italian food is to use fresh quality ingredients, like fresh herbs and fine olive oil. And the number one most important ingredient in any type of cooking is of course Love!

Enjoy and Buon Appetito!

EASY ITALIAN MARINARA SAUCE RECIPE

Here is a great recipe for marinara sauce using canned tomatoes. This marinara sauce is delicious over your favorite pasta, on top of pizza and over mussels and shrimp. The beauty of this sauce is that it can be used with a number of other recipes, so it’s a great starting point in Italian Cooking and it is very easy to make.

Boiling water without burning it may seem like a simple process but in reality there are some individuals who simply do not know their way around the kitchen. They cannot tell you the difference between saute and broil. Culinary students who are interested in the top culinary schools must have some background in the kitchen if they hope to become an executive chef one day.

They have to know the basics if they want that ‘A’ on their souffle. It can be a demanding career and one that is tough on the body, mind and ego but for those who have the determination the pay off is extraordinary.

Top culinary schools are not everywhere. There are many located throughout the United States that offer a comprehensive cooking degree upon completion, yet there are some that do not and so you must go online. The only online school that may be applicable, should you want to run the front end of a restaurant, is The University of Phoenix with their Hospitality and Business Management program. However, this program will only teach you how to run the front of a restaurant, as it will not include any instruction in the culinary arts.

Italian cuisine is as varied as the regions of Italy. Although Italy was officially unified in 1861, the food reflects the cultural variety of the country’s regions with culinary influences from Greece, Roman, Gallic, Germany, Turkish, Hebrew, Slavic, Arab, Chinese and other civilizations. In this sense, there really is no one Italian cuisine because each area boasts of its own specialties. Not only is the food of Italy highly regionalized, but a high priority is also placed on the use of fresh available produce.

Although traditional Italian dishes vary by region, they also do not follow strictly to a North/South pattern either. The north tends to use more butter, creams, polenta, mascarpone, grana padano and Parmigiano cheeses, risotto, lasagna and fresh egg pasta, while the south is more tomato and olive oil based cooking, along with mozzarella, caciocavallo and peconrino cheeses, and dried pasta. Coastal and central regions often use tortellini, ravioli and prosciutto in their cooking. Even pizza varies across the country. In Rome the crusts are thin and cracker-like, while Neapolitan and Sicilian pizzas have a thicker crust.