Got basil? Whirr it into pesto and swirl it into an elegant braid of Italian bread. You won’t believe how easily this Braided Bread with Pesto (Treccia al Pesto) comes together into a fragrant, flavorful appetizer. And as a side bread, it can spruce up an everyday meal. The twisted braid idea comes from our son-in-law Gordy. His “crown bread” filled with tapenade and blue cheese (from Nadiya Hussain of the Great British Baking Show) blew us away. With its dark filling and gorgeous layers, it got mistaken for dessert when he took it to a party. We simplified the bread recipe and substituted pesto because our garden basil has gone berserk. And…
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Pressure-Cooker Chicken Minestrone
Minestrone—that famous medley of veggies, beans and macaroni in tomato broth—means “thick soup” in Italian. But don’t stop with veggies—switch it up with tender bites of chicken. Chicken pumps up the flavor, mellows out the tomatoes, and turns a chunky soup into even more of a meal. Pressure-Cooker Chicken Minestrone falls somewhere between stew and soup—”stoup,” if you will. We got our classic minestrone from longtime pal Elinor Lipman. Most people know her for her novels, but she’s also a clever cook and baker. Her latest success, Ms. Demeanor, is a finalist for this year’s prestigious Thurber Prize for American Humor. In it, to our delight, she spices up her usual witty dialog and…
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Anchovy Bread (Sfogliata)
A tiny grenade of umami, the humble anchovy gives chefs a secret weapon for deepening the flavor and richness of sauces and stews. It melts away as it cooks, leaving only salt and a savory meatiness. But Italians take anchovies out from behind the curtain, celebrating them in the dish bagna càuda, in robust pasta sauces, and as a classic pizza topping. And this Italian Anchovy Bread (aka Sfogliata), sliced into colorful little pinwheels with luscious paprika-spiced filling, further proves how anchovies can command center stage. We first learned about this easy and elegant bread from Ruth Reichl’s book, My Kitchen Year. Ruth, the longtime Editor-in-Chief of Gourmet and acclaimed food critic at the…
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Dan’s Marinated Grilled Shrimp
Dan, Recipephany’s grillmaster, can make just about anything tender, juicy and deliciously smoky on his (t)rusty old Grill Master barbecue. Usually he just plays it by ear, mixing up rubs and sauces with seemingly random herbs and spices. He knows when something’s done by using common methods like an instant-read thermometer, and by being “open to vibrations in the ether.” But for his Marinated Grilled Shrimp, he sticks pretty closely to this recipe—although he rarely uses a measuring cup. And every time it comes out tangy, luscious and with a slight Italian accent. The secret is the simple marinade. The fact that I often request Dan’s Marinated Grilled Shrimp attests to its magnificence. After…
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Pasta with Fresh Tomato and Sage Sauce
Our new favorite pasta sauce has all the earmarks of a Neopolitan classic. Quick and simple, it exemplifies the short-order-cooking style typical of great Italian food. It simmers just long enough to get saucy and tangy, then clings lovingly to the pasta of your choice, careful to let the creamy flavor of the wheat shine through. It includes the usual suspects: chunked-up tomatoes, garlic, red pepper flakes, sage…. Sage? What’s with the sage? We know how Italians season tomatoes with basil and oregano, and occasionally with rosemary and thyme. Sage goes into saltimbocca and brown butter sauce, but not red sauces. But why not? Sage belongs to the mint family, along with all those…
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Risotto with Butternut Squash and Sage in the Pressure Cooker
As the days get shorter, keep the sun in your life with gleaming risotto lit with golden butternut squash. Plump little Arborio rice grains turn creamy yet keep a nice al dente chew. Swirled with sweet winter squash, it’s a comfort food to rival mac and cheese. The pressure cooker (or Instant Pot) cooks it up perfetto in just about 5 minutes, without any of the watching, stirring and all-around fussing that scare cooks away from risotto. Fresh sage plays the hero here, propelling the savory flavors into the stratosphere. Dried sage can work, too, but fresh velvety leaves add the brightness of garden greens. If you don’t have a pressure cooker or its…
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Mary DiNardo’s Italian Baked Stuffed Mushrooms
Stuffed mushrooms aren’t just for passing around on trays anymore. This recipe turns them inside out to create a luscious mushroom stuffing, perfect as an appetizer or side dish. Moist, rich in umami, sharp with Parmesan and bright with herbs, it has a marvelous Italian accent. And in the finest Italian tradition, it offers good food in abundance—abbondanza! We’re happy to be able to share this gem from Lisa DiNardo, who grew up surrounded by great cooks and who loves to cook herself. This favorite from her mother, Mary, makes a clever casserole and, as a bonus, offers an option for traditional mushroom canapés. Here’s Lisa’s story: “I grew up in an Italian-American family…
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Neo-Neapolitan Pizza Dough
There is no greater glory for flour and yeast than to metamorphose into pizza dough. Yet, hard as we try, it’s difficult to capture the flavor and chew of pizzeria crust at home. What’s the secret? If you ask Christopher Kimball, he’d say the secret ingredient in great pizza dough isn’t an ingredient at all: it’s temperature. Just before baking, bring the dough to 75°F, and it will puff up and give you a lovely crust.* In Naples, though, they would offer another, more powerful secret ingredient that’s also not an ingredient: a wood fire. A wood-fired oven radiates the heat of Hades for a quick, dramatic rise. The crust gets crisp on the…
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Classic Ragù Bolognese Redux: Do Chicken Livers Deliver?
A comment from an Italian cooking teacher about our Classic Ragù alla Bolognese from Ada Boni got us thinking about what makes a bolognese a bolognese. In particular, are there chicken livers in its DNA? So we put Recipephany’s Research and Testing Institute to work. Here’s what we learned from our deep dive into the evolution of one of the world’s favorite meat sauces. A genetic analysis of bolongese ragù’s ancestry brings you immediately to Pellegrino Artusi’s 1891 seminal cookbook, Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well. The meats Artusi favored for his “Maccheroni Alla Bolognese” (which is curiously tomato-free in a book with many tomato sauces) were simply veal and…
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Italian Star Bread Secrets Revealed! Make Bakery-Quality Loaves.
For decades I’ve sought this holy grail of bread recipes. Star bread, the American cousin of what I consider the finest bread in Italy, is the stuff of legends. Italian bakers introduced it to Springfield, Massachusetts, and a few other places in the state about a hundred years ago. Specialty Italian bakeries hooked customers on the twisty-shaped loaves, also called “horn bread” or “bolognese bread.” Those bakeries have dwindled to a handful, and star bread always sells out—often before it reaches the shelves. What makes it so special? The hard, golden brown, impossibly smooth crust has the crunch of a dry breadstick. In contrast, the soft crumb inside is fine, compact, and as bright…
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Classic Ragù alla Bolognese from Ada Boni
Dan calls it “faux-lognese,” that sea of tomato sauce with ground beef swimming in it. Real bolognese, Dan argues, is a ragù, or stew, of finely chopped aromatics and meats simmered with just a kiss of tomato paste, wine, and cream. And he knows because Ada Boni, the Mamma of Italian Cookbooks, said so. Ada Boni captured authentic Italian cooking in the landmark Il Talismano della Felicità, (Talisman of Happiness, or simply The Talisman) (1928) which became Italy’s standard cookbook for many decades, influencing generations of cooks. Boni’s Italian Regional Cooking (1969) has long been Dan’s go-to reference, as trusted as if it were written by his own Italian grandmother, Maria Rosa Nicoletta Maddalena…
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Nocciola (Hazelnut) Biscotti Dipped in Chocolate
Even more than “cashew,” which sounds like a sneeze, “filbert” is the stupidest nut name ever. Fortunately, the NAAFRCP (National Association for the Advancement of Foods Resembling Chick Peas) promoted the more melodious “hazelnut.” Proving that everything sounds better in Italian, “nocciola” rightly implies dark depths of flavor. The hazelnut grows abundantly in the Piedmont Region, and became a cocoa substitute as Italy rebuilt after World War II. This explains why nocciola gelato has the smooth richness of chocolate, and why Nutella tastes like chocolate spread with some hazelnuts, when it’s really the other way around. This recipephany produces a classic, crunchy biscotti with a toastier, more mouthwatering flavor than the almond variety. Because…
