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This elegant but easy dessert is a kind of dressed up version of Angelina’s humble pizza dolce. The basic recipe for this ‘pudding’ calls for just ricotta, eggs and sugar, and it’s perfectly delicious at its simplest. But, if you like, you can add various the fillings and toppings according to the season and your [...]
I love chicken, but I find it a shame that so many people overlook all the other edible birds out there: duck, goose, turkey, pigeon, guinea fowl, Cornish hens and—last but not least—quail, just to name a few. Most of these can be hard to find these days, as supermarkets have, for the most part, [...]
Spring is a special time of year. There’s nothing that lifts a body’s spirits quite like the green shoots and gentle sun of spring. And then there’s the wonderful produce that starts to appear in our markets—tiny peas, artichokes, slender green asparagus, fava beans in their hefty pods, plump strawberries… Even in this age when [...]
Salsa verde, literally ‘green sauce’, is a quick, parsley-based raw condiment, intensely flavored with garlic, anchovies, capers, a dash of vinegar and, if you like, a pinch of hot red pepper, all bathed in fruity olive oil. It is a culinary cousin to other such sauces like the Sicilian salmoriglio or the Argentinian chimichurri and the [...]
Today is Pasquetta, or ‘Little Easter’, known in English as Easter Monday. A holiday in Italy and much of Europe, folks traditionally take to the roads to drive out to the countryside and enjoy a fresh air picnic. In Campania and elsewhere, one favorite item in the Pasquetta picnic basket is the pizza rustica, literally [...]
Folks, My cyber-friend Chiara Giglio has done us the honor of featuring Memorie di Angelina today on her lovely blog, La voglia matta. You may remember Chiara from my post on la jota triestina. She hails from Trieste but (I just found out) her father is also from Campania, the region of Italy where Angelina [...]
Onions are everywhere in Italian cooking. They form part of the flavor base for just about every savory dish you can think of but, besides that, they make for a perfect contorno because they go with just about anything. The most common onion side dish is no doubt cipolline in agrodolce, baby onions braised in a [...]
My nostaglia for Rome often brings me to a website and Facebook page called Roma Sparita or, literally, “Disappeared Rome”. The site features a entrancing combination of old photographs and prints of a by-gone Rome along with amusing poems written in romanesco, Roman dialect, in the style of Trilussa. I recently stumbled upon this poem ‘recipe’ [...]
This dish brings back some of my fondest childhood food memories. Calzone di cipolla, or onion pie, is one of the signature dishes of the cuisine of Puglia. My grandfather Lorenzo hailed from a small town outside of Bari, the capital of Puglia, called Grumo Appula. His sister, whom we called Zia Angelina (not to [...]
This stew has a long history. The story goes that it was invented by the furnace workers (forniciai) 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 in a [...]
Chicory (cicoria in Italian) is one of my very favorite greens. It brings back memories of Angelina for whom cicoria and escarole were almost daily staples. Maybe that’s why she lived well into her 90s… A great weeknight dinner option, the recipe for this soup is very fast, very simple and very healthy. (If you [...]
As regular readers will know, I’m the traditionalist when it comes to Italian food. I stick, by and large, with the tried and true. But every so often, an innovative dish comes around that attracts me, usually because, even if it’s not traditional, the dish feels so ‘right’ that it might as well be. So [...]
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 [...]
Risotto is one of my ‘go to’ dishes when I don’t feel like cooking anything elaborate. That may sound odd: risotto has a reputation for being a lot of work and easy to get wrong. And yes, when done badly, risotto can be a rather goopy mess. But it is not really very hard to [...]
Where would we be without onions, I ask you? The onion and other members of the allium family provide the flavor base for practically every savory dish in the Italian repertoire. Countless dishes begin with the preparation of a soffritto which, almost always, includes onion. In fact, although it might come as a surprise, I [...]
“Wedding soup” is a popular Italian-American dish made with escarole and tiny meatballs simmered in chicken broth and adorned with small pasta, typically of the tiny acini di pepe (or “peppercorn”) type. It is so popular, in fact, that it has been marketed as a canned soup by Progresso under the funny name “Chickarina Soup“. Italian-Americans [...]
Apart from lasagna, nothing says Sunday dinner to me like a roast bird, sitting on the dining room table golden brown, with crispy skin, tender, juicy meat and—for special occasions—a savory stuffing. It’s a dish that was almost a universal feature of family dinners back in the day but, sadly, has become a rarity. Well, [...]
When we think of Neapolitan cooking—and southern Italian cooking in general—we think of pasta and pizza. So it may come as a surprise that one of the most emblematic dishes of Neapolitan cooking is actually a rice timbale, the sartù di riso. The word sartù, the story goes, is an Italianized version of the French phrase [...]
Friends, Composer, pianist, organist and fellow blogger Leonardo Ciampa has done us the honor of featuring Angelina’s Sunday Sauce on his blog, Pensieri Meridioniali (Southern Thoughts). Do check out the recipe and Leonardo’s great blog when you have the chance! Cheers, Frank Related articles Memorie di Angelina in the news (memoriediangelina.com) Il ragù della domenica [...]
I like to think that I have a good knowledge of Italian cookery but, every once in a while, I stumble on a dish that I’ve never heard of, let alone tried. So it was with a recent blog post from fellow blogger Judy Witts, whose blog Over a Tuscan Stove is one of my [...]
Pasta e fagioli, or pasta and beans, which goes by the amusing nickname ‘pasta fazool‘ in Italian-American slang, is one of the most internationally famous dishes in the entire Italian repertoire. It is, however, a victim of its own success, and is too often made badly, very badly, which is why I would never order [...]
A sformato, which literally means ‘unmolded’ is something like a soufflé without the puff: the main ingredient is mixed with a very stiff béchamel sauce and eggs, then baked in a mold until set. But since the eggs are left whole rather than separated and the whites whipped, a sformato only rises ever so slightly [...]
Rome is not especially known for its love of polenta, perhaps because its winters are relatively mild compared with those up in true polenta country skirting the southern rim of the Alps, but there is one polenta dish you are bound to find if you visit Rome in the cold weather months, polenta with sausages [...]
Friends, Just a quick note as we dash off to visit family for Christmas. One of my favorite food writers, Domenica Marchetti, has written a lovely article about the Feast of the Seven Fishes, an Italian-American tradition, in the exciting new online magazine American Food Roots. Well, guess who’s featured in said article? You just [...]
A fine side dish for roasted or braised meats, these carrots are a snap to make. Just combine baby carrots, milk, butter and seasonings and let them simmer together until the carrots are tender and the milk is fully absorbed. The milk brings out the natural sweetness of the carrots. The whole thing requires no [...]
One of things that most fascinates me about cooking is how a very slight change in technique, even using the same ingredients—will produce a very different end result. We’ve already explored on this blog the ripassare technique, perhaps the most common in central and southern Italian vegetable cookery, in which parboiled vegetables are then sautéed [...]
Turkey is a popular meat in Italy, often providing a less expensive alternative to veal in dishes ranging from scalloppine to ossobuco. But a whole roast bird, Thanksgiving style, is a rarity. Back in Rome, I remember we had to special order our bird from a local butcher and presented it with much flourish, and [...]
The word pizza in Italian has a broader meaning than it does in English. Besides the savory disk we all know and love, it also refers to both savory and sweet confections that we would likely call ‘pies’ in English, including Angelina’s pizza dolce, which doesn’t even have a crust. Then there’s the classic pizza rustica, [...]
Tripe is one of the most misunderstood parts of the cow. Although classified as an organ meat—part of the famous quinto quarto as the Romans say—well-cooked tripe has its own unique mild and subtle flavor, not at all like other organ meats such as liver or kidneys. Even for the doubtful, tripe is worth a [...]
A quick post as we prepare to batten down the hatches before Sandy hits town: Here’s a homely version of an apple torte that could hardly be easier. And believe me, if a non-baker like myself can make this with no trouble at all, you will, too. You just make a simple batter in your [...]
Dear readers, Welcome to Memorie di Angelina’s new home! I think you’ll be as excited as I am about this new site. The template is truly beautiful, clean yet lively. I think you’ll find it easier to navigate, faster to load and a lot of fun to use. Widgets are back, so you’ll easily find useful [...]
Dear readers,After three and a half years of blogging here on blogspot.com, Memorie di Angelina has found a new home! The new address should be easy to remember: it's memoriediangelina.com.You'll find all of the content you can find on this site on the new site as well. Plus, from this weekend, all new posts will start appearing at the new address.I'm really excited about this new site. The templa
What exactly is ‘authentic’ Italian food? It may be hard to define, but Italians know it when they taste it. To try to get to the bottom of this elusive question, I have written a three part series on the subject: Part I: The Varieties of Italian Cooking This post walks you through the principal [...]
A short post this week. Things are crazy. Here’s another great snack you can make starting with a basic pizza dough, whether homemade or store-bought: spread it out on a cookie sheet or shallow rectangular baking pan, poke it all over with your fingers, then top with rosemary, sale grosso, pepper and a good drizzle [...]
A short post this week. Things are crazy. Here's another great snack you can make starting with a basic pizza dough, whether homemade or store-bought: spread it out on a cookie sheet or shallow rectangular baking pan, poke it all over with your fingers, then top with rosemary, sale grosso, pepper and a good drizzle of olive oil, and bake it in the oven until golden. Super-simple but really, r
It's become a tradition on this blog to dedicate a post every Columbus Day to Italian-American dishes like the iconic "Sunday Sauce" or the San Franciscan fish stew Cioppino. This year, we present Chicken Parmesan. While Sunday Sauce and Cioppino remain pretty much staples of the Italian-American community, it's hard to think of an Italian-American dish, other than pizza or perhaps
It’s become a tradition on this blog to dedicate a post every Columbus Day to Italian-American dishes like the iconic “Sunday Sauce” or the San Franciscan fish stew Cioppino. This year, we present Chicken Parmesan. While Sunday Sauce and Cioppino remain pretty much staples of the Italian-American community, it’s hard to think of an Italian-American dish, [...]
One of the oldest nicknames for the people of Campania was mangiafoglie, or ‘leaf eaters’, because they were known for their prodigious consumption of leafy green vegetables. It was probably a matter of necessity as much as preference back in the day. Wander around just about any open piece of land in Italy and [...]
One of the oldest nicknames for the people of Campania was mangiafoglie, or 'leaf eaters', because they were known for the prodigious consumption of green, leafy vegetables. It was probably a matter of necessity as much as preference back in the day. Wander around just about any open piece of land in Italy and you'll find wild greens of all sorts. Today, most people no longer need to forage for th
Scamorza is a cousin to the more familiar mozzarella. Like its famous relative, scamorza is a cheese made from stretched curd, formed into a ball. Scamorza, however, is tied with string and hung up to dry, giving it a more solid texture, as well as its typical 'pear' shape. And scamorza is generally made from cow's milk, while the best mozzarella is made with the milk of the water buffalo. Scamorz
Scamorza is a cousin to the more familiar mozzarella. Like its famous relative, scamorza is a cheese made from stretched curd, formed into a ball. Scamorza, however, is tied with string and hung up to dry, giving it a more solid texture, as well as its typical ‘pear’ shape. And scamorza is generally made [...]
I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: is there anything more primally satisfying than fried dough? If there is, I haven’t come across it yet. The Neapolitans have come up with all sorts of tidbits made from fried dough, of which we’ve already seen two examples, zeppole and calzoncini, where the dough acts as [...]
I've said before and I'll say it again: is there anything more primally satisfying than fried dough? If there is, I haven't come across it yet. The Neapolitans have come up with all sorts of tidbits made from fried dough, of which we've already seen two examples, zeppole and calzoncini, where the dough acts as a carrier for a savory or sweet stuffing. Today let's look at pizzette fritte, frie
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 'dog days' isn't always a load of fun. Italians love to grill all kinds of food, and we've already see
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 [...]
It probably won’t come as a surprise that Neapolitan cooks have come up with a vast variety of ways to fry and bake dough. Pizza is, by far, the most famous internationally, but there is much more to the Neapolitan repertoire. In fact, in her masterwork, La cucina napoletana, Jeanne Caròla Francesconi devotes a whole [...]
It probably won't come as a surprise that Neapolitan cooks have come up with a vast variety of ways to fry and bake dough. Pizza is, by far, the most famous internationally, but there is much more to the Neapolitan repertoire. In fact, in her masterwork, La cucina napoletana, Jeanne Caròla Francesconi devotes a whole 30 page chapter to the subject of "Pizze e tortani". Besides pizza, most people w
Rabbit is one of the most under-appreciated types of "fowl". Many people have a visceral negative reaction to eating rabbit, since in some countries rabbits are more likely to be pets than a dinner item, but in Italy and other countries, rabbits are highly esteemed for their culinary value and, in these days of tasteless factory chicken, rabbits make for a fine alternative, if
It seems I can't get enough of grilled seafood! We've already featured grilled fish, grilled mollusk and grilled cephalopod, so let's complete the series with grilled crustacean, which may be the most delicious of them all. Here in the US, we are blessed with an abundance of lobster and, much to the chagrin of lobstermen, a lobster glut this year means that prices are at an all-time low. I'm
I don't know about you, but even for an inveterate cooking enthusiast like myself, the dog days of summer take their toll. I like to keep time spent over a hot stove to a minimum, so I turn to lots of quick and easy dishes that need little or no application of heat. Last night, for example, we had an insalata caprese, cured olives, pineapple and, to start things off, some grilled clams.Did you kno
