Want to taste honest-to-goodness cucina italiana at its most authentic? A real experiential take on what Italian cuisine is really all about? This looks like a great way to go about it. One of the perks of working with us for your Italy experience: we’re not going to try to ram you into a series of tourist trap restaurants from whom we’re getting kickbacks. We’ll instead arrange this kind of meal for you so you can taste the real Italy and enjoy the best meals you’ll ever have in the company of friends.
Tag Archives: italian cuisine
The Best Italian Region for Food?
All of them! But try them all to see for yourself, just in case.
Crostini!
One of the constants of Italian cuisine is using what you have and what’s in season; it seems like a simple thing…but think about the other culinary modalities in the world and in your daily life where getting ingredients from a far flung corner of the world is just part of the deal.
This concept works well even with foods you wouldn’t think of as being traditionally Italian per se; in this case, we had some locally made bread, some of my late grandmother’s pickled beets, and some goat cheese from a local artisanal producer.
The wife blended the beets with garlic, olive oil, goat cheese, and some onion. It makes a creamy topping with a crazy pink color that looks like a savory cake icing. Put it on the bread with a bed of sauteed arugula and stuck it in the oven to brown. Instant dinner! Perhaps not what you think of as being Italian cuisine, but in terms of concept and execution, quintessentially Italian!
I think Mama Isa would approve.
Limoncello!
Limoncello? Yes please!
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Carbonara with Facon (instead of bacon or guanciale)
Decided to slack off tonight and use the whole grain semolina noodles from Barilla instead of making homemade, and I feel guilty over it already. But it was tasty!
I like to chop the facon (fakon? fakin?) pretty small as it mixes better. It really does taste better with homemade noodles, but it was late and the kids were cranky, so the rare box of Barilla was broken out. If you make it with homemade noodles make sure to leave them firmer than al dente as they’re going to absorb a lot of moisture from the egg and cheese and the heat from the pan will keep them cooking, and you don’t want mush. But like most rustic, peasant inspired Italian dishes, it just tastes better with the homemade egg noodles.
My harshest critics, however, found tonight’s pasta quite satisfactory.
Sitting on Grandma’s lap, eating my pasta! Sitting here apparently made it taste way better than actually sitting in the high chair.
Carbonara
Check out Mama Isa’s carbonara recipe. It might be sacrilegious but I make a vegetarian version with fake bacon that works out just fine (I crisp it in oil with some garlic and shallots and it tastes plenty rich).
Sassi Italy Tours 