Pollo alla cacciatora, chicken Cacciatore.

This is a really easy recipe quite common in the North of Italy but mainly in Tuscany.

You can cook it in advance and keep in the fridge for a couple of day or you can cook it and serve it.

You can use a whole chicken or just parts: as you see in the photo I used 2 chicken legs for 2 servings.

2 chicken legs with skin

1 garlic clove

rosemary stick

parsley

1 celery stick

1 carrot

1 onion

1 glass red wine

2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

4 cups tomato sauce

Put the chicken, skin on, in a hot pan with oil, rosemary and garlic.

If you're on a diet you can avoid oil, skin is greasy enough to brown on its own, when the chicken is ready you can peel it.

Let it brown on both side then add red wine, let evaporate then add finely chopped vegetable, stir well and cook on medium fire for a couple of minutes, remove garlic and rosemary stick.

Add tomato sauce, cover with a lid and cook for about 40 minutes on low fire, few minutes before you turn off fire add chopped parsley.

Serve hot with a lot of bread to pick up sauce!

Orecchiette with anchovies and sun dried sweet peppers.

Few months ago I received a great present from a close friend who lives in Basilicata (deep South of Italy).

I received a lot of dried local pasta like orecchiette and cavatelli, wild boar salami, local cheese and much more.

I received also a big packet of sun dried sweet peppers which are typical of Basilicata.

I still have some of them and I used those peppers in a quick but very tasty recipe combined with some orecchiette left.

If you can't find orecchiette you can use spaghetti, penne, maccheroni of any kind. :)

2 servings:

3 medium sun dried sweet peppers 

2 anchovies in oil

3 tablespoons tomato sauce

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 garlic clove

2 cups orecchiette (or the serving size you like of the pasta you have)

Let orecchiette boil in a big pot of salted water, if they're dried they should boil for 14-16 minutes (taste them).

In a pan heat extra-virgin olive oil, add chopped peppers (without seeds) and garlic and stir frying for a couple of minutes then add anchovies and let them "melt" with peppers.

Remove the garlic, add the tomato sauce and stir well.

Cook for 2-3 minutes more then use a blender and reduce the sauce to cream.

Season your pasta hot with this sauce and eat immediately, it's sooo tasty!

Cheese cigars.

This is a quick-quick-quick appetizer recipe, you can put the cheese you prefer inside, in the picture you can see cheddar because that was the cheese I had at home at the moment but they're fabulous with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese too or parmesan, a little mozzarella and rosemary.

You need:

toast bread in slices

same amount of cheese slices or diced mozzarella and tomato sauce

a little butter

Cut out the crust from bread slices, pass them under a rollpin to flatten then put on every slice a slice of cheese or a little tomato and mozzarella.

Roll the cigars, melt a small amount of butter in a pan then cook untill golden (first the seam side down to prevent them from open).

Serve hot, if you make the tomato-mozzarella version be aware that the filling will pour a little more than with plain cheese.

Cuttle fish and potadoes in red (Seppia con patate in rosso)

Great fish dish, not too expensive and good for children or elders because it's quite soft (if cuttle fish are cooked well).

You can use also squids, they're bigger, maybe a little less tasty but (here at least) even less expensive.

For 3-4 serves:

18 oz. little cuttle fishes

18 oz. podadoes

7 oz. peeled tomatoes

1 garlic clove

extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 glass of white wine

cooking salt

pepper (if you like)

black olives chopped (if you like)

chopped fresh parsley or thyme

Wash and clean cuttle fishes, cut it in tiny stripes.

Peel potadoes and chop them in pieces (not too big).

In a saucepan pour oil and add garlic, stirfry it for few minutes then add peeled tomatoes and their sauce.

Cook for about 5 minutes, add potadoes, cooking salt ( be carefull, not too much!) and let it cook for about other 10 minutes then add wine and let evaporate.

Now add cuttle fishes and thyme or parsely and cook again for about 20 minutes: it should be enough but it depends on how big are cuttle fishes so check them if they're still hard.

Pizza dough (Pasta per pizza)

This is the recipe to make your own pizza at home.

This dough could be freezed with success, just take it out of the freezer the morning for the evening.

Please consider I don't make the classic round-shaped pizza but the one here is called "pizza al taglio" (pizza on a cut, take away) that comes in rectangular baking tin then cutted in squares (as you can see in the picture).

The pizza results soft and not really thin but it's how it's made in Naples, where pizza was born.

You can even make different seasoning in the same tin if they aren't too contrasting (like ham and anchovies).

In the next post I'll give you 3 pizza seasoning that are a family's well kept secret, they probably seem strange or even disgusting but give a try then tell me what you think!

For 4 medium oven tin:

2 cups warm water (if you need more add little by little)

7 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

1 oz yeast

2 tablespoons extravirgin olive oil + some to grease tin

Melt yeast in a cup of warm water, then mix all the ingredients together little by little, being sure to have a smooth ball of dough (you have to knead for at least 20-25 minutes by hands, if you have a kneader you're lucky, I usually use my beloved bread machine knead program: here is a quite diffused kitchen appliance).

When you have your elastic and smooth dough you can choose: or you stretch it out in the baking tin (grease it with a little olive oil) then cover with a clean kitchen cloth and let it rest for 4-5 hours in a dark room without air draught or you can put the loaf in a bowl, cover with a clean kitchen cloth and follow the same procedure, after 4-5 hours stretch the dough in the tins and let rise for half an hour more in the tin.

The turn out of rising depends a lot from the enviroment, temperature, air humidity: the more you make dough the better you can calibrate the yeast quantity.

When the time for cooking comes preheat the oven at around 520 F°, drizzle the dough with a little extra virgin olive oil, add tomato sauce (if you prepare it 2-3 hours before using canned tomato pulp, salt, a little basil or oreganon-fresh, freezed or dried-, a little garlic -fresh or dried- and some more olive oil it's perfect, no need to cook it ), mozzarella cheese (finely chopped, not sliced) and the seasoning you've choosen (if it's a delicate topping like parma ham or artichoke hearts add it just 2 minutes before removing pizza from the oven, if it's something more resistent or that needs longer cooking like wurstel (frankfurter) put them on before.

The cooking time dipends on the oven: mine is quite new and heat very well so 10-15 minutes are enough; anyway to see if pizza is ready look at borders and use a knife to look at the bottom, if they're gold coloured pizza is ok.

Potado gnocchi (Gnocchi di patate)

Potado gnocchi are a quite famous Italian dish: it's prepared in the whole peninsula but more often in the North of Italy.

They could be dressed in many ways, the most commons are: tomato sauce, genovese pesto, bolognese sauce.

To make gnocchi you need (for about 4-5 persons):

2 lb whole potatoes unpeeled

2 cups flour

1 egg

1 tablespoon salt

Place washed potadoes in a large stock pot filled with water and bring to a boil.

Cook until the potatoes are soft.

Peel immediately while potatoes are still hot (ok, I know it's not funny but the peeling is easier) then mash them on a work surface using a food mill.

When the potatoes are still warm (but cool enough to be handled), shape them in a mound with a hole in the middle and add inside the flour, the egg and salt.

Draw the ingredients together and mix to form a dough.

If the dough is sticky sprinkle a little more flour and work the loaf of dough. add flour and work again untill the dough is no longer sticky.

Cut the dough into four pieces. Sprinkle the work surface with a little flour, and place the first piece on it.

Roll the dough into one or two long sticks approximately 3/4 inch in diameter.

Cut the sticks in little pieces (about 3/4 inch each).

Roll the pieces along the the surface of a cheese grater.

Work this way every piece of dough, work always on a lightly floured surface.

Fill a stockpot with water, bring to a boil, and add salt.

When the water is at a fast boil, drop the gnocchi in.

The gnocchi will fall to the bottom of the pot: after about 2-3 minutes the gnocchi will come up to the surface, this mean they're cooked.

Drain them then saute' for few moments in a pan with the choosen sauce.

Add a spoon of fresh grated parmesan and enjoy your gnocchi!

Canned tuna tomato sauce (Sugo al tonno)

Surfing the web I saw we are all on the same boat: financial crisis is a global matter and families with low incomes and on a budget are a lot here in Italy and abroad.

So today I want to post a cheap sauce for pasta, so cheap and easy that here is quite famous as "student dish": ingredients don't need to be refrigerated and everyone can afford them.

Ingredients:

half a bottle or a can of tomato sauce

salt

basil (even dried one)

garlic (even dried one)

1 can of tuna (with oil if you like or just steamed if you want a light dish)

chili pepper if you like

extra virgin olive oil

Put in a pan two spoons of oil, add garlic and let it fry for a while.

Add tuna, well crushed, mix then add tomato sauce.

Let it boil gently for half an hour then add salt basil and chili as much as you like.

Here you are your sauce, it's perfect with spaghetti, penne, rigatoni, farfalle.

Bolognese sauce (Ragu' alla bolognese)

On request today I'll give you my recipe of Bolognese sauce.

I told "my" because every cook got his/her version.

"Ragu'" is one of the recipes that if you ask 10 different persons you'll have 10 different versions.

I'll try to give you all the best advices, this version is the one I've learnt from my mum and my mum from my grandma so it's fully tested, of course it could be different from your expectations or wants or habits but I can assure it's 100% Italian^^.

The preparation is quite long even if not so difficult so I usually prepare a lot of sauce then freeze it in little aluminium containers: so I can take it for lunch/dinner whenever I want, it can rest in freezer for about 2 months (or you can give a little to mum, to mother in law, to friends...Get rid of ragu' is not so difficult^^).

You need:

a large pot,

e.v.o oil,

one carrot,

one celery stick,

one little white onion,

7 oz. of beef minced meat,

3 1/2 oz. of pork minced meat,

3 1/2 oz. sausage meat without skin,

a tube of tomato concentrate (if you find it)

a bottle of tomato sauce,

2 cups of skimmed milk.

Mince carrot onion and celery together, put them in the pot, add abundant e.v.o. oil and let it get hot and fry for one minute.

add the three kind of meat in the pot, probably the meat will be in a block, you must have the patient to "cut" it with a wood spoon mixing and mixing and mixing.

Boring but important.

When the meat is well mixed and starts to become white add skimmed milk.

You have to cover all the content of the pot so pur it^^.

Why milk?

Because it gives a sweet aftertaste that support perfectly the taste of meat and vegetables that is quite strong.

If you can't use milk or think it will not your taste add 2 glasses of white wine.

The Bolognese will be a little bit more bitter according to me, but it's so individual!

Let it boil on low fire for about 10 minutes then add tomato concentrate, mix well, then add salsa, the whole bottle if the sauce is quite "hard", less if it's liquid.

Count it must boil on very low fire for at least three hours, so the most part of the liquid will be absorbed.

Taste it and add the right quantity of salt.

Mix sometimes, it doesn't need a lot of attention if the fire is low.

You can use a fire net on the cooker to expand heat.

When the time is over let it cold and divide in container.

Freeze the part you don't use in the next 2 days, put the rest in the fridge.

What is the best pasta to use ragu'?

Egg noodles!
You can use maccheroni or penne anyway, spaghetti "alla bolognese" is something a bolognese person would never eat:P but if you like eat your spaghetti and be happy:D .

(don't forget to mix pasta with the sauce, don't simply pur it on top of the dish leaving the most part white...it's so sad!

And add a sprinkle of fresh grated parmesan on top!)

The perfect tomato sauce (Sugo di pomodoro)

Let's start from the basics ;)

As many know tomato sauce is one of the most important thing in Italian cooking: it's perfect when plain with pasta, it's the base for amatriciana, ragu' alla bolognese and other worldwide famous dishes.

How to make the perfect sauce?

Of course the quality of the "sugo"can't be indipendent from the tomato quality.

According to me MUTTI sauce is the best on the Italian market, truly I don't know if it's avaliable abroad too.

For 3 persons I usually use half a bottle of sauce (350 gr.), you can anyway count about 100 gr. of souce/person.

Cover the bottom of a pot with olive oil (extra virgin olive oil, I always use that in my recipes if not specified) and add a garlic clove crushed gently with the side of a large knife.

Let the garlic get blonde (no black!! it's bitter!) then add a sprinkle of salt (how much only your taste can say;) ) then 2/3 leaves of fresh basil (yes you can use the dry one or the frozen chopped one but to have the best you must use the most fresh ingredients) and the sauce.

Lower the fire under the pot at minimum, mix once then let it cook for at least one hour.

Tomato sauce needs a long cook, it's not a well known detail.

of course pay attention not to burn it:)

The sauce is ready to use on pasta (spaghetti, penne, maccheroni) with a bit of fresh grated parmesan, or on a slice of good toasted bread, you can store the sauce into the fridge for 1-2 days.

GREEK TOUCH: at the end of the cooking, minutes before tourn off fire add some cubes of feta cheese and dissolve them in the sauce.

use it on pasta...

It's simply delicious!