Orecchiette, which means “little ears”, are a great pasta shape for vegetable pastas, as their rounded, earlobe shape catch the vegetables and the sauce. At the restaurant I work at now, we serve an orecchiette dish with sun-dried tomatoes and broccoli rabe, in a sauce of olive oil, garlic, and chile flakes. While browsing through [...]

Today’s dish, a creation of Naples, Italy, is a great example of Southern Italian flavors and ingredients. Baccalà, or salted codfish, is pan-fried in olive oil, and served in a peppery-sweet tomato sauce with roasted bell peppers and chile pepper, pine nuts, and golden raisins. This sauce is my favorite part of the dish – [...]

Here is a simple, delicious pasta dish from Puglia, Italy. The noodles, Bucatini, are tossed with a sauce full of Southern Italian flavors: olive oil, garlic, chile pepper, sun-dried tomatoes, almonds, black olives, orange zest, and basil. There are so many great flavor combinations at work here. It may seem like a lot of ingredients [...]

Sautéed chicken livers with onions is an Italian classic, a dish straight from the pages of la cucina povera. Slow-cooked, deep brown caramelized onions pair incredibly well with rich, quickly sautéed chicken livers. It is not, however, the most visually appetizing dish – brown on brown – and that’s why it’s la cucina povera. There [...]

Tagliatelle are the noodles of the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy, and green tagliatelle are a brighter, more colorful version made by mixing pureed spinach (or spinach and watercress) into the eggs. I’ve been making a lot of tagliatelle, as my Imperia pasta maker came with a tagliatelle cutter, and I haven’t bought any other [...]

This is the second version of a pasta dish I made from a pork ragu. I had bought a half pork shoulder, braised it in white wine and chicken stock with fennel, red onion, carrots, and celery, shredded the meat, and continued to braise for a total of about four hours. I only paid about [...]