Cauliflower is a tricky vegetable – it has an interesting flavor, but it must be coaxed out of it. There’s nothing nice about bland, soggy, boiled cauliflower. In this recipe, the cauliflower is braised in the juices of delicious cherry tomatoes, so its flavor is retained in the sauce, rather than being lost to a [...]

Here is a great contorno, or vegetable dish, from Mario Batali’s The Babbo Cookbook. Escarole, a delicious chicory, refreshing and not as bitter as radicchio and arugula, is quickly sautéed and paired with roasted shallots. The shallots add deep flavor to the dish – roasting greatly transforms them and brings out their sweetness, which balances [...]

I cooked a lot of Italian dishes this week from some of the cookbooks I bought recently, and as I was already doing the string beans from Mario Batali’s Babbo Cookbook, I decided to also do the string beans from one of Biba Caggiano’s books, and compare the flavors. The two recipes are very similar; [...]

Here is a simple recipe for string beans that gives them a deep, distinct Italian flavor. The dish starts with a soffrito of red onion, garlic, chile flakes, and anchovy paste, which blend together to form a complex, balanced flavor base; zesty, pungent, spicy, and salty. The beans are added and sauteed for 15 minutes, [...]

Cauliflower is a vegetable which, if not carefully prepared, will taste very bland and boring. What a shame, as it has such nice subtle flavors for the creative cook to work with. The recipe below, from Union Square Café, is an example. Roasted, browned cauliflower is paired up with two ingredients symbolic of the sunny [...]

Cold carrot soup is a summer classic; sweet and refreshing, as well as brightly colorful. Orange juice and white wine give this one a nice acidic lift, while cloves, ginger, and cardamom round out the flavor. This is a very easy, quick soup to make. Just start by sauteing the aromatics, then add the carrots [...]