There may not seem like a lot to this dish, but boy is it tasty. Pork chops with vinegar peppers is an old Italian-American stand-by. I have always made this with sweet vinegar peppers, but if you prefer you can use hot, or a mix. For a different variation on this dish you can home…
Lingue di Pizza are a street food snack that can be found in bakeries all over Rome. The word lingue means tongue, which describes the elongated shape. I have been seeing videos from Italy of people making these all over my social feeds, and I decided I had to try making them. My first question…
Here is another excellent Sicilian variation on pesto. This is different from the Trapanese Pesto that I featured last week in that there is no tomato, and it uses pistachios instead of almonds. Think of it as closer to Genovese basil pesto, but with pistachios rather than pignoli. The difference is that instead of just…
I was looking to do some kind of new fish on the grill. I have my standards that I go to all summer long, usually involving swordfish, or steelhead trout, but was in the mood for a change. I decided a simple grilled swordfish with pesto would be a good idea. The reason I do…
We are having a bit of a heat wave here in Connecticut this week. I figured what better way to fight the heat than to try out a new flavor of gelato. I wanted to make a Sicilian style gelato, so I decided to go with a very popular flavor in Sicily, pistachio. Sicilian style…
Sweet ripe cantaloupe wrapped in paper-thin prosciutto. One of Italy’s simplest and most perfect combinations. Prosciutto and Melon is a simple and classic Italian combination. Quality ingredients are key here, use good imported Prosciutto di Parma or if you want to try something different, Prosciutto di San Daniele from the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy….
Pasta alla Norma is one of Sicily’s most celebrated dishes, a simple combination of pasta, tomato sauce, fried eggplant, and ricotta salata that has become a symbol of Sicilian cooking. The dish comes from Catania, on the eastern coast of Sicily. The name is said to be a tribute to Norma, the opera composed by…
Many of my favorite memories of visiting Sicily over the years revolve around food. The way a meal could stretch for hours. The way my aunt would disappear into the kitchen and come back with something extraordinary made from almost nothing. My late Aunt Lina lived in Motta Santa Anastasia, a small town in the…
Desserts were not the strong suit of my father’s restaurant. You ate there for the pasta dishes and the Italian entrees. Dessert was an afterthought. Like many Italian-American restaurants at the time, we had premade desserts we got from a vendor like spumoni and tortoni. We did stuff our cannolis fresh, and made desserts like…
Pasta al Forno simply means baked pasta, and unlike a lot of Italian dishes, there is no single definitive recipe for it. Every region has its own version, every family has their own take, and almost any combination of pasta, sauce, and cheese can find its way into a baking dish. Some versions are elaborate:…
