italian cooking made easy

Very, very good! You can use fish fillets, but it works wonderfully with a whole fish. Put some olive oil in an oven pan and cover the bottom of the pan with sliced raw potato. Place the fish on top of the potatoes and add salt, pepper, rosemary, garlic, 4 tblspoons. Olive oil, sliced onion, olives, sliced tomato and 10 capers. Close the whole thing with aluminium foil and bake in the oven at 180°Celsius for about 40 minutes. See also our “fish in foil” post. Buon Appetito!!!

For 4 persons you need: - 2 fish fillets about 300 grms. each. - 300 grms. shrimps or tiger prawns - 500 grms. shellfish. - salt and pepper. - 4 tbl. spoons olive oil - ½ glass of white wine - parsley. - 1 pc. chopped garlic Buy 2 different fish fillets, like 1 salmon and 1 tuna, or 1 cod and 1 shark, etc. Rinse and dry, put them in an oven pan with a little olive oil. Put shrimps or tiger prawns on top. On top of that add the shells, take the ones you like, mussels or any other available. before using them, take care to leave the shells in water for at least 2 hours and change water often. In this way there will be no sand inside the shells. Now add salt and pepper, garlic, 4 tablespoons olive oil, chopped parsley and half a glass of white wine. Cover with aluminium foil and cook in the oven for about 40 min. at 200°C. When all the shells are open, the whole thing is ready. Don’t eat the shells that didn’t open! Buon Appetito!

This is an easy one, and very,very tasty! (See our post " beet" from 12/03/2012) Potatoes and Beet. Preparation time: about 45 minutes. For  4 persons you need: - 3 chunks of beet or paksoy. (cut to pieces) - 3 big potatoes.( in small pieces) - 1 onion. (slices) - 1 pc. garlic. - 1 teacup olives. -  half a teacup olive oil. -  some origano - some chili pepper - some salt - 1 teacup of water. Pre - heat the oven to 180° Celsius.  Put half of the olive oil in a oven pan. Mix all the ingredients, except the water, and put everything in the pan. Add the other half of the oil evenly on top of the vegetables, and add a cup of water. Cook in the oven for 30 minutes, but take care to mix everything after about 15 minutes. Buon Appetito! 

IF YOU KNOW HOW TO DO IT, IT'S REALLY  DELICIOUS AND VERY HEALTHY  FOOD !!!!!!      We used Dogfish. Of course you can use any fish, but dogfish has a mild taste and is very easy to digest.    Put the fish in a pan with cold water,not covering it completely with water. Add a piece of lemon , an onion, a piece of celery and a bay leaf.  Boil for about half an hour. Put the meat on a dish and garnish with olive oil, lemon or lime, chopped parsley or coriander, salt and pepper.  DELICIOUS !!!!

A very common veggie in Italy. It's like small broccoli, but we use some of the smaller leafs too. The taste is a little stronger than ordinary broccoli. The italian name is "cime di rapa" It's very good with pasta. Use the broccoli-like parts and the smaller leafs and cut into small pieces. For 4 persons:  simmer 1 onion, garlic, some chili and salt in olive oil. After 3 minutes add the veggie (1 handful per person) and let it simmer for at least 20 min. Add 4 pcs. anchovy at the end.(last 5 minutes of cooking time)  If you are  vegetarian you can use capers instead of anchovy. Boil the pasta and when done, add it to the turnip and stir 2 minutes over high flame. Buon appetito!

Good food, good price, nice people!

Do you know this vegetable? Its called beet .(barbabietola or beta vulgaris)  In Italy you can buy it in every supermarket. It has a very delicate taste and many restaurants serve it. You can also use "Paksoy" (Chinese cabbage). I usually prepare it like this: I cut it in small pieces.  Olive oil in a pan, add the vegetable, garlic, origano, salt and pepper. chili pepper optional. some water. Let it simmer for about 20 minutes, if needed add some water. You can add some olives too, or capers. Very good!

King Prawns and Rucola. For 1 person: - 8 king prawns - a handful of rucola - lemon slice - 2 small tomatoes - mayonese - 1 tbl. sp. olive oil - salt / pepper - lemon juice Boil the prawns for about 3 minutes. Clean them and place on top of the rucola. Mix olive oil, lemon luice, salt and pepper and garnish. Finish with lemon slice, tomato and mayonese. see picture. Buon Appetito!!

Fish Barbeque.... 15 minutes!!?? Would you like to do a fish barbeque, but you don't have a lot of experience? This is how we do it!!!! Buy a fish (about 1 kilo, ok for 2/4 persons). We used a mullet, but any fish wil do. Ask the fish vendor to clean it and cut it, so you can open the fish as if it were a book. In this way it's easier to cook, because it is tricky to prepare a whole fish in the barbeque. You risk it to burn on the outside, while it's still raw on the inside. Open the fish and cover  it with salt, pepper, lemon slices, rosemary, laurel leaf, garlic and origano. Cook it on a hot barbeque with the skin side down for about 10 minutes. At the end, turn it over and cook for another 2/3 minutes. DONE!!!