italian cooking made easy

Sliced Tuna Gratin This recipe is very easy to prepare and really yummy!! We use fresh tuna fish, but it can also be done with Sword fish or Salmon. “Gratin” is very common in Italy and other mediterranian countries like France and Spain. It’s done with bread crumbs and can be used in vegetable recipes too, it’s an ancient habit to recycle old bread and food leftovers. In this case we pan-fry the tuna, but it can be prepared in the oven too. Ingredients for 4 persons: One or more slices fresh tuna fish (600 grams.) sliced 1 finger thick. Bread crumbs (enough to cover all of the fish) ready-to-use from the supermarket or made by you rubbing slices of toasted bread. Salt and pepper. Parsley, chopped. Chive, fresh or dried. One piece of garlic, chopped. Oregano 10 fenny seeds. (if you don’t like the taste, you can do without) Sesame seeds. (one table spoon) Olive oil. Lemon juice (half a lemon) What to do:         ...

1 Lasagna. The first thing to know is that in Italy lasagna has more than one version, every one of them with a different filling. The most famous one is lasagna alla Bolognese, with meat sauce. But very common is also lasagna with artichoke, mushrooms or fish. In reality you can use any filling! One of the fundamental characteristics of Italian cooking is simplicity; once understood the basics of the recipe, you can get creative and use the ingredients you like! Lasagna are sheets of egg-pasta. The best and easiest ones are the ready-to-use, soft sheets, because you can use them without boiling them first, it’s important that on the packaging in some way is indicated that you can put them directly into the oven ! But if these are not available in your supermarket you need to use the dry sheets. I will explain later on how to prepare these. At this point, let’s start with the recipe of the most famous lasagna in the world; lasagna alla Bolognese. Bologna is one of those Italian c...

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Home made pasta for 2 persons: 100 gr. white flour and one egg and a little salt. mix the flour and the egg and work the dough for about 10 minutes, making a doughball. Now make the dough as flat as possible, sprinkle a little flour and roll it up. Cut fine slices from the roll, unwrinkle them and let them dry for a moment. Cook 4 to 10 minutes depending on how thick your tagliatelle are. Taste to try and trust your eyes. they have to be "al dente" so you have something to chew on! For the "condimento" 1 small onion, a handful of broccoli, garlic, a little chilipepper, origano, salt, A hand ful of fish (swordfish is good, but any fresh fish will do) Fry onion, garlic, chili and broccoli for 5 minutes with olive oil, then add a little water and origano and cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Add small pieces of raw fish and a little salt and cook 5 minutes. When ready there should not be any water anymore. When the pasta is ready, add to the broccoli and heat together on...

Risotto con fegatini di pollo. ( Chickenliver risotto ) 4portions.   Fry 200 grs. chickenliver, garlic, salt and pepper for 10 minutes in olive oil. Add 2 teacups of rice (use rice for risotto and nothing else!) Prepare chicken bouillon before you start (available readymade in any supermarket) Add a teacup at the time and stir 20 minutes until rice is "al dente" (It's important that you keep stirring and never take your eyes off it, because you are adding just a small quantity at the time and it will quickly evaporate.) When done, add a little butter and parmesan cheese and let rest for 5 min. Add pepper when serving. This is a typical Nothern Italy/Veneto region recipe.

  dry pasta fresh pasta Let's speak about PASTA! the first thing to understand is that there are many different kind of pasta, but there is a big difference between fresh pasta and dry pasta. Fresh pasta contains water so it needs to be kept in the fridge. Cooking time is usually short ; 3 to 4 minutes. Dry pasta has longer cooking times, usually 8 to 11 minutes.The second point is how to cook pasta. this point looks very simple, but usually in Italy (pasta country!) we do it in this way; when the water starts boiling, we add the salt (salt in italy is  in big grains, but also fine salt is ok, only you use two thirds of the quantity), in a medium pan two full big spoons. then you put the pasta. Usually on the pack the cooking time is indicated. then you throw out the water, you put the salsa and you eat immediatly! please, don't rinse the pasta with cold water!!!! if you do it, italians could kill you!