Crooner is an epithet given to a male singer of a certain style of popular songs. The singer is normally backed by a full orchestra or big band. Crooning is a style that has its roots in the Bel Canto of Italian opera, but with the emphasis on subtle vocal nuances and phrasing found in jazz as opposed to elaborate drama and acoustic volume found in opera houses. Before the advent of the microphone, popular singers, like Al Jolson, had to project to the rear seats of a theater, which made for a very loud vocal style. The microphone made possible a more personal style. Crooning is not so much a style of music as it is a technique in which to sing.
Some crooners, most notably Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Bing Crosby incorporated other popular styles into their music, such as blues, dixieland and even Hawaiian music. Crooning became the dominant form of popular vocal music from the late 1920s to the early 1960s, coinciding with the advent of radio broadcasting and electrical recording.
After 1954 popular music became dominated by other styles, especially rock ‘n’ roll, while the music of latter-day crooners, such as Perry Como and Matt Monro, were categorized as “easy listening”. Crooners have remained popular among fans of traditional pop music, with contemporary performers such as Tony Bennett, Tom Jones, Michael Bublé and Engelbert Humperdinck keeping the form alive.
Frankie Laine
Francesco Paolo LoVecchio (1913-2007) was born to Giovanni and Cresenzia LoVecchio (née Salerno) in Cook County, IL. His parents had emigrated from Monreale, Sicily, to Chicago’s Near West Side, in “Little Italy,” where his father worked as a barber. The eldest of eight children, Laine grew up in the Old Town neighborhood (first at 1446 N. North Park Avenue and later at 331 W. Schiller Street) and got his first taste of singing as a member of the choir in the Church of the Immaculate Conception’s elementary school across the street from his North Park Avenue home. He later attended Lane Technical High School, where he helped to develop his lung power and breath control by joining the track and field and basketball teams. He realized he wanted to be a singer when he went to see Al Jolson’s talking picture, The Singing Fool. Even in the 1920s, his vocal abilities were enough to get him noticed by a slightly older “in crowd” at his school, who invited him to parties and to local dance clubs. At 17, he sang before a crowd of 5,000 at The Merry Garden Ballroom to such applause that he ended up performing five encores on his first night.
Laine was giving dance lessons for a charity ball at the Merry Garden when he was called to the bandstand to sing: “Soon I found myself on the main bandstand before this enormous crowd”, Laine recalled. ”I was really nervous, but I started singing ‘Beside an Open Fireplace,’ a popular song of the day. It was a sentimental tune and the lyrics choked me up. When I got done, the tears were streaming down my cheeks and the ballroom became quiet. I was very nearsighted and couldn’t see the audience. I thought that the people didn’t like me.”
Laine was the first and largest of a new breed of singers who rose to prominence in the post–World War II era. This new, emotionally charged style seemed at the time to signal the end of the previous era’s singing styles and was a forerunner of the rock ‘n’ roll performers that were to come. As music historian, Jonny Whiteside, wrote: “In the Hollywood clubs, a new breed of performers laid down an array of new sounds … Most important of all these, though, was Frankie Laine, a big lad with ‘steel tonsils’ who belted out torch blues while stomping his size twelve-foot.”
Laine began recording for Columbia Records in 1951, where he immediately scored a double-sided hit with the single “Jezebel” /”Rose, Rose, I Love You”. Other Laine hits from this period include “High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me)”, “Jealousy”, “The Girl in the Wood”, “When You’re in Love”, “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans” (with Jo Stafford), “Your Cheatin’ Heart”, “Granada and “Hey Joe!”. Laine scored a total of 39 hit records on the charts while at Columbia.
Laine had become more popular in the United Kingdom than in the USA, as many of his hit records in the UK were only minor hits in the US. Songs like “The Gandy Dancer’s Ball”, “The Rock of Gibraltar” and “Answer Me, O Lord” were much bigger hits for him abroad. “Answer Me” would later provide the inspiration for Paul McCartney’s composition, “Yesterday”. It was also there that he broke attendance records when appearing at the Palladium and where he launched his first successful television series with singer, Connie Haines.
He was a frequent guest star on various other television shows of the time, including Shower of Stars, The Steve Allen Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, What’s My Line?, This is Your Life, Bachelor Father, The Sinatra Show, The Walter Winchell Show, The Perry Como Show, The Garry Moore Show, Masquerade Party, The Mike Douglas Show and American Bandstand.
Along with opening the door for many R&B performers, Laine played a significant role in the civil rights movements of the 1950s and ’60s. When Nat King Cole’s television show was unable to get a sponsor, Laine crossed the color line, becoming the first white artist to appear as a guest (forgoing his usual salary of $10,000.00 as Cole’s show only paid scale). Many other top white singers followed suit, including Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney. In the following decade, Laine joined several African-American artists, who gave a free concert for Martin Luther King’s supporters during their Selma to Montgomery marches. In 2005, he appeared on the PBS special, My Music, despite a recent stroke, performing “That’s My Desire”, and received a standing ovation. It proved to be his swan song to the world of popular music. Laine died of heart failure on February 6, 2007.
Tony Bennett
Anthony Dominick Benedetto (1926) was born in Astoria, Queens, New York City, to grocer, John Benedetto and seamstress, Anna Suraci. In 1906, John had emigrated from Podàrgoni, a rural eastern district of the southern Italian city of Reggio Calabria. Anna had been born in the U.S., shortly after her parents also emigrated from the Calabria region in 1899. Tony has an older sister, Mary, and an older brother, John Jr. With a father who was ailing and unable to work, the children grew up in poverty. John Sr. instilled in his son a love of art and literature and a compassion for human suffering, but died when Tony was 10 years old.
Young Tony grew up listening to Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Judy Garland and Bing Crosby, as well as jazz artists, such as Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden and Joe Venuti. His Uncle Dick was a tap dancer in vaudeville, giving him an early window into show business. Drawing was another early passion of his and he became known as the class caricaturist at P.S. 141. He anticipated a career in commercial art. However, he began singing for money at age 13 and performing as a singing waiter in several Italian restaurants around his native Queens.
He attended New York’s School of Industrial Art, where he studied painting and music and, would later, appreciate their emphasis on proper technique. To help support his family, he dropped out of school at age 16 and worked as a copy boy and runner for the Associated Press in Manhattan and in several other low-skilled, low-paying jobs. However, he set his sights on a professional singing career and returned to performing as a singing waiter, winning amateur nights all around the city and having a successful engagement at a Paramus, New Jersey, nightclub.
He fought in the final stages of World War II as an infantryman with the U.S. Army in Europe. Afterwards, he developed his singing technique, signed with Columbia Records and had his first number-one popular song with “Because of You” in 1951. Several top hits, such as “Rags to Riches” followed in the early 1950s. Bennett then further refined his approach to encompass jazz. He reached an artistic peak in the late 1950s with albums, such as The Beat of My Heart, Basie Swings and Bennett Sings. In 1962, Bennett recorded his signature song, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”. His career suffered an extended downturn during the height of the rock music era.
Bennett staged a comeback in the late 1980s and 1990s, putting out gold record albums again and expanding his audience to the MTV Generation, while keeping his musical style intact. He remains a popular recording artist and concert performer in the 2010s. Bennett has won 17 Grammy Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Award presented in 2001), two Emmy Awards and has been named an NEA Jazz Master and a Kennedy Center Honoree. He has sold over 50 million records worldwide. Bennett is also an accomplished painter, having created works—under the name Anthony Benedetto—that are on permanent public display in several art institutions.
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert Sinatra (1915 –1998) was born in Hoboken, New Jersey and was the only child of Italian immigrants, Natalina Garaventa and Antonino Martino Sinatra. Sinatra’s father was a lightweight boxer who fought under the name Marty O’Brien and served with the Hoboken Fire Department as a Captain. Sinatra left high school without graduating, having attended only 47 days before being expelled because of his rowdy conduct. In 1938 he worked as a delivery boy at the Jersey Observer newspaper and later as a riveter at the Tietjen and Lang shipyard, but music was Sinatra’s main interest and he listened carefully to big band jazz. He began singing for tips at the age of eight, standing on top of the bar at a local nightclub in Hoboken. Sinatra sang professionally as a teenager in the 1930s, although he never learned how to read music.
Sinatra got his first break in 1935 when his mother persuaded a local singing group, The Three Flashes, to let him join. With Sinatra the group became known as the Hoboken Four and they appeared on the show, Major Bowes Amateur Hour. They attracted 40,000 votes and won first prize – a six-month contract to perform on stage and radio across the United States.
After Sinatra left the Hoboken Four and returned home in late 1935, his mother helped him get a job as a singing waiter and MC at the Rustic Cabin in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, for which he was paid $15 a week. The following June, Harry James hired Sinatra on a one-year contract of $75 a week. It was with the James band that Sinatra released his first commercial record, “From the Bottom of My Heart”, in July, 1939.
Sinatra found success as a solo artist from the early to mid-1940s, after being signed by Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the “bobby soxers”, he released his first album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra in 1946. His professional career stalled in the early 1950s, but it was reborn in 1953 after he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in From Here to Eternity. He signed with Capitol Records in 1953 and released several successful albums (such as In the Wee Small Hours, Songs for Swingin’ Lovers!, Come Fly with Me, Only the Lonely and Nice ‘n’ Easy). Sinatra left Capitol to found his own record label, Reprise Records in 1961.
From his youth, Sinatra displayed sympathy for African-Americans and worked both publicly and privately all his life to help them achieve equal rights. He played a major role in the desegregation of Nevada hotels and casinos in the 1960s. On January 27, 1961, Sinatra played a benefit show at Carnegie Hall for Martin Luther King, Jr. and led his fellow “Rat Pack” members (a group of entertainers led by Sinatra who worked together on a loose basis in films and casino shows featuring Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop) and Reprise label colleagues in boycotting hotels and casinos that refused entry to black patrons and performers. He often spoke from the stage on desegregation and repeatedly played benefits on behalf of Dr. King and his movement.
On November 2, 1970 Sinatra recorded the last songs for Reprise Records before his self-imposed retirement. The final song recorded at the session was written by John Denver and titled “The Game is Over”. However, this song was not released officially until The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings suitcase box-set went on sale in 1995 to commemorate his 80th birthday. He was selected as one of the five recipients of the 1983 Kennedy Center Honors and President Reagan said, in honoring his old friend, that “art was the shadow of humanity” and that Sinatra had “spent his life casting a magnificent and powerful shadow”.
Perry Como
Pierino Ronald Como (1912 – 2001) was born in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. He was the seventh of 13 children of Pietro Como and Lucia Travaglini, who both emigrated to the US in 1910 from the Abruzzo town of Palena, Italy. Perry was the first of their children born in the United States. He did not speak English until he entered school, since the Comos only spoke Italian at home. His father, a mill hand and an amateur baritone, had all his children attend music lessons, even if he could barely afford them. In a rare 1957 interview, Como’s mother, Lucia, described how her young son took on other jobs to pay for more music lessons. Como learned to play many different instruments, but never had a voice lesson. Perry showed additional musical talent in his teenage years as a trombone player in the town’s Italian Brass Band, by playing guitar and singing at weddings and as an organist at church.
At the age of 10, Como helped his family by working before and after school in a barber shop for 50¢ a week. By age 13, he had graduated to having his own chair in the barber shop, although he stood on a box to tend to his customers. When Perry was 14, his father was unable to work because of a severe heart condition, so Como and his brothers supported the household.
In 1932, Como left Canonsburg, moving about 100 miles away to Meadville, Pennsylvania, where his uncle had a barber shop in the Hotel Conneaut that was about 80 miles from Cleveland. It was also the stop on the itinerary for dance bands who worked up and down the Ohio Valley. Como went to the Silver Slipper Ballroom where Freddy Carlone and his orchestra were playing one evening and Carlone invited anyone, who thought he might have singing talent, to come up and sing with his band. Young Como was terrified, but his friends urged him onto the stage. Carlone was so impressed with his performance that he offered him a job. Three years after joining the Carlone band, Como moved to Ted Weems’ Orchestra and his first recording dates. It was with Ted Weems as a mentor that the young Como acquired polish and his own unique style.
“Mr. C.”, as he was nicknamed, sold millions of records for Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and pioneered a weekly musical variety television show, which set the standards for the genre and proved to be one of the most successful in television history. Como was seen weekly on television from 1949 to 1963, then continued hosting the Kraft Music Hall variety program monthly until 1967. His television shows and seasonal specials were broadcast throughout the world. Also a popular recording artist, Perry Como produced numerous hit records and his combined success on television and popular recordings was not matched by any other artist of the time.
Como’s appeal spanned generations and he was widely respected for both his professional standards and the conduct of his personal life. In the official RCA Records Billboard magazine memorial, his life was summed up in these few words: “50 years of music and a life well lived. An example to all.” One of the many factors in his success was Como’s insistence on his principles of good taste; if he considered something to be in bad or poor taste, it was not in the broadcast. Another was his naturalness; the man viewers saw on the screen was the same person who could be encountered behind a supermarket shopping cart, at a bowling alley or in a kitchen making breakfast.
Como received the 1959 Grammy Award for Best Male Vocal Performance; five Emmys from 1955 to 1959; a Christopher Award (1956) and shared a Peabody Award with his good friend, Jackie Gleason in 1956. He was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame in 1990 and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1987. Posthumously, Como received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002 and he was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2006. Como has the distinction of having three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in radio, television and music.
Vic Damone
Vito Rocco Farinola 1928) was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian immigrants from Bari, Italy—Rocco and Mamie (Damone) Farinola. His father was an electrician and his mother taught piano. Inspired by his favorite singer, Frank Sinatra, Damone took voice lessons. He sang in the choir at St. Finbar’s Church in Bath Beach, Brooklyn. When his father was injured at work, Damone had to drop out of high school. He worked as an usher and elevator operator in the Paramount Theater in Manhattan where he met Perry Como. Vic stopped the elevator between floors, sang for him and asked his advice if he should continue voice lessons. Impressed, Como said, “Keep singing!” and referred him to a local bandleader. Vito Farinola decided to call himself Vic Damone, using his mother’s maiden name for his new-found career.
Damone entered the talent search on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts and won in April 1947. This led to his becoming a regular on Godfrey’s show. He met Milton Berle at the studio and Berle got him work at two night clubs. By mid-1947, Damone had signed a contract with Mercury Records. His first release, “I Have But One Heart”, reached #7 on the Billboard chart. “You Do” reached the same peak. These were followed by a number of other hits, such as “You’re Breaking My Heart”, based on a turn-of-the-century ballad by Leoncavallo, the opera composer. Damone was also a sought after television guest performer. By the early fifties Vic was a successful recording star, however, it was his recording of “On the Street Where You Live” from the Broadway show, My Fair Lady, that put Damone into super-star status. His version of “An Affair to Remember”, one of the last songs written by Harry Warren, was a huge success.
Damone toured Las Vegas casinos as a performer and, although, he had to declare bankruptcy in the early 1970s, he earned enough as a casino performer to clear up his financial difficulties. He extended his geographical range, touring through the United States and the United Kingdom and, as a result of his popularity, decided to record albums again, releasing them on the RCA label. His final album was issued in 2002 with older albums being re-packaged and re-released. He recorded over 2,000 songs during his entire career. On June 12, 2009, Vic Damone released his autobiography titled, Singing Was the Easy Part, from St. Martin’s Press.
His final public performance was on January 19, 2002 at the Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in Palm Beach, Florida. Damone did however step out of retirement on January 22, 2011, when he once again performed at the Kravis Performing Arts Center in Palm Beach, Florida to a sold out crowd. Damone dedicated this performance to his six grandchildren who had never seen him perform. In December 2, 2011, at the age of 83, Damone launched an official Facebook profile dedicated to his fans. In addition to posting recent photos, Damone writes that “besides spending time with his family he spends his retirement enjoying golf and football”.
Italian American Cuisine
As Italian-Americans moved to various regions of the United States, their recipes encorporated regional flavors into the classic recipes they brought with them from Italy.
Northeast US
New York Style Pizza
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon active dry yeast
- 2/3 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 ¼ cups marinara or pizza sauce
- 1 pound shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1/2 cup grated Romano cheese
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Directions
Sprinkle the yeast over the surface of the warm water in a large bowl. Let stand for 1 minute, then stir to dissolve. Mix in the flour, salt and olive oil. When the dough is too thick to stir, turn out onto a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes. Knead in a little more flour if the dough is too sticky. Place into an oiled bowl, cover, and set aside in a warm place to rise until doubled in bulk. (You can also prepare the dough in an electric mixer or a food processor.)
Preheat the oven to 475 degrees F (245 degrees C). If using a pizza stone, preheat it in the oven as well, setting it on the lowest shelf.
When the dough has risen, flatten it out on a lightly floured surface. Roll or stretch out into a 12 inch circle and place on a baking pan. If you are using a pizza stone, you may place it on a piece of parchment while preheating the stone in the oven.
Spread the tomato sauce evenly over the dough. Sprinkle with oregano, mozzarella cheese, basil, Romano cheese and red pepper flakes. Transfer the pizza to the baking stone.
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until the bottom of the crust is browned when you lift up the edge a little, and the cheese is melted and bubbly.
Cool for about 5 minutes before slicing and serving.
Southeast US
Herb-Roasted Pork Loin
Makes 6 to 8 servings
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon loosely packed lemon zest
- 1 tablespoon light brown sugar
- 3 garlic cloves, pressed
- 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon finely crushed coriander seeds
- 1 teaspoon dry mustard
- 1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
- 1 (2 1/2- to 3-lb.) boneless pork loin
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- Vegetable cooking spray
- 2 whole garlic bulbs, cut in half
Directions
Combine first 10 ingredients in a small bowl. Rub over pork. Chill, uncovered, 8 to 12 hours.
Let pork stand at room temperature 30 minutes. (Bringing it to room temperature will help it cook faster and more evenly.)
Preheat oven to 400° F. Brown pork in hot oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat 2 minutes on each side. Lightly grease a wire rack with cooking spray. Place pork on the rack in a roasting pan. Add the garlic halves.
Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until a meat thermometer inserted into thickest portion registers 135°F.
Remove from the oven and let stand 15 minutes before serving. Serve with the roasted garlic.
Northwest US
Salmon Rosemary Burgers
8 servings
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 pounds king salmon fillet, skinned and de-boned
- 1 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
- 1/2 cup minced red onion
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 2 teaspoons prepared horseradish
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- 1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- Olive oil
- 8 onion rolls
- Lettuce and sliced tomatoes
Directions
Prepare the salmon by cutting into strips, cutting the strips crosswise and chopping the fish until well minced. Be sure to remove any remaining bones.
In a large bowl, mix the minced salmon with the bread crumbs, red onion, Dijon mustard, horseradish and eggs. Season with rosemary, salt and pepper.
Chill at least 30 minutes in the refrigerator.
Preheat an outdoor grill for medium-high heat.
Form the salmon mixture into 8 burger patties. Lightly coat each patty with olive oil.
Place salmon patties on the grill and cook 4 or 5 minutes on each side. Serve in onion rolls with lettuce and tomato slices.
Southwest US
Italian-Style Braised Chicken and Artichoke Hearts
4 servings
- 8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (about 1 1/2 pounds), trimmed of excess fat
- Sea salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
- Generous pinch red pepper flakes
- 1 cinnamon stick, or 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 cups chicken broth, homemade or store-bought
- 2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
- 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 cup canned chickpeas, drained, rinsed, and mixed with a squirt of lemon juice and a pinch of salt
- 1 pkg thawed frozen artichoke hearts, sliced
- 1/2 cup pitted green olives
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint or cilantro
Directions
Pat the chicken dry and season salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven or heavy soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the chicken, working in batches if necessary, and cook until well browned on each side, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate.
Decrease the heat to medium. Add the onion and a pinch of salt and sauté until soft and slightly golden, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add the turmeric, cumin, coriander, red pepper flakes, cinnamon stick and bay leaf and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Pour in 1/4 cup of the broth to deglaze the pot, stirring to loosen any bits stuck to the pot. Stir in a pinch of salt and cook until the liquid is reduced by half. Stir in the remaining 1 3/4 cups of broth, the lemon zest and 2 tablespoons of the lemon juice. Decrease the heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes.
Add the chicken, chickpeas, artichoke hearts and olives and stir gently to combine. Increase the heat to medium-high and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is heated through, about 5 minutes. Stir in the remaining tablespoon of lemon juice. Garnish with the mint.
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Why is buying a whole chicken better than buying one that is cut into serving pieces?
First, a whole chicken is cheaper per pound and is handled less along the way. It lends itself to a variety of cooking techniques and can be cut up at home exactly the way you want it: in half, quarters, eighths or tenths. Eating all of an animal not just the popular cuts, such as the breast, is the most sustainable way to eat. You get the added bonus of the back, neck, frame and gizzards, which can all be used to make broth for soup.
Second, you get several meals from one chicken. You can roast, braise or cook a chicken in the slow cooker. Once cooked, slice some of the chicken for the main meal and then use the leftovers in any number of dishes, such as risotto, chicken pie, a stir-fry, sandwiches or a salad, etc.
Simple Roast Chicken
- One 4-5 pound whole chicken
- Kosher salt and pepper
Directions
Preheat the oven to 450°F. Using a roasting rack set in the baking pan will help the chicken cook more evenly, since air can circulate freely. With a roasting rack, the chicken won’t be resting in its own drippings, so you get a crisper skin. For easier cleanup, you can line the pan with aluminum foil.
Remove the packet of giblets from the cavity of the chicken ( save for use in a stock, if you like — but don’t include the liver, which will make the stock bitter). Pull any loose fat from around the opening. Rinse the chicken inside and out, then dry the chicken very well with paper towels, inside and out.
Salt and pepper the cavity, then truss the bird (simply tie the legs together and tuck the wings underneath the body or tie kitchen string around them).
Sprinkle a generous amount of salt (around a ½ tablespoon) over the outer skin of the bird so that it has a uniform coating that will result in a crisp, flavorful skin. Season to taste with pepper.
Put the chicken, breast side up, on a V-shaped or flat rack and set the rack in a roasting pan just larger than the rack. Roast for 20 minutes, reduce the heat to 375°F and continue roasting for about 45 -60 minutes more. The chicken is done when the leg wiggles freely in its joint and when the juices run clear from the thigh area. (I roast mine until the it registers 165 degrees F on a meat thermometer. The chicken will continue cooking a bit after you remove it from the oven).
Baste the chicken with the juices that have collected in the bottom of the pan and let it rest for 15 minutes on a cutting board.
Variations:
Convection Oven
Cook at 425 degrees F in a convection oven for about 50 minutes.
Lemon and Herb Roast Chicken
Additional Ingredients
- 1 lemon
- Several sprigs of thyme and rosemary or a mixture of herbs you like
- 1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed
Season liberally with salt and pepper and squeeze the juice of the lemon over the chicken. Put the herbs and garlic inside the cavity, together with the squeezed-out lemon halves—this will add a fragrant lemony flavor to the finished dish. Follow directions above for Simple Roast Chicken.
Roast Chicken and Vegetables
- 6 whole small yellow onions
- 4 carrots, cut into 2 inch pieces
- 1 fennel bulb, cut into 2 inch pieces
- 6 potatoes, peeled and quartered
- 1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
- 1 cup chicken broth
Arrange the vegetables in the bottom of the roasting pan and sprinkle them with salt, pepper and the Italian seasoning; add chicken broth to the bottom of the pan. Place chicken on top of the vegetables and cover pan tightly with foil. Follow directions for Simple Roast Chicken and remove the foil when the oven is reduced to 375 degrees F. Turn the vegetables over occasionally while they are roasting to insure even browning.
Whole Chicken in a Crock Pot
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons paprika
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne (red) pepper
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 onion
- 1 large chicken (3-4 lbs)
Directions
Combine the dried spices in a small bowl.
Chop the onion and place it in the bottom of the slow cooker.
Remove any giblets from the chicken and then rub the spice mixture all over. You can even put some of the spices inside the cavity and under the skin covering the breasts.
Put prepared chicken on top of the onions in the slow cooker, cover it, and turn it on to high. There is no need to add any liquid.
Cook for 4 – 5 hours on high (for a 3 or 4 pound chicken) or until the chicken is falling off the bone.
Stovetop Chicken
Leftovers are great for chicken casseroles.
Ingredients
- 1 (4-to 5-lb.) whole chicken
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/4 cup dry white wine or chicken broth
Directions
Remove neck and giblets from chicken and reserve for another use. Sprinkle chicken with salt, garlic powder and pepper.
Melt butter with oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat; add the whole chicken and cook, breast side down, 5 minutes or until golden brown. Turn chicken, breast side up, and reduce heat to medium-low.
Add 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup wine (you can use all chicken broth, if you wish) to the Dutch oven.
Cover and cook 1 hour or until a meat thermometer inserted in a thigh registers 165 degrees F.
Cutting Up a Whole Chicken
1. Remove the legs
Place the chicken breast side up on a solid cutting board. Pull one leg away from the body and cut through the skin between the body and both sides of the thigh.
Bend the whole leg firmly away from the body until the ball of the thighbone pops from the hip socket. Cut between the ball and the socket to separate the leg. Repeat with the other leg.
2. Divide The Legs
Place the chicken leg skin side down on the cutting board.
Cut down firmly through the joint between the drumstick and the thigh.
3. Remove The Wings
With the chicken on it’s back, remove a wing by cutting on the inside of the wing just over joint. Pull wing away from the body and cut down through the skin and the joint. Repeat with the other wing.
4. Cut Carcass in Half
Cut through the cavity of the bird from the tail end and slice through the thin area around the shoulder joint. Cut parallel to the backbone and slice the bones of the rib cage. Repeat on the opposite side of the backbone.
5. Remove The Breast
Pull apart the breast and the back. Cut down through the shoulder bones to detach the breast from the back. Cut the back into two pieces by cutting across the backbone where the ribs end.
6. Cut Breast In Half
You may leave the breast whole if your recipe requires. To cut in half, use a strong, steady pressure and cut downward along the length of the breastbone to separate the breast into two pieces. If the breasts are large you may want to cut each half into two pieces.
Save the parts, such as the backbone and wings, to make broth. I keep a bag in the freezer and add to it until I have enough to make soup.
Chicken in Vinegar Sauce
Ingredients
- 1-4 lb chicken, cut into 8 or 10 pieces
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- 2 tablespoons butter, divided
- 8 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
- 4 shallots, peeled and minced
- 1 cup cider vinegar mixed with 1 teaspoon honey
- 1 cup Riesling or other dry but fruity white wine
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley
Directions
Rinse chicken pieces, pat dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon oil and 1 tablespoon butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add half the chicken, skin side down, and brown, turning once, about 10 minutes per side. Remove and set aside. Repeat the process with the remaining oil, butter and chicken.
Reduce heat to medium, add garlic and shallots and cook, stirring frequently, until slightly soft, about 5 minutes.
Deglaze the skillet with vinegar and wine, scraping brown bits off the bottom with a wooden spoon. Reduce vinegar mixture by about one-third, 3-5 minutes, then stir in tomato paste.
Return chicken to skillet, pour in the stock and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Turn chicken and continue cooking until juices from chicken run clear, about 15 minutes. (If the sauce becomes too thick, thin with a small amount of chicken stock or water.)
Remove chicken from skillet with tongs to a deep serving bowl. Pour sauce from the skillet over the chicken and garnish with parsley.
Roasted Chicken with Bell Peppers and Potatoes
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken, cut into 8 pieces
- 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 1 large green bell pepper, cut into strips
- 1 large red bell pepper, cut into strips
- 1 large sweet onion, cut into eighths
- 6 medium potatoes, quartered
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/4 teaspoon paprika
- Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
Place the chicken, onions, peppers and potatoes in a large baking pan. Make sure not to crowd the pieces together in the pan. Scatter the garlic slices over the mixture and drizzle some olive oil on top of the ingredients. Sprinkle with the parsley, oregano, paprika, salt and pepper.
Cover the baking pan with aluminum foil and put in a preheated oven at 275 degrees F (135 C) for 45 minutes. Remove the foil, turn the oven temperature up to 375 degrees F (190 C) and cook the casserole for 15-20 minutes more, until the chicken and potatoes brown and a meat thermometer registers 165 degrees F.
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Crostini is just another name for slices of bread that have been brushed with oil and baked until golden brown. Crostini make for an endless variety of near-instant hors d’oeuvres. Just spoon on your pick of toppings and watch the crostini disappear!
Crostini is the Italian word for “little toasts”. Crostini are believed to be a kind of Italian peasant food that originated in medieval times. The Italians, too poor to possess ceramic plates, preferred to eat their food by keeping it on the surface of slices of bread. The Italians, not a group to waste anything, often ate stale bread which had to be soaked in juices or wine in order to chew it properly.
Bruschetta and crostini are both bread preparations used in antipasti – but what is the difference?
The difference between bruschettas and crostini is the type of bread used. Bruschetta, from the Italian word “bruscare” meaning “to roast over coals”, is made by toasting whole, wide slices of a rustic Italian or sourdough type bread. Crostini are sliced from a smaller, round, finer-textured bread, more like a white bread baguette. In Italy you might find yourself offered an antipasto of four or five different crostini, no more than a couple of mouthfuls each, accompanied by some olives, but only one or two of the larger bruschetta would be plenty.
Some do’s and don’t I picked up from the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen to ensure successful crostini.
Not starting with good bread
The bread you use should be high quality; look for fresh baguettes, boules and hearty country bread, preferably from a local bakery (as opposed to supermarket brands). Texture is very important–it shouldn’t be too dense.
Slicing the bread too thick or thin
The bread needs to be thin enough to bite, but thick enough to support toppings -1/2-inch thick is just right.
Skipping the oil
Brush olive oil on each piece before toasting it. Why? It makes the surface of the bread less dry. And it just tastes better.
Over-toasting the bread
If the crostini are too hard, they will hurt your guests’ mouths and flake all over their clothes. The ideal texture: crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. To achieve it, bake, grill or broil bread over high heat, making sure to toast both sides. (If you cook on too low a heat, the bread will dehydrate and crumble upon first bite.) You’ll know it’s finished when the edges are browned but the center is lighter in color and still has a little spring to it.
Forgetting the flavor
Flavor your crostini right after toasting. Things you can rub on the bread: a raw garlic clove, a tomato half – cut side-down or a whole lemon or orange–rind. The crispy bread will pick up the fruit’s essential oils.
Going overboard with your topping
If you pile on the topping, it’s going to fall off when you bite into the crostini. You should be able to take bites without worrying about staining your shirt or dress.
Overdressing your topping
Wet topping = soggy bread. Use a slotted spoon when working with a wet topping (tomatoes, etc.) so that extra liquid is left behind. If using greens, dress them lightly.
How To Make Crostini Toasts
Using a serrated knife, cut one 8 ounce baguette diagonally into ½ inch slices. Makes about 20 slices.
Baked Crostini
Bake:
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Arrange the bread on 2 large baking sheets and brush each slice on both sides with olive oil. Bake for about 8-10 minutes, or until the edges of the bread are golden brown. Turn the slices over half way through the baking time. Let cool completely. Store at room temperature.
Grilled Crostini
Broiled Crostini
Grill or Broil
Brush bread slices lightly on both sides with olive oil.
Grill for 15 to 20 seconds on each side, until lightly brown, then remove with tongs and set aside.
For broiling, position the rack so the slices are 2 inches from the flame and turn them over when the crostini start to brown at the edges.
Here are some of my favorite combinations. They are easy to prepare and are always a big hit when I entertain. The recipes are based on 20 slices of crostini.
Shrimp and Pesto
Cut 10 medium peeled and deveined shrimp in half lengthwise.
In a skillet saute 1 minced garlic clove and the shrimp in 1 tablespoon of olive oil until the shrimp turn pink.
Spread each crostini with homemade or store bought basil pesto. Place one shrimp half on each crostini and sprinkle each with shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
Mediterranean Spread
Drain two 6 ounce jars of marinated artichoke hearts, reserving 2 tablespoons of the marinade.
Finely chop the artichokes and place in a mixing bowl with the reserved marinade.
Stir in ½ cup finely chopped sun dried tomatoes packed in oil and drained, 2 tablespoons pitted and chopped Kalamata olives and 2 tablespoons chopped Italian parsley.
Mix well and spread mixture on the crostini slices and sprinkle the top with feta cheese.
Caprese
Rub crostini with a garlic clove or two as soon as they come out of the oven. Sprinkle each with a little balsamic vinegar.
Top each with the following
- 1 slice of plum (Roma) tomato
- 1 thin slice of fresh mozzarella cheese
- 1 fresh basil leaf
Grind fresh black pepper over each crostini.
Olive Orange Spread
In a food processor combine:
- 1 cup pitted Kalamata olives
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons chopped onion
- 1 tablespoon chopped italian parsley
- 1 tablespoon orange juice
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
Pulse until coarsely chopped.
Spread on the crostini, top each with an orange segment and a small piece of arugula.
Roasted Red Pepper and Prosciutto
In a food processor combine one 12 oz jar of roasted red peppers, drained, with a large pinch of cayenne pepper. Process until almost smooth.
Spread pepper mixture on the crostini.
Top with a piece of prosciutto and shredded mozzarella cheese.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Bake crostini until the cheese melts. Serve warm.
Cannellini Bean Spread
In a food processor coarsely process one drained 15 oz. can cannellini beans. Remove to a mixing bowl.
Stir in ¼ cup shredded zucchini, 2 tablespoons chopped green onions, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar and ½ teaspoon coarse grained mustard.
Spread on crostini slices. Top each with a half of a grape tomato and sprinkle with fresh thyme leaves.
Cremini Mushroom Spread
Thinly slice 12 oz cremini mushrooms. In a skillet heat 1 tablespoon olive oil and cook 3 minced garlic cloves for 1 minute. Add the mushrooms and cook for 8-10 minutes until the mushrooms are tender.
Stir in 1/3 cup white wine. Simmer uncovered for 5 minutes or until wine evaporates. Season with salt and pepper.
Spread crostini with a thin layer of mascarpone cheese. Top with mushrooms and sprinkle with chopped fresh chives.
Caramelized Sweet Onions and Gorgonzola
Halve and thinly slice 3 sweet onions. In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons butter. Add onions and cook, covered, on medium low for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Uncover and cook for 5 more minutes, or until the onions turn golden. Season with salt and pepper.
Spoon onions on the crostini and sprinkle with crumbled gorgonzola cheese.
Lemon Ricotta with Fruit and Honey
Stir together 1 cup of whole milk ricotta cheese, 1 teaspoon shredded lemon peel and 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Spread mixture on crostini.
Top each with thinly sliced fresh strawberries or figs.
Drizzle with honey and top each with a mint leaf.
What Are Your Favorite Toppings For Crostini?
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It seems that nearly every nation has some form of dumpling and it’s easy to see why. They are tasty, versatile and make excellent use of leftover ingredients. In Italy, dumplings are collectively known as gnocchi and are made in several different styles. In the family run trattorias of Rome, you can sample some of the best gnocchi every Thursday night in a citywide tradition. Just like most Italian cooking, these delicious lumps do not just vary from region to region, but from household to household as well, depending upon what is available. The most common way to prepare gnocchi is to combine potatoes (boiled, peeled or mashed) with flour to form soft bite-size lumps of dough. Each gnocco is then ridged along one side like a seashell. Gnocchi also come in different sizes, with gnocchetti being the smallest version.
Other types of gnocchi are made with semolina flour, milk and cheese – also known as Gnocchi alla Romana. Some versions are made with regular flour and other kinds can be made with leftover bread. Florence’s strozzapreti are gnocchi made from a combination of spinach and ricotta. Another spinach/ricotta gnocchi is from Lombardy called malfatti, meaning “malformed”, since these gnocchi are made from leftover ravioli filling and do not have a uniform shape. What makes gnocchi so popular is its versatility – simple ingredients like potatoes and semolina flour, vegetables, mushrooms and cheeses can be combined to make endless variations.
See two of my previous posts on the different types of gnocchi and how to make them:
http://jovinacooksitalian.com/2012/10/16/how-to-make-homemade-gnocchi/
http://jovinacooksitalian.com/2012/05/23/need-some-new-potato-recipes/
Woodcut from Maccaronee, by Merlin Cocai, 1521. Revelers eating gnocchi. From Pasta Classica: The Art of Italian Pasta Cooking, by Julia della Croce (Chronicle Books, 1986)
In early writings, gnocco (singular for gnocchi) is sometimes replaced by maccherone, a generic term for pasta. The Encyclopedia of Pasta by Oretta Zanini De Vita tells us that gnocchi is one of the earliest pastas and is originally a Germanic word describing the distinctive shape of gnocchi. Gnocchi was originally from the Middle East, but when the Romans explored the area, they took back with them the recipe for gnocchi. Thus, it was brought with them when they settled European land, in particular, Italy. Here, gnocchi most strongly rooted itself. Various regions began to invent their own form of the dish and introduce them to other neighboring countries. When Italians immigrated into South America by way of Argentina and North America, the recipe for gnocchi went with them.
Recipes for gnocchi have been documented back to the 1300’s. In some parts of Italy, gnocchi was made of fine durum wheat. Elsewhere, it was chestnut, rye, rice or barley flour. When poverty struck, gnocchi might mean leftovers bound with breadcrumbs. We do know that potatoes came in very late as an ingredient and were slow to gain a following. An early recipe for potato gnocchi, circa 1834, calls for just one part potato to three parts flour. It takes another century for modern gnocchi to emerge—where the potato is the main ingredient, with only enough flour to bind it into a workable dough.
Commercial gnocchi is readily available, but it’s worth the effort to make your own. Essentially, you mix cooked, riced potatoes with egg, then knead in some flour. There’s no special equipment required; the familiar grooved pattern is made with a table fork. Gnocchi’s delicate flavor pairs well with robust sauces, from tomato to pesto to gorgonzola. Because they cook more quickly than traditional pasta, gnocchi are a great meal idea for weeknights. Just keep an eye on them, because as soon as they float to the top, they’re ready to sauce and serve!
While gnocchi are simple enough to make from scratch, there are several varieties that can be found pre-made in supermarkets or in Italian specialty stores. Pre-packaged gnocchi, depending upon ingredients, can be found fresh (refrigerated) or frozen. Pre-packaged gnocchi should not be avoided since there are several very good brands. When buying gnocchi in the store, look for the “fresh” looking kind in the refrigerated section (usually next to the fresh pasta), preferably in a well-sealed or vacuum container. The package should be heavy for its size, as dense gnocchi will be less likely to fall apart when cooking. There are also several brands of frozen gnocchi that cook up well, so long as they remain frozen before dropping them in the boiling water, otherwise they will turn into soggy mashed potatoes if allowed to thaw.
Gnocchi in the dried pasta section is usually of the semolina variety, but you may also find vacuum-sealed potato gnocchi as well. Dried semolina gnocchi are convenient and can be tasty, but its taste and texture resembles more of a pasta than fresh semolina gnocchi. With dried potato gnocchi, there just does not seem to be enough moisture left in the dumplings, making them lighter than other varieties. Because of this lack of moisture, the gnocchi tend to fall apart somewhat and often loose their shape. The rule of thumb for buying gnocchi is: get the closest thing to making it yourself – fresh/refrigerated or frozen.
Making Homemade Gnocchi
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 lbs potatoes
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup or more for the work surface
- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Directions
A General Rule of Thumb: 1 medium-sized potato per serving or person. For every potato, you want to use approximately 1/2 cup of flour.
Directions
First, clean and peel potatoes. Remove any brown spots. Cut potatoes into 1” cubes; be sure to cut them into cubes consistent in size so that they cook evenly. Place cut potatoes in a medium-sized pot; fill with water just to cover. Add salt and cover with a lid. Stirring occasionally, boil potatoes for about 20 minutes or until fork tender. Over-boiling will cause potatoes to become mushy and too wet.
Drain the potatoes well. Allow them to cool in a colander. Rice potatoes using a potato ricer into a kitchen towel to remove excess water.
Combine potatoes, 2 ½ cups flour, egg and salt in the work bowl of a processor. Pulse just until the dough comes together.
Once the dough come together, turn out onto a floured board (using as much of the ½ cup flour as needed) and knead into a wide rectangle shape.
Cut the dough into about 8 pieces, 4 inches long.
For shorter, heavy gnocchi, roll dough into thick ropes and cut into 1-inch pieces.
Use a fork to make ridges on the side of each gnocchi.
For thinner gnocchi, roll long ropes. Cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces and place on a floured tray. Repeat with the rest of the dough.
Note: While you are shaping gnocchi, finished gnocchi should be kept on a heavily floured tray as to prevent sticking together. Also, keep them in a cool place until ready to cook for no longer than 45 minutes or else place them in the freezer.
Cooking Gnocchi:
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Once boiling, add salt and then gnocchi. Gnocchi are finished once they float to the top, approximately 3 to 5 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and toss in a saucepan with your favorite sauce.
For best taste and texture, allow gnocchi to “sit” in their sauce once cooked for about 5 minutes.
Serves 4 to 6
Fresh Peas with Lettuce and Gnocchi
Ingredients
- 1 (16-ounce) package frozen potato gnocchi or homemade
- 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons minced onion
- 1 head Boston or other loose-leaf lettuce
- 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
- 4 cups frozen peas, thawed
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- Freshly ground black pepper
Directions
Bring a pot of lightly salted water to a boil over high heat. Cook gnocchi until they float to the top; drain and keep warm.
Place butter in a large, heavy pan; heat over medium heat until melted. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is translucent, about 5 minutes.
Wash lettuce and trim away the stalk end. Shake water off lettuce (it’s OK if some water remains) and add to the pan. Add 1/4 teaspoon salt and the peas. Cook about 3 minutes or until the peas are warm.
Remove pea mixture from the pan and keep warm. Add cream to the pan and cook over medium heat until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Return pea mixture to the pan, add gnocchi and cook, stirring occasionally, until mixture is hot, 2 to 3 minutes. Add remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and pepper.
Gnocchi with Italian Sausage
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 pound sweet Italian sausage, casings removed
- 1 teaspoon loose saffron threads
- 1/4 cup fresh chopped basil
- 26-28 oz container of Italian diced tomatoes
- 1 (1-pound) package potato gnocchi or homemade
- Sea salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
Directions:
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-heat. Add the garlic and sausage. Saute, stirring frequently, until the sausage is cooked through. Add the saffron threads, basil and diced tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Bring the mixture to a simmer and reduce the heat to medium-low. Cover and continue simmering for about 15-20 minutes or until slightly thickened.
Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add gnocchi to the boiling water and cook gnocchi until they float to the top. Once finished, drain and toss with the sauce in the saucepan for about 2 minutes to coat. Serve topped with Pecorino Romano cheese.
Serves 4
Chicken and Gnocchi Soup
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 cup finely diced onion
- 1/2 cup finely diced celery
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 quart milk
- 1 (14-ounce) can low sodium chicken broth
- Salt
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 cup finely shredded carrots
- 1 cup coarsely chopped fresh spinach leaves
- 1 cup diced cooked chicken breast
- 1 (16-ounce) package gnocchi or homemade
Directions
Melt the butter into the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, celery and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion becomes translucent. Whisk in the flour and cook for about 1 minute. Slowly whisk in the chicken broth followed by the milk. Simmer until thickened.
Stir in a 1/2 teaspoon salt, the thyme, nutmeg, carrots, spinach, chicken and gnocchi. Simmer until the soup is heated through.
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Like other art forms that aim to attract a mass audience (movies, television, Broadway shows), pop music has been and continues to be a melting pot that borrows and assimilates elements and ideas from a wide range of musical styles. Rock, r&b, country, disco, punk, Latin and hip hop are all specific genres of music that have influenced and been incorporated into pop music in various ways over the past 5 decades. Italian Americans have helped shape American popular music as composers and performers.
Louis Prima (1910-1978)
a trumpeter, composer and bandleader, who successfully crossed the line from jazz to swing, then to R&B and finally to rock n’ roll. Some of his famous compositions are “Brooklyn Boogie” and “Oh Babe.” His greatest achievement was his 1936 composition “Sing, Sing, Sing” which was later recorded by Benny Goodman and stands as the most powerful big band/ jazz hit of all time.
Prima was from a musical family in New Orleans. His father, Anthony Prima, was the son of Leonardo Di Prima, a Sicilian immigrant from Salaparuta, while his mother, Angelina Caravella, had immigrated from Ustica as a baby. Louis was the second child of Angelina Caravella and Anthony Prima. His older brother, Leon, was born in 1907. He had two younger sisters: Elizabeth and Marguerite. Louis’s mother, Angelina made sure that each child played an instrument. Louis was assigned the violin and started out playing at his church. He became interested in jazz when he heard the black musicians playing at Italian owned and operated clubs, such as Matranga’s, Joe Segretta’s, Tonti’s Social Club and Lala’s, where Blacks and Italians played together.
According to author, Garry Boulard, in his book, Louis Prima, Prima paid attention to the music coming from the clubs and watched his older brother, Leon, play the cornet. After dropping out of high school, Prima had a few unsuccessful gigs and he got a temporary job playing on the steamship, Capital, that docked on Canal Street. From 1931 to 1932 Louis occupied his time by performing in the Avalon Club owned by his brother Leon. His first break was when Lou Forbes hired him for daily afternoon and early evening shows at The Saenger.
New York was an attraction for hungry musicians during the Great Depression. Prima headed to New York City next to further his music career. While there he met Guy Lombardo, who was a positive influence on Prima’s career. In 1934, Prima was offered a contract with Brunswick label and recorded the songs: “That’s Where the South Begins,” “Long About Midnight,” “Jamaica Shout” and “Star Dust.” Prima generated positive responses from growing fans and critics alike with his records and formed his band called, The New Orleans Gang, which consisted of Frank Pinero on piano, Jack Ryan on bass, Garrett McAdams on guitar and Pee Wee Russell on clarinet. The band played gigs in and around New York and Prima’s stage presence became an attraction to the band’s live shows.
Prima’s style fused Dixieland and swing by the late 1930s. By 1935 Prima relocated to Los Angeles, where he found moderate success. Due to a knee injury, Proma was not drafted during WWII and continued to perform and build up a following. By the mid-1940s, Prima’s music was a huge success with the general public. When the war was over, the music industry had been affected and big bands were becoming a thing of the past as the 1950s emerge.
1954 saw Prima embark on the Vegas circuit with singer Keely Smith. The duo enlisted the legendary saxophonist, Sam Butera to perform with them. They also recorded “Old Black Magic,” which earned them a Grammy Award.
Harry Warren (1893-1981)
was born Salvatore Guaragna in Brooklyn and was the son of a Calabrian boot maker. One of Hollywood’s most successful and prolific composers during the 30s, 40s and 50s, he wrote “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” “I Only Have Eyes For You,” “A Love Affair to Remember” and “That’s Amore,” among many other songs. Between 1935 and 1950, he wrote more hit songs than Cole Porter, Irving Berlin or George Gershwin, three of which earned him Academy Awards: “Lullaby of Broadway,” “You’ll Never Know” and “Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.”
Warren was one of eleven children of Italian immigrants Antonio (a bootmaker) and Rachel De Luca Guaragn and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. His father changed the family name to Warren when Harry was a child. Although his parents could not afford music lessons, Warren had an early interest in music and taught himself to play his father’s accordion. He also sang in the church choir and learned to play the drums. He played the drums professionally at age 14 and dropped out of high school at 16 to play with his godfather’s band in a traveling carnival. Soon he taught himself to play the piano and by 1915, he was working at the Vitagraph Motion Picture Studios, where he did a variety of administrative jobs, such as props man, played mood music on the piano for the actors, acted in bit parts and eventually was promoted to assistant director. He also played the piano in cafés and silent-movie houses.
Warren wrote over 800 songs between 1918 and 1981, publishing over 500 of them. They were written mainly for feature films. His songs eventually appeared in over 300 films and 112 of Warner Brothers, “Looney Tunes” cartoons. 42 of his songs were on the top ten list of the radio program “Your Hit Parade”, a measure of a song’s popularity. 21 of these reached #1 on “Your Hit Parade”. “You’ll Never Know” appeared 24 times. His song, “I Only Have Eyes for You”, is listed as one of the 25 most-performed songs of the 20th Century, as compiled by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). Warren was the director of ASCAP from 1929 to 1932.
He collaborated on some of his most famous songs with lyricists Al Dubin, Billy Rose, Mack Gordon, Leo Robin, Ira Gershwin and Johnny Mercer. In 1942 the Gordon-Warren song, “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”, performed by the Glenn Miller Orchestra, became the first gold record in history. It was No.1 for 9 weeks on the Billboard pop singles chart in 1941–1942, selling 1.2 million copies. Among his biggest hits were “There Will Never Be Another You”, “I Only Have Eyes for You”, “Forty-Second Street”, “The Gold Diggers’ Song (We’re in the Money)”, “Lullaby of Broadway”, “Serenade In Blue”, “At Last”, “Jeepers Creepers”, “You’re Getting to Be a Habit with Me”, “That’s Amore” and “Young and Healthy”.
Guy Lombardo (1929-1977)
was born in London, Ontario, to Italian-Canadian immigrants, Gaetano Sr. and Lena Lombardo. His father, who had immigrated to Canada from Italy and worked as a tailor, was an amateur singer with a baritone voice and had four of his five sons learn to play instruments, so they could accompany him. Lombardo and his brothers formed their first orchestra while still in grammar school and rehearsed in the back of their father’s tailor shop. Lombardo first performed in public with his brother, Carmen, at a church lawn party in 1914. Forming “The Royal Canadians” in 1924 with his brothers Carmen, Lebert and Victor and other musicians from his hometown, Lombardo led the group to international success, billing themselves as creating “The Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven.” The Lombardos are believed to have sold between 100 and 300 million phonograph records during their lifetimes.
In early 1932, the band signed with Brunswick records and continued their success through 1934, until they signed with Decca (1934–1935). They then signed with Victor in 1935 and stayed until mid 1938, when again they signed with Decca. In 1938, Lombardo became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Although Lombardo’s “sweet” big-band music was viewed by some in the jazz and big-band community of the day as “corny”, trumpeter Louis Armstrong famously enjoyed Lombardo’s music.
Guy Lombardo is best known for his New Year’s Eve big band performances, first on radio and then on television. Lombardo’s orchestra played at the “Roosevelt Grill” in the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City from 1929 to 1959 on New Year’s Eve and continued at the Waldorf Astoria until 1976. Broadcasts (and later telecasts) of their performances were a major part of New Year’s celebrations across North America; millions of people watched the show with friends at house parties. Because of this popularity, Lombardo was calleed, “Mr. New Year’s Eve.”
On December 31, 1956, the Lombardo band did their first New Year’s TV special on CBS; the program (and Lombardo’s 20 subsequent New Year’s Eve TV shows) would include a live segment from Times Square (long the focal point of America’s New Year’s Eve celebrations) showcasing the arrival of the New Year. While CBS carried most of the Lombardo New Year’s specials, there were a few years in the late 1960s and early 1970s when the special was syndicated live to individual TV stations instead of being broadcast on a network. By the middle 1970’s, the Lombardo TV show was facing competition, especially for younger viewers, from Dick Clark’s, “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve”, but Lombardo remained popular among viewers, especially older ones. The Royal Canadians were noted for playing the traditional song, “Auld Lang Syne” as part of the celebrations. Their recording of the song still plays as the first song of the new year in Times Square.
Al Caiola (1920-)
was born Alexander Emil Caiola in Jersey City, New Jersey. He is a guitarist who plays jazz, country, rock, western and pop music. He has been both a studio musician and a stage performer. He has recorded over fifty albums and has worked with some of the biggest stars of the 20th century, including Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Percy Faith, Buddy Holly, Mitch Miller and Tony Bennett.
Caiola was an active studio musician in the 1950s centered in the New York City area. He released some minor records under his own name during that decade. In 1960 he became a recording star on the United Artists (UA) label for over least ten years. He had prominent pop hits in 1961 with “The Magnificent Seven” and “Bonanza”. His style was inspired by Duane Eddy’s twangy bass guitar sound. The arrangements were typically by Don Costa, using a large orchestral backing. Caiola continuously released singles and albums throughout the 1960s and beyond, though no others appeared on the charts except for an entry in 1964 with “From Russia with Love”. UA used him to make commercial recordings for many movie and television themes. His popular and sought-after album was 1961’s, “Hit Instrumentals From Western TV Themes”, which included “Wagon Train (Wagons Ho)”, “Paladin”, “The Rebel” and “Gunslinger”. Solid Gold Guitar, probably his most impressive album, contained the popular songs of “Jezebel”, “Two Guitars”, “Big Guitar”, “I Walk the Line” and “Guitar Boogie”.
The Magnificent Seven album, other than the title track, consisted of a variety of pop songs with a jazzy bent. Guitars Guitars Guitars was similar. There was a wide variety to his albums — soft pop, Italian, Hawaiian, country and jazz. In the early 1970s he continued with the Avalanche Records label, producing similar work including the album, Theme From the ‘Magnificent 7 Ride’ ’73. Later, on other labels, came some ethnic-themed instrumental albums, such as Spanish Mood in 1982 and other Italian instrumentals. In 1976, Al Caiola accompanied Sergio Franchi, Dana Valery and Wayne J. Kirby on a concert tour to Johannesburg, South Africa.
During World War II Caiola played with the United States Marine Corps 5th Marine Division Band and also served in the Battle of Iwo Jima as a stretcher bearer.
William “Bill” Conti (1942-)
is an American film music composer, who is frequently the conductor at the Academy Awards ceremony. Conti, an Italian American, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the son of Lucetta and William Conti. He is a graduate of Louisiana State University and also studied at the Juilliard School of Music.
His big break into celebrity came in 1976, when he was hired to compose the music for a small United Artists film called, “Rocky”. The film became a phenomenon and Conti’s training song, “Gonna Fly Now” topped the Billboard singles chart in 1977. He also composed music for the sequels “Rocky II” (1979), “Rocky II”I (1982), “Rocky V” (1990) and “Rocky Balboa” (2006). Conti also worked on some other films and, eventually, for television. In 1981, he wrote the music for the James Bond film, “For Your Eyes Only” and provided the score for playwright Jason Miller’s film version of his Pulitzer Prize winning play, “That Championship Season”, the following year.
In 1983, he composed the score for HBO’s first film, “The Terry Fox Story”. Conti composed music for the films “Bad Boys” and “Mass Appeal”. Then in 1984, he received an Academy Award for composing the score to 1983’s “The Right Stuff” followed by composing music for the TV series, “North and South” in 1985. He also composed the score for “The Karate Kid”, as well as, “Masters of the Universe”. Another Conti score was the 1987 film “Happy New Year”.
In 1991, he composed the score for” Necessary Roughness”, a college football movie starring Scott Bakula, Sinbad and Héctor Elizondo. In 1993, he composed and wrote the music for “The Adventures of Huck Finn” starring Elijah Wood. In 1999, he composed the score for “The Thomas Crown Affair” remake, starring Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo and, in the same year, he composed the original music of “Inferno”, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. He also composed the classic themes to television’s “Dynasty” as well as, writng the score for “The Cosby”s, “Falcon Crest”, “Cagney & Lacey” and “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”. Conti also composed the theme song to the original version of “American Gladiators” and the themes for “Inside Edition” and “Primetime Live” for ABC News. Bill Conti was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.
Classic Italian American Recipes
Stuffed Calamari in Gravy
Serves 6 – 8
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 2 onions, finely chopped
- 8 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 tablespoon each chopped fresh oregano, basil, and marjoram
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 28-oz. can crushed tomato
- 1 6-oz. can tomato paste
- 1 cup chopped fresh parsley
- 2 cups fresh breadcrumbs
- 1/3 cup mixture of parmesan cheese and romano cheese
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 2–3 lbs. small squid bodies (3″–4″), cleaned
Directions
Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a heavy pot and cook the onions and 6 cloves garlic over medium heat until soft. Add oregano, basil, marjoram and salt and pepper to taste. Cook for 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, tomato paste and 2 cups water. Simmer for at least 30 minutes, adding half the parsley when the sauce is cooked.
Combine bread crumbs, cheese mixture, remaining garlic, 1/3 cup parsley, eggs and salt and pepper to taste in a mixing bowl. Stuff squid with bread-crumb mixture and the secure tops with toothpicks.
Heat remaining olive oil in a large skillet and sauté squid in small batches until browned on all sides, about 2–4 minutes. Drain on paper towels.
Place the squid in the tomato sauce and cook for 15 minutes longer. Garnish with remaining parsley.
Chicken Parmesan
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 4 chicken cutlets, pounded thin
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1/2 cup flour
- 3 eggs, beaten with a little water
- 1 1/2 cups dried Italian seasoned bread crumbs
- 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 cups Marinara Sauce
- 4 slices provolone cheese (about 3-4 oz.)
- 6 tablespoons grated Parmesan
- 2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
Directions
Heat oven to broil and place a rack 10″ from the heating element. Season chicken cutlets lightly with salt and pepper.
Place flour, eggs and bread crumbs in separate shallow dishes. Working with one piece of chicken at a time, dredge in flour, eggs and bread crumbs and transfer to a parchment paper–lined baking sheet.
Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a 12″ skillet over medium-high heat. Add 2 pieces of breaded chicken and cook, turning once with tongs, until golden brown, about 3 minutes. Transfer to an
aluminum foil–lined baking sheet. Wipe out skillet and repeat with the remaining oil and chicken.
Top each piece of chicken with 1/2 cup of the marinara sauce, 1 slice provolone cheese and 1 1/2 tablespoons parmesan. Broil until cheese is golden and bubbly, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle with the parsley and serve.
Baked Manicotti
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 3 cups Marinara Sauce
- 1 8-oz. box dried manicotti shells (about 14)
- 8 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 4 cups whole-milk ricotta
- 1 cup grated parmesan
- 7 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
- 1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
- 2 eggs, beaten
Directions
Coat a 9″ x 13″ baking pan with cooking spray and spread 1/2 cup of the marinara sauce across the bottom of the pan. Set aside.
Bring a 6-qt. pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the manicotti and cook until just tender, about 8 minutes. Drain manicotti and set aside on kitchen towels.
Heat oven to 450°F. Heat oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft, about 5 minutes. Transfer garlic to a medium bowl along with the ricotta, 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, 5 tablespoons chopped parsley, salt, pepper, nutmeg and eggs and stir to combine.
Spoon some of the filling into both openings of each manicotti shell. (Alternatively, transfer the ricotta mixture to a 1-gallon resealable plastic bag, snip off a bottom corner of the bag, and pipe filling into pasta.) Repeat with remaining manicotti shells.
Transfer stuffed manicotti to prepared baking dish, making 2 rows. Spread the remaining marinara sauce over the manicotti and sprinkle with remaining parmesan. Bake until hot and bubbly, about 20 minutes. Sprinkle with remaining parsley. Let sit for 5 minutes before serving.
Shrimp Scampi
Ingredients
- 1 lb large shrimp, peeled and deveined
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 3/4 cups dry white wine
- 1/2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 1/4 cup chicken stock
- 4 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
Directions
Lightly dredge shrimp in flour and set aside on a plate.
Meanwhile, heat oil in a large skillet over high heat. Working in batches, sauté shrimp until just pink, about 2 minutes. Transfer to a paper-towel–lined plate to absorb excess oil. Repeat process until all shrimp have been sautéed.
Wipe excess oil from the skillet, then stir in wine, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, lemon juice and stock. Heat over high heat to boiling and whisk in butter. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Lower heat to medium low and add shrimp to reheat, tossing to coat well with the sauce, about 1 minute. Sprinkle with parsley just before serving. Serve with linguine, if you like.
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Penne
There are approximately 350 different dried pastas produced in Italy that are made from durum wheat and semolina flour. Penne is a tube-shaped pasta that originated in Campania, a region in Southern Italy, and comes in two main varieties: penne lisce and penne rigate, with the rigate having ridges on each noodle. The name “penne” comes from the Italian word for “pen” (penna), a reference to the angled ends of the tube, which resemble the tip of a quill pen.
This pasta can be used in a wide assortment of dishes, from casseroles to soups. The tubes are relatively short, around the length and width of a pinkie finger. Cooks may also hear penne pasta referred to as mostaccioli, in a reference to an Italian dish that traditionally features this pasta.
Ziti
And, there is also ziti, which are hollow long wands, with a smooth texture and square-cut edges. When they are cut into shorter tubes, they are called cut ziti. Telling the difference between penne variants can be difficult, especially in countries outside of Italy, because there is a tendency to name ridged and smooth penne subtypes the same. Basically, the difference is penne is cut on the diagonal and is longer and thinner than ziti.
Penne is probably one of the more well-known pasta shapes, available in most markets and grocery stores that stock pasta. Dishes made with it are frequently on the menu at Italian restaurants, especially in the United States, where consumers have a fondness for this shape.
Whole wheat and multigrain versions are available, along with gluten-free pastas made from rice, corn or other ingredients. Many producers also make flavored varieties by adding ingredients, such as spinach or sun dried tomatoes. The best tasting penne is made with durum wheat because it will remain chewy and resilient throughout the cooking process.
Ridged penne pasta pairs very well with many pasta sauces, because the ridges can be used to hold thin sauces or to support thick, chunky sauces. Its hollow nature also helps distribute the sauce, ensuring that pasta dishes are evenly and appealingly sauced.
Penne is traditionally cooked al dente and served with pasta sauces such as pesto, marinara or arrabbiata. In addition to being plated with sauce, penne holds up well when baked in a casserole. You will also find penne used cold in salads, added to soups or used as a side dish.
Dried pasta is essentially indestructible as long as it is stored in a cool, dry place. This makes it a useful staple to keep around the house, because as long as the pasta is not exposed to moisture, it will be perfectly usable.
Healthy Penne Dinners
Whole-grain Penne with Onions and Walnuts
Ricotta salata (also called “hard ricotta”) is a firm white Italian cheese made by salting, pressing and drying sheep’s-milk ricotta. In flavor, it’s like a very mild, less tangy feta, which makes it a good addition to pastas and salads (it can be grated). Look for ricotta salata in specialty stores, Italian markets or any supermarket with a good cheese department.
Ingredients
- 7 medium onions (about 4 lbs.), peeled and thinly sliced
- 5 tablespoons olive oil
- 3/4 teaspoon sugar
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 3/4 cups walnuts
- 10 ounces whole-grain penne pasta
- 1 pound ricotta salata, crumbled
- 2/3 cup loosely packed flat-leaf parsley, chopped
- 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
Directions
In a large skillet over high heat, cook onions in 3 tablespoons olive oil with the sugar and 2 teaspoons salt, stirring and turning often, until onions begin to release their juices and turn golden, 10 to 13 minutes. Reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions turn a caramel color and become quite sweet, 35 to 40 minutes more. If onions begin to stick to the pan or char during cooking, reduce heat.
Meanwhile, in a dry small frying pan over medium-low heat, toast walnuts, stirring frequently, until golden, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and cool slightly. Pour walnuts into a zip-lock plastic bag and lightly crush with a rolling pin. Set aside.
When onions are nearly done, cook pasta in boiling salted water until tender to the bite, 9 to 12 minutes or according to package instructions. Drain pasta, reserving 1/2 cup cooking water.
Mix caramelized onions with pasta, walnuts, ricotta salata, parsley, reserved cooking water, lemon juice, pepper and remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil. Season to taste with salt.
Sirloin Steak Over Penne and Vegetables
Ingredients
- 2 cups uncooked penne
- 1/4 pound green beans, trimmed
- 3/4-pound boneless sirloin steak, trimmed
- 1 tablespoon salt-free garlic-pepper blend
- 1 1/2 cups thinly sliced red onion
- 1 1/2 cups thinly sliced red bell pepper
- 1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh basil
- 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
- 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 cup (1 ounce) crumbled blue cheese, optional
Directions
Preheat broiler.
While the broiler preheats, bring 3 quarts of salted water to a boil in a large Dutch oven. Add pasta; cook 5 1/2 minutes. Add beans and cook 3 minutes or until pasta is al dente. Drain well.
Sprinkle steak with the garlic-pepper blend. Place on a broiler pan; broil 3 inches from heat for 10 minutes, turning after 5 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes. Cut steak diagonally across the grain into thin slices.
Combine onion and next 8 ingredients (onion through black pepper) in a large bowl. Add pasta mixture; toss well to coat. Place steak slices on top. Sprinkle with cheese, if desired.
Penne with Spinach and Shrimp
Ingredients
- 12 ounces uncooked penne pasta
- 1 (10-ounce) package fresh spinach
- 2 tablespoons butter, divided
- 1 1/2 pounds large shrimp, peeled and deveined
- 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
- 2 1/2 cups chopped Vidalia or other sweet onions
- 1 cup vegetable broth
- 1/4 cup dry vermouth or dry white wine
- 1 teaspoon finely grated fresh lemon zest
- 1/2 cup (4 ounces) 1/3-less-fat cream cheese
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Directions
Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add shrimp. Sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon salt and sauté 2 minutes or until the shrimp are pink. Remove shrimp from the pan and set aside.
While you make the pasta sauce, cook penne according to package directions. Drain well; return to pan. Stir in spinach; toss well until spinach wilts.
Melt the remaining butter in the skillet over medium heat. Add onion; cook 10 minutes or until tender, stirring often. Stir in broth, vermouth and lemon zest. Increase heat to medium-high; cook 8 minutes or until mixture begins to thicken. Reduce heat to medium. Add cream cheese; stir until well blended. Stir in 1/4 teaspoon salt, nutmeg and pepper; remove from heat. Stir in shrimp to rewarm. Add mixture to pasta and spinach; toss to combine.
Penne with Sausage and Eggplant
Ingredients
- 4 1/2 cups cubed, peeled eggplant (about 1 pound)
- 1/2 pound Italian sausage, casing removed
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
- 6 cups hot cooked penne (about 10 ounces uncooked)
- 1/2 cup (2 ounces) finely diced mozzarella cheese
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
Directions
Cook eggplant, sausage and garlic in olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat 5 minutes or until sausage is browned and eggplant is tender. Be sure to stir often to keep eggplant from sticking to the pan.
Add tomato paste and the next 3 ingredients (through tomatoes); cook over medium heat 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Place cooked pasta in a large bowl. Add tomato mixture, cheese and parsley; toss well.
Penne with Greens, Almonds and Raisins
Ingredients
- 8 ounces uncooked penne
- 1/4 cup raisins
- 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 cups coarsely chopped, trimmed greens of choice (kale, swiss chard, escarole, etc.)
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic
- 1/3 cup slivered almonds, toasted
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
- Cracked black pepper
Directions
Cook the pasta according to package directions. Retain 1/2 cup of pasta cooking water. Drain.
While pasta cooks, place raisins in a small bowl; cover with hot water. Let stand 10 minutes. Drain.
While pasta cooks and raisins soak, heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add greens and garlic; sauté 3 minutes or until greens are tender.
Stir in pasta, raisins, almonds, salt and 1/8 teaspoon black pepper; toss to combine. Moisten with pasta cooking water. Sprinkle with cracked black pepper according to taste.
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You can find berries and melons in the supermarket in the winter, but these fruits do not have much taste. So instead, spend your money on fruit that actually tastes good now. We all know the winter holiday season is prime time for cranberries and yams, but have you considered persimmons, kiwi, citrus or pears? Winter is when most citrus fruits are at their sweetest and juiciest. Winter fruits are also excellent for baking. Here’s how to choose the best fruit, why it’s good for you and how to save money.
Oranges
How to buy:
In general, look for plump oranges that are free of blemishes or bruises. As the season wears on, you may find different varieties of oranges popping up, such as Cara Cara and blood oranges. Try them! Both of these varieties are very sweet and have a darker flesh, ranging from pink in the Cara Cara to dark red in the blood orange.
Why it’s good:
Oranges are loaded with vitamin C (a large orange has more than the daily recommended value of vitamin C), which may help smooth your skin. If you bite into a blood orange, you’ll also be getting anthocyanins, a compound that turns the flesh red and is associated with helping to keep the heart healthy and the brain sharp.
How to save:
Buy them in bulk (they may be cheaper in a bag than when sold individually) and store them in the refrigerator to extend their life by a couple of weeks. If you stumble across a few fruits with a grainy texture, use them for juicing or cooking.
Bananas
How to buy:
Bananas are in season year-round and are different from other fruits because they can be picked while they are still far from ripe. If you do buy green bananas, wait until the skin ripens to a yellow and the starches convert to sugars.
Why it’s good:
Bananas are one of the best sources of potassium, which is associated with healthy blood pressure. Also, a medium banana is an excellent source of cell-building vitamin B6 and is a good source of vitamin C and fiber.
How to save:
Though bananas are relatively economical—ripening bananas cost about 70 to 90 cents per pound—overripe bananas are often on sale for less. Even if banana peels have started to brown, the insides often remain sweet, ripe and unblemished. Buy a bunch or two and peel the extras before sticking them in the freezer. They will keep for several months and are excellent in banana bread, pancakes and smoothies.
Pineapples
How to buy:
Avoid green pineapples—they are not ripe. A ripe pineapple should smell like a pineapple. There should be a golden color present—starting at the base—and the more yellow a pineapple is, the better it will taste throughout. Some people claim that pulling leaves easily from the top of a pineapple is an indication of ripeness, but this has not been proven. Your best bet is to go with color.
Why it’s good:
Pineapple is loaded with vitamin C, delivers a healthy dose of fiber and is an excellent source of manganese, a nutrient involved in bone formation.
How to save:
Cutting into a pineapple for the first time may be intimidating. But where your wallet is concerned, it may be worth learning how to do. Prepared pineapple chunks in the produce section cost more per pound—about 50 cents an ounce more—than a whole pineapple. Check your market for whole, peeled and decored pineapples. My market sells these pineapples at the same price as an unpeeled pineapple.
Pomegranates
How to buy:
Color is not a good indicator of a ripe pomegranate. Instead, choose a fruit that feels heavy in your hand.
Why it’s good:
Pomegranate juice is rich in antioxidants, natural compounds found in plants that help protect the body from harmful compounds that damage tissues and may contribute to a variety of chronic conditions, such as heart disease, Alzheimer’s and cancer. Although you don’t get as many antioxidants eating the seeds as drinking the juice, you will get a bit of fiber and abundant punicic acid, a polyunsaturated heart-healthy oil.
How to save:
Pomegranates aren’t the cheapest fruit in the produce bin (about $2.50 each), but the good news is that one fruit goes a long way. Your best bet is to compare prices at competing stores, and buy the cheapest you can find.
Grapefruit
How to buy:
Like oranges, select fruits that are free of blemishes and bruises. Buying ripe grapefruit can be tricky—the skin color of the fruit is not always a reliable way to tell if the fruit is sweet inside. If the fruit is heavy in your hand, that may be a good indication of its juiciness.
Why it’s good:
Grapefruits are high in vitamin C and are a good source of fiber. Studies have shown that the soluble fiber in grapefruit may even be beneficial in lowering cholesterol. Half a medium grapefruit has only 60 calories. One exception: if you take statins to lower cholesterol levels, consuming grapefruit juice or the fruit may prevent the statins from breaking down in your system, causing the drug to accumulate in high amounts in the body.
How to save:
If you regularly buy organic, you may make an exception for grapefruit. According to the Environmental Working Group (a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization) it is a fruit that is less likely to be contaminated with pesticides.
Tangerines
How to buy:
Choose tangerines with a deep orange color that are firm to semi-soft and heavy for their size. Avoid tangerines that have dull or brown coloring or soft spots.
Why it’s good:
One tangerine contains 2.3 grams fiber, 13% of the recommended daily amount of vitamin A and 40% of vitamin C. Tangerines are smaller than oranges with bright orange skins and slightly looser peels than oranges. They are great for eating and you can also juice tangerines. Tangerines are less acidic than most citrus fruits. Use them as you would oranges in salads, stirred into yogurt or cottage cheese or as a topping for dessert.
How to save:
Buy them in bulk (they may be cheaper in a bag than when sold individually) and store them in the refrigerator to extend their life by a couple of weeks.
Making Healthy Desserts With Winter Fruits
Lemon Pudding Cakes
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 3 large eggs, separated
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup skim or lowfat milk
- 5 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray six 6-ounce ramekins with vegetable oil spray. In a medium bowl, whisk the sugar with the flour. In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the butter until well blended. Whisk in the milk, lemon juice and lemon zest. Pour the lemon mixture into the sugar mixture and whisk until smooth.
In a medium bowl, beat the egg whites with the salt until firm peaks form. Gently fold the egg whites into the lemon mixture. Pour the batter into the prepared ramekins and transfer them to a small roasting pan. Place the pan in the oven and pour in enough hot water to reach halfway up the sides of the ramekins.
Bake the pudding cakes for 35 minutes or until they are puffy and golden on top. Using tongs, transfer the ramekins to a rack to cool for 20 minutes. Serve the cakes in the ramekins or run a knife around the edge of each cake and unmold onto plates. Serve warm or at room temperature. Pudding cakes can be refrigerated for 2 days.
Chocolate Crepes with Orange and Chocolate Sauce
8 crepes
Ingredients
Crepes
- 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 1/4 cup skim milk
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons canola oil, divided
- 1/4 cup water
Orange Syrup
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup water
- Zest from 2 oranges, cut into very thin strips
Filling: 1 cup frozen yogurt (vanilla or flavor of choice)
Topping: Chocolate Sauce (recipe follows)
Directions
To make crepes:
Combine flour, cocoa, sugar, salt, milk, egg, 1 teaspoon oil and water in a food processor or blender and blend until smooth. Transfer to a bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour or for up to 24 hours.
To make orange syrup:
Combine sugar and water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, add orange zest, reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the syrup has thickened and the zest is tender. Several times during the cooking, brush the sides of the saucepan with a pastry brush dipped in cold water to keep sugar crystals from forming on the sides. Remove from heat and let cool.
To cook and assemble crepes:
Heat a small nonstick skillet or crepe pan over medium heat until a drop of water sizzles when sprinkled on the surface. Reduce heat to medium-low. Brush pan with a little of the remaining 1 teaspoon oil as needed to prevent sticking. Pour about 2 tablespoons of batter on the skillet and swirl to coat the bottom evenly. Cook 30 to 40 seconds until the top of the crepe has a dull surface and the edges begin to curl. Flip and cook for 20 to 30 seconds, or until the crepe is firm. Remove to a plate and cover with a dry cloth. Repeat with remaining crepes. (The crepes may be stacked between wax paper sheets until serving time.)
Place a crepe on a dessert plate. Spread 2 tablespoons of frozen yogurt across the middle. Fold in half and spoon 1 tablespoon Chocolate Sauce over the top or beside it. Spoon 2 teaspoons orange syrup and zest over the folded crepe. Repeat with remaining crepes.
Chocolate Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
- 3/4 teaspoon cornstarch
- 3/4 teaspoon sugar
- 1 1/2 tablespoons skim milk
- 2 tablespoons honey or 1 1/2 tablespoons agave necter
- 1/4 teaspoon canola oil
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
Sift together cocoa, cornstarch and sugar in a small saucepan. Gradually whisk in milk. Whisk in honey. Bring to a boil, whisking. Reduce heat to low and simmer until thickened. Remove from heat and whisk in oil and vanilla.
Orange Cranberry Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup chopped pecans
- 1/2 cup chopped dried cranberries
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup smooth, unsweetened applesauce
- 1/4 cup canola oil
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated orange zest
- 3 tablespoons orange juice
Directions
Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Stir in pecans and dried cranberries.
Whisk 1 cup sugar, applesauce, oil, orange zest and juice in a medium bowl until smooth. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients. Mix until well blended.
Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat.
Roll the dough with floured hands (it will be very moist) into 1 1/2-inch balls and place them 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet.
Bake the cookies until barely golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on the pan for 1 minute; transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Cinnamon Apple Cheesecake
12 servings
The cream cheese in the batter makes the cake quite moist. Because it’s so tender, use a serrated knife for cutting.
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups sugar, divided
- 1/2 cup stick margarine or butter, softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 6 ounces block style low fat cream cheese, softened (about 3/4 cup)
- 2 large eggs
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 3 cups chopped, peeled baking apples (about 2-3 apples)
- Cooking spray
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Beat 1 1/2 cups sugar, margarine, vanilla and cream cheese at medium speed until well-blended (about 4 minutes). Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture, beating at low speed until blended.
Combine the remaining 1/4 cup sugar and the cinnamon. Add 2 tablespoons or the cinnamon mixture to the apples and mix. Fold apple mixture into the batter.
Pour batter into an 8-inch springform pan coated with cooking spray and sprinkle the top with the remaining cinnamon mixture.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan.
Cool the cake completely on a wire rack.
NOTE: You can also make this cake in a 9-inch square cake pan or a 9-inch springform pan; just reduce the cooking time by 5 minutes.
Healthy Pear Crisp
Ingredients
- 1 lemon
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar, divided
- 1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour, divided
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, divided
- 8 fresh pears (about 2-1/2 lb.), peeled, cut into 1-inch chunks
- 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/3 cup cold butter, cut up
- 1/2 cup sliced almonds
- Frozen yogurt, optional
Directions
Heat the oven to 375ºF.
Grate enough lemon peel to measure 1/2 teaspoon zest. Squeeze enough juice to measure 1-1/2 tablespoons.
Mix 1/4 cup granulated sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon in large bowl. Add pears, lemon zest and juice; toss until pears are evenly coated.
Spoon into an 8-inch square baking dish coated with cooking spray.
Mix brown sugar and remaining flour, granulated sugar and cinnamon in medium bowl. Cut in butter with pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture forms coarse crumbs. Stir in nuts and sprinkle over the pears.
Bake 40 to 45 min. or until topping is golden brown and pears are hot and bubbly. Serve warm topped frozen yogurt, if desired.
NOTE: You can also bake this dessert in 9-inch square baking dish or shallow 2-qt. casserole instead of the 8-inch square baking dish.
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La Lingua Della Cucina
The passion that Italians bring to the kitchen is reflected in the language that they use to describe techniques and individual ingredients or recipes. Since Americans first started cooking spaghetti and tomato sauce in their homes in the early part of the twentieth century, they have expanded their preparation of Italian foods within the home. Lasagna, risotto, chicken cacciatore, minestrone, tiramisu – just to name a few; all came to be commonly prepared in the homes of Americans over the last century.
At the time when Julia Child caused a sensation by convincing American cooks that they could create the wonders of classic French cuisine in their own kitchens, Italian food was already a loved and accepted mainstay of the American diet. Today, it seems more popular than ever. America’s steady love of Italian food, in recent years fueled by a host of cookbooks and television shows, has thrust Italian home cooking once again into the spotlight. Attracted to “authentic” Italian food’s simplicity and affordability, Americans have taken to cooking Italian food at home.
Here are some of the culinary terms, you will most often come in contact with in your Italian cooking.
Aioli – A garlic mayonnaise is a delicious accompaniment to cold or hot grilled vegetables, steamed or boiled artichokes, boiled potatoes and grilled or baked fish and shellfish.
Al dente – “To the teeth.” The expression is used to describe pasta that is still firm and chewy when bitten into. When pasta is al dente, it is considered fully cooked and ready to eat.
Al forno – an expression used for baked or roasted in the forno (oven). Pasta al forno is a layered pasta, much like lasagna, but made with a shorter shaped pasta, such as penne or ziti.
Antipasto – Translates as before the meal, i.e. pasto, and not before the pasta, as some mistakenly believe. A selection of antipasti can be modest or extravagant, but in all aspects of Italian food, quality is always more important than quantity.
Arancine – ‘little oranges” are rice croquettes, perhaps stuffed with veal or a soft cheese such as caciocavallo or a cow’s milk mozzarella. Their orange hue originates from the addition of saffron to the rice and the subsequent frying in vegetable oil.
Arrabbiata – “Angry.” A tomato-based pasta sauce spiced with chilis and Amatriciano is a similar spicy sauce with the addition of pancetta.
Bagna Cauda – a warm anchovy–olive oil sauce served as a dip for vegetables.
Battuto – The action of the knife striking ingredients against the cutting board, in short, the first stage of the preparation of any dish, which requires basic and efficient skills with a sharp blade.
Besciamella – More commonly referred to in the French form, béchamel, this cooked sauce of butter, flour, milk and some nutmeg is often used in baked pasta dishes and as a sauce for vegetable side dishes, such as cauliflower.
Bolognese – A pasta sauce native to the Bologna area of Italy. It traditionally features finely chopped meats and a soffrito of onions, celery and carrots with a small amount of tomato paste.
Bufala – The water buffalo of the southern region of Campania produce the milk for the softest, creamiest form of mozzarella cheese. So very delicate in flavor that it is better used in a salad (Caprese Salad) instead of on a cooked dish, such as pizza.
Burro – Butter is traditionally viewed as the favored fat in northern italy where it is used for sautéing.
Capelli d’agelo – “Angel hair.” Long, thin strands of pasta that are thinner than capellini.
Carbonara – a spaghetti sauce based on eggs, cheese (Pecorino Romano or Parmigiano-Reggiano), bacon (guanciale or pancetta) and black pepper.
Contorni – Accompaniment to the meat or fish course of the meal, usually consisting of prepared vegetables such, as green beans, spinach or braised fennel.
Crostini – toasted bread, but usually topped with chopped tomatoes or porcini mushrooms or roasted peppers or chicken livers – called crostini in Tuscany and bruschetta in Rome.
Dolce -or the plural form, i dolci, on restaurant menus, refers to the sweet or dessert course of the meal, such as zabaglione, tiramisu and gelato (ice cream).
Fiorentina -a substantial slab of meat roughly equating to an American T bone steak. Not to be tackled without a hearty appetite.
Formaggio – cheese.
Insalata – The salad course, usually positioned between the main (meat or fish) course and the dessert, can consist of a simple bowl of greens or something more elaborate. Olive oil combined with freshly squeezed lemon juice and a little seasoning, or perhaps balsamic vinegar used sparingly, is all that is required to make the perfect dressing.
Polpette – meatballs.
Pomodoro – a meatless tomato sauce. The name means “golden apple” and refers to tomatoes that are yellow in color. Yes, I know – tomatoes are red. Here is the story:
David Gentilcore, professor of early modern history at the University of Leicester, writes, “ When explorers first brought tomatoes to Europe from the New World, they also brought over tomatillos. Tomatoes and tomatillos were considered interchangeable (they are botanical and culinary cousins) and many tomatillos are yellow. Italy and most of the rest of Europe soon took a pass on the tomatillo, but the name stuck. “Pomodoro” it was.”
Primavera – “Spring.” A pasta sauce traditionally made in the spring that features fresh vegetables as the main ingredient.
Primo – The first course (after the antipasto), hence the name, it usually involves a risotto or pasta dish.
Puttanesca – (literally “a la whore” in Italian) is a tangy, somewhat salty pasta sauce containing tomatoes, olive oil, olives, capers and garlic.
Saltimbocca -( literally “jump into the mouth”). In Rome this dish is prepared with veal and prosciutto crudo, or cured meat, and sage, all held together by a skewer in a sauce of white wine or marsala. Chicken and pork cutlets work just as well.
Secondo – the main dish of the menu that usually consists of meat or fish.
Semolina – A coarse flour made from durum wheat: a hard wheat with a high protein/low moisture content and a long shelf life.
Soffritto – the foundation of many Italian recipes, especially a pasta sauce or a braise of beef or lamb. It consists of finely diced carrots, onion, garlic and celery, or any combination of them depending on the recipe.
Below are a few sample courses to get you started.
Antipasto
Bruschetta with Mozzarella and Favas Beans
4 servings
Ingredients
- 2 cups canned fava beans (Progresso is a good brand), rinsed and drained
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
- Salt and freshly ground pepper
- 16 grilled baguette slices
- 1/4 pound buffalo mozzarella, torn into thin strips
- Aged balsamic vinegar, for drizzling
- 2 tablespoons thinly sliced basil leaves
Directions
Transfer the favas to a food processor and add the oil, lemon juice and zest and pulse to a coarse puree. Season with salt and pepper.
Spread the fava-bean puree on the toasts and top with the mozzarella strips. Drizzle the toasts with the balsamic vinegar and scatter the basil on top.
Primo
Pasta Primavera
Ingredients
- 1/2 pound asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1/2 pound green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
- 2 red or orange bell peppers, cored, seeded and cut into 1/4-inch strips
- 1 pound thin spaghetti or linguine
- 3/4 cup half-and-half
- 3/4 cup chicken broth
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 5 cloves garlic, sliced
- 2 cups grape tomatoes, halved
- 1/3 cup grated Parmesan
- 1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped
- Shaved Parmesan
Directions
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add asparagus and green beans; cook 4 minutes. Add peppers and cook 1 more minute. Scoop out vegetables with a large slotted spoon and place in a colander.
Add pasta to boiling water and cook to the al dente stage, about 7-8 minutes. Drain; return to the pot.
In a mixing bowl, combine half-and-half, chicken broth, cornstarch, salt, pepper and nutmeg.
Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add olive oil and garlic and cook 30 seconds. Add the half-and-half mixture and simmer for a few minutes, stirring until slightly thickened.
Add cooked vegetables and tomatoes. Cook, stirring a few times, for about 2 minutes.
Pour into the pot with the pasta and stir gently. Add grated Parmesan and parsley. Allow to stand for 5 minutes. Serve in pasta bowls with shaved Parmesan on top.
Secondo
Chicken Scarpariello
4 servings
Ingredients
- 8 small skinless, boneless chicken thighs (2 pounds)
- Salt and freshly ground pepper
- All-purpose flour, for dredging
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 8 garlic cloves, halved lengthwise and lightly smashed
- 4 large rosemary sprigs, broken into 2-inch pieces
- 2 cups low sodium chicken broth
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup spicy Italian pickled peppers, sliced
Directions
Season the chicken with salt and pepper and dredge in flour. In a large skillet, heat the oil until shimmering. Add the chicken and cook over high heat, turning once, until browned and crusty on both sides, about 8-10 minutes.
Add the garlic and rosemary and cook for 2-3 more minutes, until the garlic is lightly browned. Transfer the chicken to a platter, leaving the rosemary and garlic in the skillet.
Add the stock to the skillet and cook over high heat, scraping up any browned bits, until reduced by half, about 5 minutes. Add the lemon juice and butter and swirl until emulsified.
Return the chicken and any accumulated juices to the skillet. Add the peppers and cook, turning the chicken until coated in the sauce, about 3 minutes.
Transfer the chicken and sauce to a platter and serve.
Spinach Salad with Bagna Cauda Dressing
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 5 anchovies, finely chopped
- 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice, plus lemon wedges for serving
- 3 thyme sprigs
- Kosher salt
- Freshly ground pepper
- 1/4 cup coarse dry bread crumbs (see tip below)
- 10 ounces baby spinach
- Freshly shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, for garnish
Directions
In a small saucepan, melt the butter over moderate heat until foaming. Add the anchovies and cook until dissolved, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and whisk in the olive oil, vinegar and lemon juice. Add the thyme sprigs and let steep for 20 minutes. Discard the thyme and season the dressing with salt and pepper.
Meanwhile, in a small dry skillet, toast the bread crumbs over moderate heat, tossing, until golden, about 4 minutes. Let the bread crumbs cool.
In a large bowl, toss the spinach with half of the dressing and half of the bread crumbs and season with salt and pepper.
Transfer the salad to plates or a platter and top with the remaining bread crumbs and the shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Pass the remaining dressing at the table and serve with lemon wedges.
MAKE AHEAD
The bagna cauda dressing can be refrigerated overnight. Warm gently before using.
To make bread crumbs, tear 2 slices of day-old white bread into pieces, spread on a baking sheet and toast in a 300°F oven until dried but not browned, about 10 minutes.
Transfer to a food processor and pulse a few times until coarse crumbs form.
Dolce
Almond Crusted Limoncello Pound Cake
16 servings
Ingredients
Cake:
- 3/4 cups sliced almonds
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- Grated zest & juice of 2 large lemons, divided
- 6 large eggs, at room temperature
- 2 cups cake flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoons Limoncello
- Oil for coating the pan
Glaze:
- 1/4 cup Limoncello
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon butter
Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Use a pastry brush to thoroughly oil a 12 cup bundt pan, then sprinkle almonds evenly in the pan and set aside.
In a large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, sugar and lemon zest, reserving the lemon juice for later use, with the mixer on low speed until creamy, about 5 minutes, scraping the bowl occasionally.
Add 3 eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add 1 cup of cake flour, blending well, then add the salt and remaining eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.
Add the remaining flour with 3 tablespoons Limoncello, beating just until mixture is well blended.
Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, gently tapping the filled pan on the counter a few times.
Bake in the preheated oven until a wooden skewer inserted near the center comes out clean, 50-55 minutes.
Just before the cake is done, prepare the glaze. In a small saucepan, blend Limoncello, reserved lemon juice, sugar and butter. Place over medium high heat and bring to a boil. Let boil for about 2 minutes.
Remove cake from oven after it tests done, then pour the glaze mixture over the top of the hot cake while still in the pan.
Let cake cool in the pan, placed on a wire rack. The glaze will be absorbed into the cake as it cools.
When the cake is cooled, invert it onto a serving plate and serve.
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A good director makes sure that all parts of a film are creatively produced and brought together in a single totality. A director interprets the script, coaches the performers, works together with the montagist, etc., interrelating them all to create a work of art. The director begins with a vague idea of the entire film and uses this to help him determine what is to be done. The position of the director in the traditional filmmaking process varies greatly and is extremely complex. The film director is seen as a leader of others, as providing a kind of guiding force.
Judging from the comments of most professional directors, there is very little agreement as to what exactly their function is. There are some directors who say that they must concentrate primarily on the structures of the script. If their films are to be works of art, it will be because of the inherent beauty in the narrative and dialogue patterns in the script. Other directors are occupied primarily with the performance of actors. To them, the beauty of the film will be correlative with the quality of acting. These directors attend not only to the performance as a whole, but to endless minor nuances and gestures throughout.
Some directors attend primarily to the camerawork, their chief concern being for a pictorial beauty and smoothness of execution. There are still other directors who say that the art of film resides in the editing process. For them, all steps prior to editing yield crude material, which will be finally shaped and lent an artistic worth through their imaginative juxtaposition. The point is that there have evolved nearly as many theories of film directing as there are directors.
Since the development of the Italian film industry in the early 1900s, Italian filmmakers and performers have, at times, experienced both domestic and international success and have influenced film movements throughout the world. As of 2013, Italian films have won 13 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, the most of any country, as well as 12 Palmes d’Or, the second-most of any country.
Federico Fellini
Fellini is well known for his distinct style and is considered to be one of the most influential and widely revered film-makers of the 20th century. Fellini’s works garnered numerous awards, including four Oscars, two Silver Lions, a Palme d’Or and a grand prize at the Moscow International Film Festival. 8 1/2 is frequently cited as one of the finest films ever made.
Federico had fairly humble beginnings. He was born in the small town of Rimini on January 20th, 1920 to Urbano, a travelling salesman and vendor, and Ida, whose family were merchants. He had two siblings, a brother Riccardo, and a sister, Maria Maddalena, both younger than him. He was a creative child and spent time drawing, creating puppet shows and reading the comic “Il corriere dei piccoli,” whose characters may have influenced his films later. The friends he made along the way often became the subjects upon which his movie characters were based, such as Luigi “Titta” Benzi, whose character he used as the model for young Titta in Amarcord (1973).
La Strada (The Road, 1954) with Anthony Quinn won an Academy Award for best foreign film. The films depicts the painful emotions endured by Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina) when sold to a circus strongman Zampano (Anthony Quinn) who shows no compassion and treats her cruelly. The harsh environment of the landscape adds to the emptiness and distance experienced as a result of Zampano’s indifference. In the end there is remorse, but too late. Il Bidone (The Swindlers, 1955) reflects on the pious and the poor and how advantage is taken when morality is sidelined. Next was Le Notti di Cabiria (Nights of Cabiria, 1957) again starring Masina.
Fellini considered himself to be an artist as opposed to a “normal” person, as he said in his interview with the BBC in 1965. He felt that as an artist he was entitled “to explore the dreams and visions, the surreal and the spiritual and to dance with his imagination wherever it took him”. He certainly had a curiosity and sense of humor when it came to exploring human emotions and observing the human behavior, directing the camera to enlarge and exaggerate the quirkiness of human actions so that they became incredibly funny or indeed profoundly sad. La Dolce Vita was released in 1960 and it starred the handsome, Marcello Mastroianni, who continued to feature in Fellini’s films for the next twenty years. The film was judged immoral by some critics and was subsequently banned, yet it went on to break box office records. The film took the Palme d’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival.
Fellini is admired by many contemporary filmmakers, directors and actors and his audience. He has left a legacy of fascinating films to remind us to think and feel and above all imagine and dream.
Roberto Rossellini
Rossellini was one of the most important directors of Italian neorealist cinema, a style of film characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class and filmed on location with nonprofessional actors.
Rossellini was born in Rome. His mother, Elettra (née Bellan), was a housewife and his father, Angiolo Giuseppe “Beppino” Rossellini, owned a construction firm. Rossellini’s father built the first cinema in Rome (Barberini’s). Granting his son an unlimited free pass, the young Rossellini started frequenting the cinema at an early age. When his father died, he worked as a sound maker for films and for a certain time he experienced all the accessory jobs related to the creation of a film, gaining competence in each field. Rossellini had a brother, Renzo, who later scored many of his films.
Some authors describe the first part of his career as a sequence of trilogies. His first feature film, La nave bianca (1942) was sponsored by the Navy Department and is the first work in Rossellini’s “Fascist Trilogy”, together with Un pilota ritorna (1942) and Uomo dalla Croce (1943). Just two months after the liberation of Rome (June 4, 1944), Rossellini was preparing the anti-fascist film, Roma città aperta (Rome, Open City 1945). This dramatic film was an immediate success and Rossellini started work on his, so-called, Neo-realistic Trilogy, the second title was Paisà (1946) and the third, Germany, Year Zero (1948), was filmed in Berlin. One of the reasons for his success is credited to Rossellini’s ability to rewrite scripts that would utilize regional accents, dialects, costumes in real life situations.
After his Neorealist Trilogy, Rossellini produced two films now classified as his transitional films: L’Amore (1948) (with Anna Magnani) and La macchina ammazzacattivi (1952). In 1948, Rossellini received a letter from a famous foreign actress proposing a collaboration:
Dear Mr. Rossellini,
I saw your films, Open City and Paisan, and enjoyed them very much. If you need a Swedish actress who speaks English very well, who has not forgotten her German, who is not very understandable in French, and who in Italian knows only “ti amo”, I am ready to come and make a film with you.
Ingrid Bergman
With this letter began one of the best known love stories in film history, with Bergman and Rossellini both at the peak of their careers. Their first collaboration was Stromboli terra di Dio (1950) (filmed on the Island of Stromboli, whose volcano quite conveniently erupted during filming). This affair caused a great scandal in some countries (Bergman and Rossellini were both married to other people); the scandal intensified when Bergman became pregnant. Rossellini and Bergman later married and had two more children. Europa ’51 (1952), Siamo Donne (1953), Journey to Italy (1953), La paura (1954) and Giovanna d’Arco al rogo (1954) were the other films on which they worked together until they divorced in 1957.
Lina Wertmüller
Wertmuller was born Arcangela Felice Assunta Wertmüller von Elgg Español von Braueich in Rome to a devoutly Roman Catholic family of aristocratic descent. She was a rebellious child and was expelled from more than a dozen Catholic schools. Though her father wanted her to become a lawyer, she enrolled in theatre school.,After graduating, her first job was touring Europe in a puppet show. For the next ten years she worked as an actress, director and playwright in legitimate theater.
Through her acquaintance with Marcello Mastroianni, she met Federico Fellini and in 1962 Fellini offered her the assistant director position on the film 8½. The following year, Wertmüller made her directorial debut with The Lizards (I Basilischi). The film’s subject matter—the lives of impoverished people in southern Italy—became a recurring theme in her later work. Several moderately successful films followed, but not until 1972 did Wertmüller achieve lasting international acclaim with a series of four movies starring Giancarlo Giannini. The last and best-received of these, Seven Beauties (Pasqualino Sette Bellezze) in 1975, earned 4 Academy Award nominations and was an international hit. Wertmüller was the first woman nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director. Jane Campion, Sofia Coppola and Kathryn Bigelow are the only other female directors nominated (with Bigelow the first to win for The Hurt Locker).
Her 1978 film, A Night Full of Rain, was entered into the 28th Berlin International Film Festival. Eight years later, her film, Camorra (A Story of Streets, Women and Crime) was entered into the 36th Berlin International Film Festival. In 1985, she received the Women in Film Crystal Award for outstanding women who, through endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry.
She is known for her whimsically movie titles. For instance, the full title of Swept Away is Swept away by an unusual destiny in the blue sea of August. These titles were invariably shortened for international release. She is entered in the Guinness Book of Records for the longest film title: Un fatto di sangue nel comune di Siculiana fra due uomini per causa di una vedova. Si sospettano moventi politici with 179 characters is better known under the international titles, Blood Feud or Revenge. Her 1983 film, A Joke of Destiny, was entered into the 14th Moscow International Film Festival.
Although Wertmüller has had a prolific career and still actively directs, none of her later films have had the same impact as her mid-1970s collaborations with Giannini. Wertmüller was married to Enrico Job (who died 4 March 2008), an art and set designer.
Bernardo Bertolucci
Bertolucci is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor, The Sheltering Sky and The Dreamers. In recognition of his work, he was presented with the inaugural Honorary Palme d’Or Award at the opening ceremony of the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.
Bertolucci was born in the Italian city of Parma, in the region of Emilia-Romagna. He is the elder son of Ninetta, a teacher, and Attilio Bertolucci, who was a poet, an art historian, anthologist and film critic. Having been raised in such an environment, Bertolucci began writing at the age of fifteen, and soon after received several prestigious literary prizes including the Premio Viareggio for his first book. Bertolucci initially wished to become a poet like his father and, with this goal in mind, he attended the Faculty of Modern Literature of the University of Rome from 1958 to 1961. However, Bertolucci left the University without graduating to work as an assistant director. In 1962, at the age of 22, he directed his first feature film, La commare secca (1962). The film is a murder mystery and Bertolucci uses flashbacks to piece together the crime and the person who committed it. The film which shortly followed was his acclaimed, Before the Revolution (Prima della rivoluzione, 1964).
Bertolucci’s personal idea about cinema is based on the individuality of people who are forced to deal with sudden changes in their lives.This theme is present in almost all of Bertolucci’s works and starting with his second film, Prima della rivoluzione (1964), this theme becomes very clear in the story of a young upper-middle agrarian class boy from Parma (Francesco Barilli), who is incapable of dealing with his best friend’s suicide. Bertolucci became infamous in 1972, with the controversial film, Last Tango in Paris, with Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider, Jean-Pierre Léaud and Massimo Girotti, because certain scenes were thought to be exploitative and serious concerns emerged about how women were represented in the film.
Bertolucci increased his fame with his next few films, from Novecento (1976), an epic depiction of the struggles of farmers in Emilia-Romagna from the beginning of the 20th century up to World War II with an impressive international cast (Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Donald Sutherland, Sterling Hayden, Burt Lancaster, Dominique Sanda) to La Luna, set in Rome and in Emilia-Romagna and La tragedia di un uomo ridicolo (1981), with Ugo Tognazzi. In 1987, Bertolucci directed the epic, The Last Emperor, a biographical film about the life story of Aisin-Gioro Puyi, the last Emperor of China and was the first feature film ever authorized by the government of the People’s Republic of China.
After The Last Emperor, the director went back to Italy to film with varying results from both critics and the public. In 2007 he received the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival for his life’s work and, in 2011, he received the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. He was the President of the Jury at the 70th Venice International Film Festival held in September 2013. Bertolucci is working on his next film, a historical romance centering on 16th-century classical musician (and murderer) Carlo Gesualdo.
Vittorio De Sica
De Sica was yet another neorealist director who radically reshaped the cinematic landscape in Europe and elsewhere. De Sica’s early films defined the meaning of neorealism by transforming film projects with small budgets into aesthetic art, making a commitment to working with nonprofessional actors, filming on location using available lighting and encouraging intense character exploration and improvisation. Guided by intelligent and rigorously structured screenplays by his frequent and most important collaborator, Cesare Zavattini, De Sica’s major films – The Children Are Watching Us, Shoeshine, Miracle in Milan, Umberto D. and The Bicycle Thieves – are preoccupied with critical social and political topics facing post war Italy – poverty, hard life on the streets, intergenerational estrangement and a sense of general moral decay.
Born into poverty in Sora, Lazio (1901), he began his career as a theater actor in the early 1920s and joined Tatiana Pavlova’s theatre company in 1923. In 1933 he founded his own company with his wife Giuditta Rissone and Sergio Tofano. The company performed mostly light comedies, but they also staged playsand worked with several famous directors. De Sica turned to directing during WWII, with his first efforts typical of the light entertainments of the time. It was with The Children are Watching Us (1942) that he began to use non-professional actors and socially conscious subject matters. The film was also his first of many collaborations with scenarist, Cesare Zavattini, a combination which shaped the postwar Italian Neorealist movement. With the end of the war, De Sica’s films began to express the personal, as well as, the collective struggle to deal with the social problems of a post-Mussolini Italy.
De Sica and Zavattini created some of the most celebrated films of the neo-realistic age, such as Sciuscià (Shoeshine) and Bicycle Thieves (released as The Bicycle Thief in America). These are heartbreaking studies of poverty in postwar Italy. His later directorial career was highlighted by his work with Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni in Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow (1963), which won the Oscar as best foreign film. His film, Two Women, starring Sophia Loren is probably his greatest. It tells the story of a woman trying to protect her young daughter from the horrors of war.
Four of the films De Sica directed won Academy Awards. Sciuscià and Bicycle Thieves were awarded honorary Oscars, while Ieri, oggi, domani and Il giardino dei Finzi Contini won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. The great critical success of Sciuscià (the first foreign film to be so recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) and Bicycle Thieves helped establish the permanent Best Foreign Film Oscar. Bicycle Thieves was cited by Turner Classic Movies as one of the 15 most influential films in cinema history.
The New Generation
In recent years, Italian cinema has experienced a quiet revolution: the proliferation of films by women. However, their thought-provoking work has not yet received the attention it deserves.
Laura Morante
Morante was born in Santa Fiora, province of Grosseto (Tuscany) in 1956. Morante came from a large family of nine siblings. Her father was a magistrate and her aunt was acclaimed novelist Elsa Morante. Formerly a dancer, Morante started her acting career in the theater before her film debut in Oggetti Smarriti (Lost Belongings). Oggetti Smarriti was directed by Giuseppe Bertolucci, whose brother would direct the second film in which Morante would appear, La Tragedia di un uomo ridicolo (The Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man). Under the auspices of the Bertolucci brothers, Morante’s career had a successful beginning.
Morante’s acting roles include La tragedia di un uomo ridicolo (1981), directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. Bianca (1984) and The Son’s Room (2001), both directed by Nanni Moretti. She also starred alongside Javier Bardem in The Dancer Upstairs (2002) and in Remember Me, My Love (2003).
One of the country’s most famous actresses, Morante, who could be described as a kind of Italian Catherine Deneuve, is as well known for her intense roles, the high calibre of her films and for her remarkable beauty. Now she is hoping to exploit the changing times in her country by playing her own part in promoting a different, more powerful role for women in cinema.
For the first time, the actress is stepping into the director’s role for a film, in which, she also stars and takes a co-writing credit. “I hope more films get made in Italy by women, as well about women, which is rare,” said Morante, who played a grieving mother in the Palme d’Or winning film, The Son’s Room in 2001. Morante said she was one of a number of Italian women film directors breaking into a traditionally male-dominated profession, along with Valeria Golino and Francesca Comencini.
In Ciliegine, Morante plays a woman with high expectations of men, who dumps her partner after he selfishly eats the lone cherry on the top of their anniversary cake. Morante claims she was inspired to write the script by a 1907 essay by Sigmund Freud that her father had told her about, in which Freud states that people throw up obstacles to stop themselves from declaring their true love. Morena is currently working on a stage play, called The Country.
Asia Argento
Aria Asia Maria Vittoria Rossa Argento (born 20 September 1975) is an Italian actress, singer, model and director. Her mother is actress Daria Nicolodi and her father is Dario Argento, an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter, well known for his work in modern horror and slasher movies. Her maternal great-grandfather was composer Alfredo Casella. When Asia Argento was born in Rome, the city registry office refused to acknowledge Asia as an appropriate name and instead officially inscribed her as Aria Argento. She nonetheless uses the name Asia Argento professionally. Argento has said that as a child she was lonely and depressed, owing in part to her parents’ work. Her father used to read her his scripts as bedtime stories. At age eight, Argento published a book of poems.
Asia Argento started acting at the age of nine, playing a small role in a film by Sergio Citti. At the age of 10, she had a small part in Demons 2, a 1986 film written and produced by her father as well as in its unofficial sequel, La Chiesa (The Church), when she was 14 and in Trauma (1993), when she was 18. She received the David di Donatello (Italy’s version of the Academy Award) for Best Actress in 1994 for her performance in Perdiamoci di vista!, and again in 1996 for Compagna di viaggio, which also earned her a Grolla d’oro award. In 1998, Argento began appearing in English-language movies, such as B. Monkey and New Rose Hotel.
In 1994 she moved into directing, calling the shots behind the short films, Prospettive and A ritroso. In 1996 she directed a documentary on her father and in 1998 a second one on Abel Ferrara, which won her the Rome Film Festival Award. Argento directed and wrote her first movie, Scarlet Diva (2000), which her father co-produced. Four years later she directed her second movie, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2004), based on a book by JT LeRoy.
She is currently working on a number of film projects. In November, Argento wrote the storyline for the music video and short film “Phoenix” along with director, Francesco Carrozzini, taken from the ASAP Rocky album, “Long Live”. She is married to Michele Civetta, a filmmaker and multimedia artist. He is also the founder of Quintessence Films.
La Dolce Vita Recipes
Bucatini all’Amatriciana
Ingredients
- 8 oz bucatini pasta
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 100 g or 3.5 oz guanciale or pancetta (about 3/4 cup)
- 100 g grated pecorino romano cheese (about 1/2 cup)
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- One 14 oz can Italian plum tomatoes
- 1/2 teaspoon hot pepper flakes, or more to taste
Directions
Place a large pot of water on the stove and bring to boil. Put in a small handful of large-grain salt.
Dice the guanciale into medium pieces, cubes of about 1/2 inch. Be wary of dicing the meat too small, if so it will be easier to overcook and you’re aiming for tender rather than crispy.
Saute the guanciale and hot pepper in the olive oil in a pan over medium heat. As soon as the fat becomes translucent, remove the meat and drain on a paper towel.
Add onions to the rendered fat and saute, stirring constantly, until translucent. Add the tomatoes and the guanciale. Simmer on low heat about 5-10 minutes.
When the water comes to a boil, add the pasta. Cook the pasta 1 minute less than the package states.
Drain the pasta and add it to the pan with the sauce. Toss with the sauce and add the pecorino romano cheese, stirring constantly, so that the melted cheese coats the pasta.
Remove from the heat and serve immediately with additional grated pecorino for sprinkling on top.
Abbacchio alla Romana (Roman-Style Pan-Roasted Lamb)
Ingredients
- 2 pounds lamb shoulder or shoulder chops, cut into 3-inch pieces with some bone attached
- All-purpose flour
- 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
- 4 fresh sage leaves, chopped fine
- 1 rosemary sprig, plus extra for garnishing
- 1 garlic clove, smashed
- 1/2 cup red-wine vinegar
- 1/3 cup water
- 2 salted anchovies, soaked in water for 10 minutes
Directions
Dust the pieces of lamb with flour, shaking off excess. Heat oil in a large, heavy pot. Add the lamb and brown on all sides. Season with salt and pepper. Add sage, rosemary and garlic, and turn lamb pieces over several times to soak up the flavor. Add vinegar, bring to a boil and simmer until it almost evaporates. Add the water, bring to a boil, adjust heat to a simmer, and cover pot.
Turn the meat from time to time until tender and beginning to come away from the bone, which could take anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes; the younger the lamb, the quicker it will cook.
When the lamb is done, remove from the heat, add the anchovies to the pan and mash them with a wooden spoon to dissolve them. Turn the lamb pieces around in the sauce before serving and garnish with rosemary.
Torta della Nonna (Grandmother’s cake)
For the pastry
- 7 oz all purpose flour, plus extra
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 3 oz unsalted butter, chilled and chopped
- 3 oz granulated sugar
- Finely grated zest of ½ lemon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 egg
For the filling
- 12 fl oz skimmed milk
- Finely grated zest of ½ lemon
- 2 eggs
- 3 ½ oz granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 oz all purpose flour
For the topping
- 1 oz pinenuts
- Powdered sugar
Directions
Put all the pastry ingredients into a food processor and pulse until the mixture comes together.
If you don’t have a processor, mix together the flour and baking powder, then rub in the butter with your fingers. Next, stir in the sugar and zest, then mix in the vanilla and whole egg with a blunt-ended kitchen knife and bring the pastry together.
Wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
Next, make the filling. Heat the milk and lemon zest until nearly boiling (there should be bubbles around the inside edge of the pan). Meanwhile, put the two eggs, sugar, vanilla extract and flour into a medium heatproof bowl. Whisk together to combine.
Gradually whisk in the hot milk mixture, then scrape contents back into the empty pan. Return pan to the heat and cook, whisking constantly, until the mixture is thick (it will need to boil before it thickens). Take off the heat and let cool completely.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180°C). Lightly flour a work surface and roll out two-thirds of the pastry. Use it to line a deep 8 inch round tart pan with a removeable bottom.
Whisk the filling to break it up any lumps that have formed while cooling, then spoon into the pastry base and spread to level. Trim the lining pastry so it comes about 3/4 inch above the filling, then gently fold the pastry edge on to the filling.
Next, roll out the remaining pastry on a lightly-floured surface into an 8 inch round. Lay on top of the filling and press edges lightly to seal. Sprinkle the pinenuts on top and press them down gently.
Bake for 50 minutes until nicely golden. Let cool for 10 minute, then carefully remove the outside ring and cool completely on a wire rack. To serve, liberally dust the cake with powdered sugar.
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Calabria is at the toe of the boot, the extreme south of Italy – lapped by the crystal blue Ionian and Tyrrhenian Seas and separated from Sicily by the Strait of Messina. The warm climate, the beautiful colors of the sea, rocky coasts that alternate with sandy beaches, the classic flavors of local foods and the vestiges of its ancient origins make Calabria a unique place in both winter and summer. The provinces of Calabria are: Catanzaro (regional capital), Reggio Calabria, Cosenza, Crotone and Vibo Valentia.
With farmland sparse in Calabria, every viable plot is cultivated to its greatest advantage. Tomatoes, eggplants, potatoes, artichokes, beans, onions, peppers, asparagus, melons, citrus fruits, grapes, olives, almonds, figs and mountain-loving herbs grow well in the area. Calabrians tend to focus on the high quality of their ingredients, so that virtually everything picked from a garden is useable and worthy of praise.
Calabrians use the mountainous area covering most of the region to raise pigs, goats and sheep and comb the woods for chestnuts, acorns and wild mushrooms to add rustic flavors to their cooking.
Fishermen have little trouble finding swordfish, cod and sardines and shrimp and lobster are common on their tables. The inland freshwater lakes and streams offer trout in abundance.
Due to the humid climate and the high risk of rapid molding and spoilage, food preservation has become a fine art in Calabria. Oiling, salting, curing, smoking – almost all of the area’s food products can be found preserved in some form or another. Calabria’s many varieties of cured meats and sausages are served alongside fresh produce and the local pancetta pairs perfectly with plump melons in summer.
Calabrians do their best to utilize the entire animal, so the fact that the organ meats are so prized by locals comes as no great surprise. The spicy-hot tang of nduja (also known as ‘ndugghi) is both a complex and singularly unusual flavor. Made from pig’s fat and organ meats mixed with liberal local pepperoncinis, this salami-style delicacy is a testament to the Calabrian patience in waiting until foods have reached their perfection. In this case, waiting for the salami to cure for an entire year. Other salamis such as capicola calabrese and soppressata di calabria also come from the region and are served alongside local breads, cheeses and Calabrian wines.
Nduja
Breads, cheeses and pastas are all important to Calabrian cooking. Cheeses lean toward the goat and/or sheep milk varieties, though cow’s milk cheeses are becoming more common. Pane del pescatore (“fisherman’s bread”) is a local specialty rich with eggs and dried fruits. Focaccia and pita breads are popular in the region, due to Greek and Arabic influences. Greek influence still pervades in eggplant, swordfish and sweets by incorporating figs, almonds and honey into the preparations. Similarly, special pastries and desserts take on a Greek flavor with many being fried and dipped in honey.
Calabrian pastas are hearty and varied, with the names of some of the more creative cuts, like ricci di donna (or “curls of the lady”) and capieddi ‘e prieviti (or “hairs of the priest”), belying a whimsical spirit of the region’s people. Fusilli is a common pasta component in Calabrian dishes, as are scilateddri, lagane, cavateddri and maccheroni.
Wine is not produced in huge quantities in the region, though the small batches are excellent in flavor and heavily influenced by Greek varieties. Ciró wines are produced using the same ancient varieties of grapes, as wines produced in antiquity for local heroes of the Olympic games. The grapes are still grown primarily in the Cosenza province of Calabria and Ciró wines often take up to four years to reach maturity. Calabria also turns out sweet whites, such as Greco di Bianco.
Calabrian hot pepper is found in many Calabrian dishes – toasted bread with n’duja sausage or sardines, pork sausages, pasta sauces and fish dishes will have hot pepper added. A fondness for spicy food shows in the popularity of all types of peppers and, unusual for Italy, the use of ginger (zenzero), which is added to spice up sauces (along with hot pepper). Some Calabrian chicken and fish recipes also include ginger.
Antipasto
Ricotta Stuffed Mushrooms
- One dozen mushroom caps
- 1 cup well-drained skim milk ricotta
- 1/4 cup grated Pecorino cheese
- 2 teaspoons fresh basil leaves, chopped
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- Ground black pepper to taste
- 1/4 cup Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
- Olive oil for drizzling
- Fresh parsley or basil, chopped, for garnishing
Directions
Preheat the oven at 400 degrees F.
Remove stems from mushrooms and set the caps side. Use the stems for soup or other recipes.
Thoroughly combine the next five ingredients -ricotta through pepper- in a mixing bowl.
Coat a baking dish just large enough to hold the 12 mushrooms with olive oil cooking spray.
Stuff each cap with ricotta filling. Sprinkle the tops lightly with breadcrumbs.
Place the stuffed mushroom caps in the baking dish and drizzle with olive oil.
Bake at 400 degrees F 20 minutes for large caps, 15 minutes for small caps. Garnish with chopped parsley before serving.
First Course
Calabrian Sugo – Tomato Sauce
Makes 2 ½ cups
This is a basic Calabrian sauce that is the foundation of many dishes. It can be served on its own with any pasta shape. It can also be the starting point for the addition of many other ingredients. You can use fresh tomatoes or canned.
Ingredients:
- 28-ounce can of peeled tomatoes in their juice or 3 ½ cups of peeled, chopped fresh tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 5 large basil leaves
- Salt
- 1 fresh or dried hot red pepper or a large pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 pound rigatoni
Directions:
If you are using canned tomatoes, break them up by hand. If you prefer a smoother sauce, puree them in a food processor or blender.
Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and saute until golden, about 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, basil, salt and hot pepper.
Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens, about 20 minutes.
Cook pasta according to package directions. Combine pasta with sauce and serve.
Second Course
Trance di Tonno alla Calabrese (Tuna Steaks Calabrese Style)
Ingredients
- 4 tuna steaks (about 2 pounds and 1 inch thick)
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 lemon, cut into wedges
- Salt and fresh ground pepper
- Extra virgin olive oil for drizzling
Directions
Place the tuna in a large large dish in a single layer, sprinkle with three tablespoons of olive oil, lemon juice, salt and freshly ground pepper.
Add bay leaves and garlic cloves and cover with plastic wrap. Allow the tuna to marinate in the refrigerator for at least six hours, occasionally turning the tuna.
Remove the tuna from the marinade.
Heat a large skillet until very hot and cook the tuna together with the lemon wedges, for approximately six minutes depending on thickness of the fillets or until the fish done to your likeness.
Sprinkle with black pepper and extra virgin olive oil before serving.
Sautéed Escarole
Serves: 3-4
Ingredients
- One head of fresh escarole, washed thoroughly
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 3 tablespoons of olive oil
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 1/2 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes
- 2 tablespoons pine nuts
- 2 tablespoons raisins
- 1 tablespoon capers, rinsed
- 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Directions
Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the escarole and cook until the stem pieces start to soften, about 2 minutes (the water needn’t return to a boil). Drain.
In a 12-inch skillet, heat the olive oil and garlic over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the garlic browns slightly, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove the garlic with tongs and discard.
Add the pine nuts, raisins, capers and crushed red pepper flakes and cook, stirring, until the pine nuts are golden and the raisins puff, about 1 minute.
Add the escarole, increase the heat to medium high, and cook, tossing often, until heated through and tender, 3 to 4 minutes. Sprinkle with the lemon juice and season to taste with salt or more hot pepper.
Dessert
Devil’s Tart (Crostata del Diavolo)
Sweet and hot are popular combinations in southern Italy, as evidenced by this tart. Chile jam is readily available from mail order sources. You can also roll the top crust out and fit it over the filling instead of making a lattice top.
Ingredients
- 5 ounces soft butter
- 5 ounces sugar
- 1 large egg plus 2 egg yolks
- 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel
- 11 ounces flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 5 ounces orange marmalade or apricot jam
- 4 ounces red chile jam (Marmellata di Peperoncino)
- 4 ounces almonds, blanched and chopped
- Confectioner’s (powdered) sugar
Directions
Heat the oven to 350 degrees F.
In a large bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter and sugar and mix well. Add the egg yolks, egg and lemon peel.
In another bowl, combine the flour and baking powder and slowly add to the butter-sugar-egg-mixture.
Divide the dough in half. Roll one half of the dough on a floured surface to fit a tart or pie pan and fit the dough into the pan.
Spread the fruit jam evenly over the dough in the pie dish and, then, spread the chile jam evenly on top of the orange jam. Sprinkle with the almonds.
Roll the other half of the dough to the size of the top of the tart pan on a floured surface. Cut the dough into one inch strips and lay the strips on top of the filling in a lattice pattern.
Bake the tart for about 30 minutes, until golden brown. Let cool on a rack and dust with confectioner’s sugar before serving.
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