How to Cook Italian

Preface This book is about how I cook Italian food at home. It's about how I shop, how I organize myself in the kitchen, and what kind of tools and equipment I like to use. The food in this book is inspired by what I grew up eating at home and learned to cook once I left home because I missed the food I was used to. It's also inspired by dishes I have eaten in homes and restaurants while traveling in Italy. Although it may seem odd to find recipes for home cooking in restaurants, eating in restaurants in Italy is often like eating in someone's home. In fact, one of the best compliments a restaurant can receive is that its food is as good as homemade. Some of the best food I've had has been in simple family-run trattorias. The dishes I brought back from Italy are those with simple, genuine flavors that highlight the ingredients used. Like Burrida -- pan-roasted fish with garlic, rosemary, and red wine vinegar -- a dish that fishermen on Friuli's coast once made with fresh, but damaged fish they could not sell. Or the Ligurian seafood salad with pistachios that a customer taught to her favorite restaurant. And the almost magical restorative powers of the artichoke and potato soup our Sardinian friend Rita welcomed us with when we arrived at her inn late one night totally exhausted. This is the kind of food that characterizes Italian cooking best. It's food whose flavors are direct and genuine, unburdened by overly complex preparations and long ingredient lists. Italian food does not hem and haw; it asserts itself proudly. If it were a painting, it would not be made of varying shades of beige but of the vibrant colors one sees on the houses in so many Italian towns. Italian food is also incredibly varied and speaks clearly of the region from which it comes, much like its inhabitants' accent. Northern Italy's wealth is expressed in its food, for example, with its use of butter, cream, veal, and white truffles. As you move farther south the land becomes more mountainous and you'll see more dependence on olive oil and sheep and goats rather than cattle and dairy products. Although the south's ingredients may not be as rich, its flavors unquestionably are. No matter where you are in Italy, meals have a certain rhythm. Instead of an appetizer and main course, a typical Italian meal consists of a first and second course that are equal in portion size. The first course (il primo) is more than an appetizer and is a pasta, risotto, or soup. The second course (il secondo) is a smaller portion than a main course and is a meat or fish dish, usually accompanied by a vegetable. A special-occasion meal might begin with an antipasto and include a cheese course followed by dessert. A less formal everyday meal might end with fresh fruit, served as is, or perhaps sliced and marinated. Each time I returned home to Sarasota, Florida, I sifted through all those notes I took and began the task of re-creating the dishes I enjoyed most. Reading my notes I considered how to produce the flavors I remembered with the ingredients I had available from our local supermarket and a few specialty food shops. The process of getting from an idea and taste memory to finished recipe goes something like this: I cook a dish, taking meticulous notes of everything I do, and then my family eats it. We decide if it needs some changes, if it's worth pursuing, or if it's perfect the way it is. If changes are necessary, I retest until we're happy. It is a slow process, with many rejects, but the dishes that made the final cut are the ones that gave us the most pleasure and were the best suited to being cooked an ocean away from their origin. Some of the recipes here are the result of inspirations that came about at the market or simply staring into the refrigerator wondering what I was going to make for dinner. But they are all dishes that use an Italian appHazan, Giuliano is the author of 'How to Cook Italian ', published 2005 under ISBN 9780743244367 and ISBN 0743244362.