Pasta is the perfect quick and easy comfort food. You can whip up a bowl in less time than it takes for the pizza delivery to arrive. Short or long, dried or fresh, saucy or not, stuffed, layered, baked – the possibilities are endless with this simple, delicious food.
Truffle Pasta Alfredo Like truffles? Join me for a hands-on truffle hunting food & wine weekend! Delicious pasta Alfredo is one of the simplest dishes – containing just pasta, butter, cheese, and the all-important pasta cooking water. Add the indulgent touch of shaved fresh black truffles in season, or black truffle butter the rest of […]
Fettuccine Alfredo Enjoy classic Roman pasta on my small-group Southern Italian food & wine tour starting in Rome! Fettuccine Alfredo is the simplest of pasta dishes, and the one that proves the supreme importance of pasta cooking water as the secret ingredient in any pasta sauce. This classic Italian pasta is named for Alfredo di […]
Purslane Pesto & Farfalle Like this recipe? Join me in Santarcangelo di Romagna for more delicious Italian inspiration! I first saw purslane in a Cypriot friend’s garden and was surprised when they later presented me with a bowl of the tangy, succulent leaves as a salad. I came across it again years later as a […]
Creamy Mushroom Pasta (Without Cream) Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Traditional Italian cooking class! Orecchiette is a classic pasta from Puglia where it’s often cooked with broccoli, garlic, anchovies and olive oil (see video below). It’s also ideal for this creamy mushroom pasta without cream, inspired by a dish from Lucio Galletto’s beautiful […]
Fregola Risottata with Clams & Chickpeas Like this recipe? Join me on an Italian food & wine tour to discover more regional specialties! Slightly larger than North African couscous, fregola is a reminder of the Arabic influence in Sardinia. It’s delicious in salads and soups and especially tasty as fregola risottata, stirred with the cooking […]
Passatelli Pasta with Brown Butter Join my small-group food & wine tour to northern Italy to discover more regional specialties. Passatelli pasta is a specialty of Romagna as well as the northern part of neighbouring Marche and Umbria. I was introduced to it at one of my favourite Romagnolo restaurants, Osteria La Corte in San […]
Pesto alla Genovese Join one of my food & wine tours to Italy to discover more Italian regional specialties! Although pesto means ‘to pound’, the classic Ligurian pesto alla Genovese, from the port city of Genoa, is traditionally made by crushing – rather than pounding – the ingredients in a marble mortar using a wooden […]
Hand Rolled Pasta: Lombrichi & Cicciones Join my food & wine tour to Southern Italy to discover more Italian regional specialties! This simple hand rolled pasta dough can be used to make several different rustic pasta shapes with a lovely chewy texture. Lombrichi are a traditional hand rolled pasta from Sardinia. The name means ‘earthworms’ […]
Tomato Sauce Master Kitchen Basics & Explore New Cuisines & Ingredients with My Online Cooking Classes A good tomato sauce is a basic in every Mediterranean cuisine. Use it to poach Lebanese stuffed zucchini, to dress a simple pasta or gnocchi, layer into eggplant Parmigiana or lasagne or add a pinch of hot smoked paprika […]
Shish Barak Like this recipe? You’ll love my online Lebanese cooking class! Shish barak (شيش برك) are little meat filled dumplings cooked in yoghurt sauce, similar to Turkish manti. I find that the longer the dough rests the easier it is to work with, as the gluten relaxes so it’s less likely to spring back […]
