Beets are often shunned, yet they are a favorite in our home. Baked fresh beets have a rich, sweet flavor that our kids love.
Educated Palate: Lael & Giuliano Hazan’s Blog
THE FLAVOR OF SARDINIA
We had our first taste of Sardinia some years ago at the Rialto food market in Venice, and it had the quality of revelation. Daniela, whose vegetable stall is our favorite, offered each of us a small, round, deep red tomato, about 1½ inches in diameter, its top dimpled and marked by splotches of vivid malachite green. “These are from Sardinia” she said. “Pop one into your mouth as though it were a cherry.”
Poppy Seattle, a Restaurant Review
Poppy is a must experience restaurant. The food is made with care and the passion that goes into the creation of the recipes is apparent. The entire experience is one of relaxation, unpretention, and ease. When you go, you will gain taste memories that will last forever.
Dressing an Italian Salad
“Italian dressing” is about as Italian as spaghetti with meatballs or chicken Tetrazzini. That is, you won’t find any in Italy. Instead of a recipe, we have a proverb for how to dress a good Italian salad.
Making Spaghetti alla Carbonara on Daytime
Making Spaghetti alla Carbonara on Daytime
Boiled Meats
Victor and I had a most succulent dinner today, but anyone who would ask what I cooked would be dismayed by the answer: boiled beef. Why does the word boiled turns people off? If they are really boiling something they prefer to call it steamed, although usually they are doing exactly the same thing. In Italy if you want to brag, just say “ho fatto il bollito“, “I made boiled meats”. Yes, I did.
Someone asked for a recipe. It is on page 407 of Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, a recipe for a crowd. You can use the same procedure for a small quantity of meat, as I do when Victor and I dine alone. I also make a salad of cold leftover boiled beef. In my version (page 260 Marcella Says) I also put capers, anchovy, basil, garlic, and olive oil. I can see one of the trendy New York restaurants waking up to what a good thing it is and listing “water-poached short ribs and marrow with cren and peperonata” on its menu, which would be picked up by one of the Times’ Wednesday dining section scribes, and then it would take off.
How to learn to cook Italian
I would start with an introductory course on the spot. My son gives some in the wine country above Verona, see his website. I would then rent a small place in two or three cities and towns, for a few days each. Choose places with great markets such as Venice and Rome, get to know the stall-keepers, exchange ideas with them, try a few local restaurants, speak to their chefs, go back to your apartment and cook. Or, for a cheaper alternative, stay home and cook your way through Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, then travel to Italy. Good luck. Marcella
One of the top cookbook authors of all time
Marcella Hazan on being named one of the top cookbook authors of all time.
August 16, 2010
Thank you my dear Friends for your kind messages and your loyalty. It was enormously flattering to find my venerable cookbook – 37 years old this past spring – landing on the Guardian’s list as it did on a number of other lists, The Wall Street Journal’s 5 best, GQ’s 10 best, the Village Voice’s best cookbook ever, even among the 100 best ever chosen by a paper in David Downie’s hometown, Brisbane. It’s a peculiar feeling, similar perhaps to those of a mother’s whose little boy has become a movie star and won an Oscar. That book is still like a little boy to me. I wrote it without any knowledge of how one writes cookbooks, and puzzled that a publisher should have asked me to do it and been willing to pay me what seemed to me then the amazing sum of $2,500 plus $500 for groceries. The recipes were of the dishes that a woman who had never cooked in her life had managed to produce for her new husband. The kind of food that I was writing about seemed to be totally unfamiliar to anyone I spoke. Many of the ingredients I listed were not even available in any major market in a cosmopolitan city like New York. I look now at the food landscape in this and in other countries and as I gaze on the figure of Italian cooking that dominates that landscape, I say, omigosh!
Peeling and Deveining Shrimp
from How to Cook Italian, by Giuliano Hazan
1. Pry open the shell from the belly of the shrimp, working your way to the tail.
2. Snap the center part of the tail back then gently pull the shell off by grabbing the very tip of the tail. You should end up with the flesh from the tail still attached to the shrimp.
3. Use a pairing knife to make an incision along the back of the shrimp and pull out the black vein if there is one.
4. When deveining cooked shrimp the vein may not come out as easily as when they are raw so wiping it off with a paper towel may help. Do not worry if some traces remain.
Increasing and Decreasing Number of Servings
from How to Cook Italian, by Giuliano Hazan
When a recipe serves 4 people but you want to cook for 2 or maybe 8 or 12, you don’t simply divide or multiply the quantities of ingredients. In general, the ingredients that make up the bulk of the dish, meats, vegetables, tomatoes, can all be multiplied, as well as herbs and spices, but ingredients such as oil, butter and wine should not be doubled or halved. The amount of these ingredients is determined not just by the quantity of the main ingredients but also by the size and shape of the pan. A good rule of thumb is that for each time you increase the recipe you should increase oil, butter or wine by only 50%, and if you are halving the recipe you should decrease them by only 25%.
