Try bagna cauda, which literally means “hot bath”. No, not for you but for the crunchy vegetables you’re going to dip into it. Just four great ingredients, olive oil, butter, garlic and anchovies, meld to form this delectable dish.
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I love caponata but I don’t eat it much as my family considers eggplant to be one of the seven deadly vegetables. Eggplant is a well-traveled vegetable. It apparently originated in tropical Asia and headed to the Middle East via India. Arab settlers brought it to Spain and southern Italy but no one knows exactly when. There is no record that the Greeks and Romans knew eggplant (my husband considers them lucky) but it arrived in southern Italy before explorers brought the tomato, potato and pepper from the New World.
Eggplant territory begins in Naples, or so they say. That the farther south you go, the more important it becomes to local cuisine. Caponata is a classic Sicilian dish that provides an explosion of flavors once it hits your taste buds. While there are many variations of caponata (with eggplant the main event), the dish almost always includes celery, tomatoes, capers and olives. Some recipes include raisins…not mine. The distinctive taste of caponata comes from its subtle sweet-and-sour flavor the Italians call agrodolce.
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I don’t think you’ll see this kind of pasta dish in Italy. Italians don’t generally eat cold pasta. But we love them here in the U.S. Especially in summer. They’re easy, versatile, portable and the only thing you have to cook is the pasta itself. And oh, I have an ulterior motive. My garden is completely over-run with dill. It has been a massive invasion. I expect to see it coming up through my living room carpet one morning. So this dish is a particularly delicious way to use up some of my fresh, and menacing, dill. And let’s face it, dill really wakes up a dish!
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I love this lemon crostata for its simplicity. You can if you want dress it up with blueberries or any other kind of fruit but I love it best the way it’s made here: unadorned and sweet with a lemony-tang. I don’t know about you, but I love recipes that feature lemons. The almighty lemon. Among the finest ingredients in the world. Before we get to this recipe I’m going to tell you (briefly) how the lemon, so versatile and healthy, showed up on Italy’s doorstep centuries ago?
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Let me introduce you to smooth and creamy chestnut soup. This version is more like a bisque, dressed up with butter, cream and a little booze. But I know, I know. It’s brown. You can dress it up, with chopped green onions and crème fraîche, I’ve done here, and talk it up as I’m doing now. But at the end of the day, this soup is still brown. But still good! Made with chestnut purée which I’ll talk about below. And also made with butter and cream. But first…
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