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“I began by preparing my pasta: my deft fingers forming the intricate shapes of rigatoni, ravioli, spiralli, spaghetti, cannelloni, and linguini. Then I would brew sauces of sardines, or anchovies or zucchini or sheep's cheeses, of saffron, pine nuts, currants, and fennel. These I would simmer in the huge iron cauldrons, which were constantly bubbling above the fire. My pasta dishes, I have to say, were famous throughout the province, and the scent of my sauces carried by the breeze was sufficient to fill a poor man's stomach. I also kneaded bread and produced the finest pane rimacinato, the most delicious ciabatta and focaccia that had ever been tasted in the region. Sometimes I would add wild thyme to the dough, or fragrant rosemary; plucked fresh from the hedgerow, with the dew still on the leaves.”

Quote by Lily Prior

Book:La Cucina
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La Cucina

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Lily Prior

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“The pollo alla Messinese, a sumptuous dish of chicken smothered in a tuna-flavored mayonnaise that I produced, would have fed three hundred guests at a wedding. Unfortunately there was to be no wedding. Following the chicken incident, Mama banned me from slaughtering any more animals, so I turned to the dairy instead. I made salty ricotta by boiling sheep's milk with salt and skimming the whey with a bunch of twigs in the old tradition, just as Nonna Fiore had taught me. The ricotta I too made in great quantities, storing it in barrels in the roof of the cowshed.”

DairyChickenItalian CookingRosa Fiore
Book:La Cucina
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“Livia had burnt the onions. And not just any onions, but the ones in her famous sugo alla genovese, that wonderful sauce of reduced onions, flavored with beef stock, celery and chopped parsley, that together with pummarola and ragù form the holy trinity of Neapolitan pasta sauces. To make a true genovese the onions have to be cooked for around five hours over the gentlest heat, stirring occasionally to prevent them from sticking to the bottom of the pan and splashing them with water whenever they look like they are drying out. Onions are remarkable things, for cooked like this they lose almost all their familiar oniony taste and become an intensely sweet, aromatic jam, yet if a single piece happens to burn in the cooking, the acrid taste will permeate the whole dish.”

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Book:The Wedding Officer
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“Livia could have made a sugo blindfold- she had been making it almost every day for years. The only difficulty was, there were as many different kinds of sugo as there were days in a month. There was the everyday version, which might be no more than a handful of ripe tomatoes squashed with the tip of a knife to release the juices, then quickly fried in oil. There was the classic version, in which the tomatoes were simmered along with some garlic and onions until they had reduced to a thick, pulpy stew. Then there was a richer version, in which pieces of meat were cooked for several hours to extract all the flavor, and so on all the way up to ragù del guardaporte, the gatekeeper's sauce, so called because it required someone to sit by it all day, adding little splashes of water to stop the rolls of meat stuffed with parsley, garlic and cheese from drying out.”

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Book:The Wedding Officer
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“In a frenetic whirlwind we chop and dice and mince, turning anything we can think of into a possible pizza topping, and packing them all in small hotel pans in the rolling coolers we use for field shoots. When the dough has risen, I roll out fifty twelve-inch rounds, separating each with sheets of parchment, and stacking them in sheet pans, a rotini with a creamy sauce with ham and peas, and a simple rigatoni with vegetables in a light tomato sauce. Patrick discovers a big bowl of leftover risotto from Friday's testing, and heats up the deep fryer, yelling at me to set up a breeding station so he can do some arancini. While he is frying the little rice balls, I grab a huge prep bowl and fill it with romaine, shaved Parmesan, croutons and crispy capers, and I mix together a quick peppery pseudo-Caesar-style dressing.”

CookingIngredientsItalian CookingFood PreparationAlana And PatrickFlatbread Pizza
Book:Off the Menu
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“Gia turned on the burner and reached for a saucepan. She lightly crushed two cloves of garlic with the side of a knife, then minced and sautéed them in olive oil and a knob of butter. She whisked in a little flour, toasting it in the oil, added a pinch of salt, then raised the heat and whisked it in a cup of homemade chicken broth from the fridge until the soup began to thicken. She beat two eggs together in a bowl with some grated Parmesan and added them gently to the soup, where they poached into gold and white strands of savory-soft egg and cheese. Gia selected a big earthenware bowl, ladled in her soup, ground in some fresh black pepper, and placed it in front of Angelina with a napkin and a spoon. "Stracciatella. For you." Angelina leaned over the bowl with her eyes closed and let the delicious wisps of steam rise up to her face. She picked up the spoon and sulkily nicked off a piece of egg. Gia returned to her cup of coffee, with an experienced parent's complete indifference as to whether the meal she'd prepared was eaten or not. Angelina stole a glance from her and dipped into the bowl, seduced by the aroma of toast laced with sweet and savory garlic, mingled with the soothing sustenance of good chicken broth. She sipped and felt warm comfort spread into her belly, across the bridge of her nose and the back of her neck.”

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Book:Angelina's Bachelors
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“The red gravy was the starting point- sauce 'tomate' to her mom, the mother sauce. She grabbed a big yellow onion, two ribs of celery, a fat carrot, and a handful of parsley, the 'quattro evangelistas,' the "four saints," of Italian cooking. She diced the onion, celery, and carrot first, then cut a sweet red pepper and parsley even finer, like grains of wet sand, running the knife through them again and again. She picked off five cloves of garlic, smashed, peeled, and gave them a rough dice, so that they'd flavor the sauce but not overwhelm it. Three big glugs of olive oil went into the heated pot, followed by the 'evangelistas,' salt and pepper, and only then by the garlic, so it wouldn't burn. She folded in a dollop of tomato paste. While they simmered, she stripped a handful of dried herbs from the collection she kept hanging- rosemary, basil, thyme, oregano- then rubbed her hands together over the pot and watched the flecks drift down like tiny green snowflakes.”

CookingIngredientsVegetablesSpicesHerbsItalian CookingAngelina D AngeloTomato Sauce
Book:Angelina's Bachelors
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“Angelina, I adore you...," crooned Louis. Then the New Orleans Gang picked up the beat and King Louis sang, "I eat antipasto twice, just because she is so nice, Angelina..." Fresh pasta time. Angelina cracked three eggs into the center of a mound of 00 flour, in time to the music, and began teasing the flour into the sticky center. With a hand-cranked pasta maker, she rolled out the dough into long, silky-thin sheets, laid them out until they covered the entire table, then used a 'mezza luna' to carefully slice wide strips of pasta for a new dish she wanted to try that she called Lasagna Provencal, a combination of Italian and French cheeses, Roma and sun-dried tomatoes, Herbes de Provence, and fresh basil. It was a recipe for which she had very high hopes. Angelina started assembling her lasagna. She mixed creamy Neufchatel, ricotta, and a sharp, grated Parmigiano-Reggiano in with a whole egg to bind it together. She layered fresh pasta sheets in a lasagna dish, coated them with the cheesy mixture, ripped in some fresh basil and oregano and sun-dried tomatoes. She worked quickly, but with iron concentration. "I'm-a just a gigolo, everywhere I go...," sang King Louie. For the second layer, she used more pasta topped with Gruyere and herbed Boursin cheese. The third layer was the same as the first. For the fourth layer, she used the rest of the Boursin and dollops of creme fraiche, then ladled the thick, rich tomato sauce from the stove on top and finished it with a sprinkling of shredded Gruyere. She set it aside for baking later and felt a flush of craftswomanly pride in the way it had all come together.”

CookingIngredientsHerbsPastaItalian CookingLasagnaCheesesAngelina D AngeloKing Louis
Book:Angelina's Bachelors
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“I popped the tape into the VCR and watched a pretty, middle-aged Italian woman in a flowered housedress and frilly apron hold up various fish and shellfish as she spoke to the tape in rapid, enthusiastic Italian, espousing the virtues of the seafood. She was standing at a battered wooden table in what appeared to be her own kitchen. After she finished showing off the fish, she beheaded and eviscerated them, and then washed them in a chipped white enamel bowl full of water that sat on the table. She put the cleaned pieces on a brightly painted platter, chosen, I'm sure, with less deliberation than our Jonathan would have required. She poured olive oil into a large, slightly dented pot that sat on a small two-burner stove and then in a flash chopped a couple of onions and a good amount of garlic and put them in the oil. While the aromatics became, well, aromatic, she cut up a half dozen fresh tomatoes and a healthy amount of herbs and added them to the pot. She stirred everything around, and before long she had all the fish and shellfish in the pot.”

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Book:Last Bite
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