Tajarin – Rich Egg Pasta from Piedmont
Italian Food, Wine, and Travel
by chefbikeski
3y ago
We are eagerly anticipating our return to Italy this fall with our Italiaoutdoors Food and Wine tours. In October we are leading a private group on a Barolo Walk and Wine tour in the spectacular Piedmont region. A week devoted exploring the lovely Langhe hills, home to the renowned Barolo and Barbaresco wines, as well as some of Italy’s most mouthwatering cuisine. On our list to experience, the local “spaghetti”, tajarin. Tajarin in Piedmont Tajarin, the Piedmontese dialect word for Tagliolini or Tagliarini, is a long, thin noodle, similar to spaghetti. But the shape is where the resemblance ..read more
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Risotto al Limone e Gamberetti – Risotto with Lemon and Shrimp
Italian Food, Wine, and Travel
by chefbikeski
3y ago
Wherever in Italy we explore on our Italiaoutdoors Food and Wine tours, we find risotto on the menu. Grown primarily in Northern Italy, mainly in the marshy areas of the Po River Valley, rice found a natural habitat. The result is a wide array of risotto dishes found across the peninsula, reflecting the traditional cuisines and seasonal products of each area, from Risotto alla Milanese in Lombardia to Risotto con Funghi in Trentino-Alto Adige to Risotto with White Asparagus from Bassano del Grappa. The following risotto – Risotto al Limone e Gamberetti – I’ve enjoyed in two regions, one in th ..read more
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Trota Two Ways – Recipes from Italy’s Lake District
Italian Food, Wine, and Travel
by chefbikeski
3y ago
Just north of Milan, nestled in the foothills of the Alps, is the Italian Lake district. Here five lovely lakes – Maggiore, Lugano, Como, Iseo and Garda – together offer an amazing backdrop for our Italiaoutdoors Food and Wine private Italy tours. Stunning scenery, with deep lakes surrounded by majestic mountains; picturesque towns and villages perched on the water’s edge; rolling green hills covered with woodlands and olive trees; elegant palazzi surrounded by formal gardens. With the help of boat travel and cable cars, we can cover a lot of ground without a lot of time in the car, from isla ..read more
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Coccoli – Comfort Street Food from Florence
Italian Food, Wine, and Travel
by chefbikeski
3y ago
Every region we explore in Italy on our Italiaoutdoors Food and Wine walking tours has its favorite street foods to nourish us along the way. In Sicily, arancini; in Cinque Terre, fried fish cones and farinata; in Venice, frittelle; in Naples, frittatina. Notice a similarity? Our favorite street foods tend to be salty deep-fried bites, most of which we would never attempt at home. But one of my favorites, which I did just try at home, are from Florence – coccoli fritti. Coccoli are simply fried bread balls, salty, oily and highly enjoyable. Small in size, these bite size treats are perfect c ..read more
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Insalata di Arance – Fresh Orange Salad from Sicily
Italian Food, Wine, and Travel
by chefbikeski
3y ago
Exploring the lovely countryside of Sicily under sunny skies, we find the perfect ‘sunny’ delicacy to refresh us along the way – sweet, red-fleshed blood oranges. Citrus fruits arrived in Italy around 850 AD during an Arab invasion. Initially these oranges were bitter and yellow, but the mild, warm climate of Sicily allowed for the development of the sweeter, red varieties we see today. The blood orange is actually a natural mutation of the orange, which is itself a hybrid between the pomelo and the tangerine. It’s distinctive dark red flesh color is due to the presence of anthocyanins, a po ..read more
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Granita – Cool Off the Sicilian Way
Italian Food, Wine, and Travel
by chefbikeski
4y ago
During these hot summer days, dreaming of Italy travel that unfortunately won’t happen until 2021, I’m finding solace in my kitchen with favorite recipes. For Sicilians – and wishful future visitors like myself – summer is incomplete without the opportunity to enjoy the intense flavors and welcome coolness of a granita. Not an ice cream nor gelato; probably closest to a sorbet, a granita is typically fruit juice, water, and sugar, frozen and served with a grainy consistency – imagine a sophisticated slurpee. The origins of granita date back thousands of years to ancient Mesopotamia, where se ..read more
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Herb-Roasted Olives
Italian Food, Wine, and Travel
by chefbikeski
4y ago
One food that is essential to Italian cuisine from the top to the tip of the boot are olives – from tasty snacks to a key ingredient for many favorite recipes to the ubiquitous olive oil, guests on our Italy tours from the shores of Lake Garda down to Sicily and Puglia are enjoying olives in one form or another on a daily basis. Their complex flavor, a perfect combination of sweet, sour, salt and bitter make them an indispensable tool for any Italian cook. Olives have been part of the Mediterranean cuisine since ancient times. Their cultivation dates back thousands of years, originally to Syr ..read more
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Arancini con Mozzarella e Prosciutto – Sicilian Street Food
Italian Food, Wine, and Travel
by chefbikeski
4y ago
Guests on our Italiaoutdoors Food and Wine Italy tours, and students in my cooking classes, have made or tasted many types of risotto with me, as it is one of Italy’s signature dishes and everyone can find a flavor they like. But it is not a dish that reheats well, so what to do with your leftovers? My favorite solution – Arancini- deep fried rice balls, stuffed with something yummy. Reputed to have originated in Sicily in the 10th century during Arab rule, when large serving bowls of saffron rice with plates of meat and vegetables were shared by a table. Sometime later “rice balls” that wer ..read more
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Sugo all’Arrabbiata – “Angry” Red Sauce for Pasta
Italian Food, Wine, and Travel
by chefbikeski
4y ago
A popular pasta dish from Rome and the Lazio region is the simple but tasty Sugo all’Arrabbiata. The name “Arrabbiata” comes from the Italian word for angry, referring to the red face one would get as a result of eating this spicy pasta. But certainly as the chef, you are in control of how spicy you make this dish, and having whipped up a wonderful meal with very little effort, anger will be far from your mind. Arrabbiata sauce is of relatively recent origin, some suggest from the late 1800s or early 1900s. Now we think of tomatoes as a traditional ingredient of Italian cuisine, but in fact ..read more
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Pasta alla Puttanesca
Italian Food, Wine, and Travel
by chefbikeski
4y ago
The origins of this dish, translated as “whore’s pasta”, are commonly attributed to the working ladies of Naples looking for a quick and easy dinner. In his Naples at Table (1998), Arthur Schwartz shares several anecdotes that point to Neapolitan prostitutes as the creators of this dish, including one well-known nineteenth-century courtesan, Yvette “La Francese” (Yvette the French), a native of Provence, who created the dish to soothe her homesickness. But Italians love to create these colorful histories without concerning themselves too much with the facts. Italian food historian and transla ..read more
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