GASTRONOMIA

Some recipes, and links to other food related pages.

My recipes

I am not a particularly good cook, but learnt a few recipes when left home. Pasticcerie are ubiquitous in Italy, but sadly not here in the States. So some learning was necessary to maintain the same sugar consumption. The recipes I have included here are student-suitable simplified versions. But they give more than adequate results, and do not require particular cooking experience. But beware: some of the cakes are tricky - they're not elaborate, but you have to get the key steps right. Pan di Spagna is one of those deceptively easy cakes.

Primi
- Risotto.
- A standard pasta sauce.
- Some quick pasta recipes.
- Quick pasta with tomatoes and ricotta salata.
- Marinated peppers.
- Cognac tomato sauce (by Daniela Pastina)
- Eggplant crostini
- Baked eggplants
Dolci
Note on gluten free dolci (for those unlucky people): a few dolci must be made with flour, and there is no substitute (e.g. the baba', which is raised with yeast). But other cakes do not owe their structure to gluten; these can be made gluten free by using potato starch instead of flour. Most of the cakes above (except the baba') are based on pan di Spagna, which owes its texture to eggs, not to yeast or baking powder. A pan di Spagna made of potato starch is excellent. It will be lighter, although it won't be able to absorb as much liquid as a flour based one. One can also use crushed or powdered nuts instead of flour. Note that creams can be thickened with potato starch instead of flour. The combination of gluten free pan di Spagna and gluten free creams produces a perfectly acceptable cake vastly superior to the nearly inedible gluten free non-cakes usually found in stores.

Italian Recipes

My favorite dessert cookbook is Nick Malgieri - Great Italian Desserts. It is one of the only books that explains carefully which ingredients have to be used, and how to substitute them if necessary. This is fundamental for preparing Italian desserts, since using American ingredients without adjustments may lead to disastrous results. I had gone through many failures before finding the right brand or type of product, and, sure enough, I then found all of this in the book.
Other cookbooks I like. Anna Tasca Lanza has various cookbooks on Sicily; I took my favorite cake recipe, the cassata, from there. About Italian cooking in general, I like Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Italian cooking, which describes the principles about Italian cooking, and, as Malgieri, pays attention to the exact ingredients or its possible substitutions. (Try making gnocchi with the wrong potatoes...)
Novara recipes. (Novara is my hometown). Unfortunately, the recipes are not clear. But just to know what the typical dishes are; they're quite different from the more known South Italian recipes.

Stores

Amedei and Slitti, two of my favorite chocolate producers in Italy.
Romanengo, a confetteria in Genova (confetteria means candies and the like, not cakes). I buy lots of stuff there (on the internet). Among other products, I love the gocce di rosolio (rose syrup drops) and the candied fruit (meaning whole fruits candied, not the dubious stuff in pieces one finds in regular supermarkets).
Dogliani, a great bakery, and an enormous choice of top chocolates (and sweet wines), in Carrara (Tuscany).

Cafes

Locali storici lists many old cafes and restaurant in Italy.
Torino, for instance, has some of the most beautiful cafes in Italy (you can search for them in the locali storici list). In particular, Al Bicerin, an ancient coffee shop, famous for the namesake mixture of coffee and chocolate.