Italian Food Recipes

INGREDIENTS (for 4 people):
2 Carrots
2 Celeries
1 Small Onion
40 g of Almond without peel
4 Tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
300 g of Chicken breast

PREPARATION TIME: 10 minutes

COOKIN TIME: 15 minutes

WINE: Colline Novaresi Nebbiolo Doc (Red Wine)

PREPARATION
Start with the preparation of the all ingredients: clean and peel the carrots, the celery and the onion and cut them in long slices.


Cut the chicken breast in square pieces of medium dimension as shown in the picture below.


Preheat the extra virgin olive oil in a pan, when the oil is hot, add the vegetables and let them cook for about 5 minutes.


Then add the chicken breast and let them golden.


Add the almond


and continue the cooking with a cover for about 10 – 15 minutes until the meat is good cooked.
Serve hot.
This is the result:

BUON APPETITO!

This is an easy and good Italian recipe suitable as a delicious appetizer. You can prepare small pies filled with ricotta cheese and spinach personalized for each of your hosts. It is very simple to prepare them if you use a flaky pastry ready otherwise you will need much more time if you want to prepare a homemade flaky pastry. Also the personalization of the small pies is easy you only need a little bit of creative skill to make the decoration. At the end for the preparation of the filling you have only to boil the spinach, put the others ingredients all together, mix and fill the pastry with this mixture, only 15 minutes in the oven and the appetizer is ready to eat.

INGREDIENTS (for 7 - 9 people):
Flaky pastry
200g Ricotta cheese
200g of Spinach
1 Mozzarella cheese
1 Egg
Parmesan
Salt
Black pepper

PREPARATION TIME: 15 minutes

COOKING TIME: 30 minutes

WINE: Valpolcèvera Rosato Doc (Red Wine)

PREPARATION
Roll out the flaky pastry with the help of rolling pin. Cut it with a cutter-shape or with a glass in order to obtain small piece of flaky pastry with a particular shape.



Clean the spinach and let them cook in a pan with salted water for about 10 – 15 minutes. Then drain them and let them cool. Put in a bowl the ricotta cheese, add the spinach, the egg, the Parmesan and the mozzarella cut before in small cubes.



Put the pieces of flaky pastry in a pan like this shown in the picture below,

,

make some small holes with a fork on the surface of the pastry and fill them with the mixture of spinach and ricotta cheese.
If you have some flaky pastry left over use it to make some decoration.



Preheat the oven at 180°C, bake the small pie in the oven for 15 minutes until the surface becomes slightly golden.
This is the result:

BUON APPETITO!

This is the recipe of an Italian first course prepared with cherry tomatoes, eggplant and swordfish. The preparation is easy and quite fast: first you have to prepare a simple chopped of garlic and parsley, then you can prepare the cherry tomatoes, the eggplant and the swordfish cutting them in small square pieces. When the chopped is ready, put it in a pan with extra virgin olive oil, add to it the cherry tomatoes then the swordfish and separately fry the pieces of eggplant. When fusilli are ready pour on them all the ingredients and the dish is ready. BUON APPETITO!

INGREDIENTS (for 4 people):
1 Clove of garlic
30 g of Parsley
20 Cherry tomatoes
1 Eggplant
150 g of swordfish in 1 slice
320 g of pasta type fusilli
4 Tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

PREPARATION TIME: 20 minutes

COOKING TIME: 30 minutes

WINE: Golfo del Tigullio Doc (White Wine)

PREPARATION
Let salted water boil for fusilli. Preheat the extra virgin olive oil in a pan, prepare a chopped of garlic and parsley, add it to the pan and let it cook for 3 – 5 minutes.


In the meantime prepare the cherry tomatoes, the eggplant and the swordfish.
Cut the cherry tomatoes in half or in quarter, add them to the pan with the chopped and let them cook for about 10 minutes.


Peel the eggplant and cut it in small square pieces, let them fry in a pan with hot oil and when they are cooked place them in a dish covered with a kitchen paper in order to remove the excess of oil.


Cut also the swordfish in square pieces and when the cherry tomatoes are ready add them to the pan and let them cook for other 5 – 10 minutes.


In the meantime if the salted water boil add the pasta and cook it for the time indicated on the packaging. When pasta is cooked, before drain it, take some spoons of cooking water and add them to the sauce of cherry tomatoes and swordfish.


Now drain the fusilli, add them to the mixture together with the fried pieces of eggplant,


mix all together and serve hot.


This is the result:


BUON APPETITO!

This summer my parents spent their holidays in Sicily, in particular in Trapani and during these days they tasted the delicious Italian recipe of “Lasagne alla Siciliana”. This recipe is prepared with traditional vegetables of Sicily, the eggplants, and with a tomato sauce of minced meat of veal and peas and the addition of ham and sweet Sicilian pecorino cheese. You can prepare it with lasagna bought or you can decide to make home-made lasgana, here I show the easy recipe to prepare the home-made lasagna with the help of a pasta machine but in the case you don’t have it you can also use a simply rolling pin, the result will be the same.

INGREDIENTS (for 8 people):
1 / 2 Onion
200 g of Minced meat of veal
200 g of Peas
1,5 L of Tomato sauce
4 Round Eggplants
200 g of Sweet Pecorino cheese
200 g of ham
150 g of Parmesan
4 Tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
Extra virgin olive oil for fry the eggplants

INGREDIENTS FOR LASAGNA PASTA
400 g of Flour
4 Eggs
Salt

PREPARATION TIME: 1 hour

COOKING TIME: 30 minutes

WINE: Santa Margherita di Belice bianco Doc (White Wine)

PREPARATION
Start with the preparation of the lasagna pasta: put in a bowl the flour, a pinch of salt and the eggs.


Mix all the ingredients and knead the dough until it becomes homogeneous. Let the dough stand for about 20 – 30 minutes so it becomes more soft. After this time start to roll out the dough, you can do this with the help of a rolling pin or more easily with the help of a pasta machine. Here I use the pasta machine.


Start roll out the dough from the biggest thickness of the machine then little by little reduce it until you obtain a pastry of about 2 – 3 mm of thickness.




Cut the pastry in rectangular pieces with about dimension of 15 cm x 10 cm.


Now start with the preparation of the sauce for lasagna: preheat the extra virgin olive oil in a pan, cut the onion in slices and let them cook for 3 – 5 minutes in the hot oil to make it tasteful.


When the onion becomes golden remove it from the oil and add the minced meat of veal. Let it cook for 5 - 8 minutes until it becomes slightly golden,


then add fresh peas and continue the cooking for other 5 – 8 minutes.


Now add the tomato sauce and let the all sauce cook for about 30 – 40 minutes.




In the meantime prepare the other ingredients: eggplants, ham and cheese.
Cut the eggplants in slices


and fry them in hot extra virgin olive oil until they become slightly golden.


When they are cooked put them in a dish covered with kitchen paper in order to remove the excess of oil.
Cut the ham in slices and the cheese in small cubes.
Now you can prepare the lasagna: cover the bottom of a rectangular baking pan with the sauce of meat and peas, put over it lasagna,


pour on it the sauce, make a layer with the fried eggplants, another with the slices of ham and the cubes of cheese


and sprinkle with some parmesan, re-put another layer of lasagna pasta and continue in this way until the pan in full.


Bake at 180°C and cook for about 30 minutes until the surface becomes golden.
Serve hot.
This is the result:

BUON APPETTITO!