Great Tips For Excellent Italian Meals

Discover The Authentic Cooking Methods Of Italian Cuisine

To try grouping Italian cooking under one flag would be quite difficult.  Because of the extremes in climate from the chilly mountainous north to the sun-drenched seashores of the south, you'll find ingredients vary greatly, even in similar Italian dishes.  The creamy, buttery sauces of the north are translated into olive oil based dishes in the south.  Starchy root vegetables show up in dishes in the north, while tomatoes and eggplants rule the recipes in the southern regions.

However, throughout Italy the cooking techniques are shared by all.  With some slight variations, we find standard preparation and cooking methods to be similar across the country.  Let's take a look at a few food preparation and recipe basics that will be recognized in Italian kitchens from coast to coast.

Rissoto

Is it a cooking technique or is it a dish?  The answer is, it's both.  The traditional recipe calls for arborio, a short grain rice, sauteed in butter or olive oil, then stock or broth is stirred in a ladle at a time, over and over, stirring constantly, until the rice softens and becomes creamy. Vegetables, cheese, seafood, or other ingredients can be added at this point.  This is the recipe, but it is also the method.  It's adding a ladle of stock at a time and stirring constantly until the rice (or pasta) cooks fully that makes a dish a rissoto.

Polenta

If you have never made polenta yourself, you may only think of this as a dish, not a method.  However, if you have experienced the old fashioned technique of producing a smooth, lump-free polenta, you know the method well - one part cornmeal stirred into four parts boiling water or stock, and then stirred, stirred, and stirred some more, always in one direction, for about an hour.  After the hour, your polenta can be served right out of the pot with added cheese, herbs, garlic, and tomatoes.  Or, the other familiar process may be used where the mixture is poured into a pan and left to cool, then sliced and served by frying or grilling or baking with other ingredients if desired.  This dish definitely requires a process, which makes 'polenta' as much a method as a recipe.

Crudo

For the freshest possible taste, this technique is used to add ingredients to a dish just before serving, rather than cooking in the dish.  Think about hot cooked pasta tossed at the last minute with a combination of chopped fresh basil, fennel, bell pepper, tomato, and garlic. Adding ingredients at the end of preparation may be referred to in a recipe name as 'a la crudo,' letting you know you are getting the freshest of the fresh at the table.

Battuto

This word means 'beaten.'  Ingredients such as onion, garlic, pancetta, celery, bell peppers, and carrots are mixed with salt and some sort of fat, chopped small and blended well.  A food processor comes in handy for this preparation basic.  Once you have your 'battuto,' you are ready to formulate a sauce or soup, mixing it with whatever ingredients the dish calls for.  Beating these ingredients together rather than keeping them independent of each other creates an infusion, producing more depth of flavor.

Al Dente

This term is much more familiar around the world than it was long ago.  Most people are now used to cooking their favorite pasta gently and until just tender, with a little 'bite back' when bitten. Al dente, "to the tooth," is a desirable method (or result) of cooking pasta so it remains somewhat solid in the center, but not crunchy.  If pasta sinks away when you bite into it, it is over-cooked and was not successfully cooked al dente.  To throw it out and start over would be the only way to handle mushy pasta like an Italian.

As you see, some cooking techniques lend their name to the dish itself, and vice versa.  This may not seem quite so strange when you think about ordering a familiar side for lunch and just calling the side dish 'fries.'
Even though ingredients may change from one end of Italy to the other, cooking methods are similar in style. Creating Italian cuisine can start as simply as learning these techniques, then putting your own spin on the ingredients you choose.  Buon appetito!