Basic Dough

This dough can be used for both pizza and focaccia bread. In a large bowl mix 400g white flour (about 2 ½ cups) with 100g semolina flour (about 5/8 cups), then 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp sugar. Take 25g fresh brewer’s yeast (lievito di birra – look for the little yellow...

Classic Tomato Sauce

Best in the summer and early fall when you can still get good tomatoes. Take 500g of plum tomatoes and cut them finely. Skin and dice finely a small onion. In a frying pan, sauté the onion in olive oil for five minutes, then add the diced tomatoes. Cook for a while,...

Spaghettini ai frutti di mare

Umbria is the only region on the peninsula that doesn’t touch the sea, but you can still get great seafood at the Mercato coperto. This is Franci’s recipe: in a large frying pan sautee but don’t burn 3 cloves garlic, and a small white onion cut finely with 1C olive...

Panzanella Recipe

This is a way poor people used to use up stale bread. I admit my recipe isn’t the classic one, but it’s still good. The night before you want to make this dish, cut good white bread in cubes and put in a plastic bag (leave the bag open). The next day chop coarsely 6...

Italian Food Culture

Simply put, Italians love food. The ceasefire of commercial hostilities in the middle of the day is largely so that everyone can go home and have a rollicking-good lunch. Various kinds of food cultivation and production have been part of the physical landscape for...