How to Cook Italian Food

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How to Cook Italian Food
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Check The Quality Of The Ingredients For
Freshness Of Produce
When an Italian goes shopping for ingredients
he/she picks the best. The most fresh. An Italian
never settles for poor quality. If produce at all
the grocery stores or markets in his/ hers area
is bad or poor than he/she goes somewhere else.
Never settle for poor quality ingredients, herbs,
and produce. Generally a produce stand has or
will have fresher produce and the produce will
last longer. Do not place produce such as
tomatoes and lettuce etc. in the fridge. The
produce will last longer if placed on the counter
and used within a few days. A good Italian cook
ALWAYS uses fresh garlic.
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Know your pasta
Pasta is the or one of the most important parts
of Italian cooking. There are nearly 120
different types and kinds of pastas, but It is a
good idea to become familiar with the more common
pastas, and, if you use dry pasta, it is a good
idea to know how to make fresh pasta when you are
caught without dry pasta. In general, the smaller
or thinner the pasta, the less sauce you want to
use. consequently the larger or more rigid the
pasta (such as penne rigate which has ridges) the
more sauce or heavier sauce you can use. But any
sauce can go with spaghetti. Risotto and Gnocchi
are classified as a type of pasta and may be used
as such.
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Use Innate Cooking Skills
Italians are very flexible with their cooking.
Knowing how and when to substitute something for
something else, in the occasion that the grocery
store does not have something or a certain
ingredient or a certain ingredient that a recipe
calls for is very expensive and not within your
budget, the good Italian cook knows how to
substitute or use something else. A recipe calls
for squash and you don't have it why not use
zucchini? If a recipe calls for mozzarella cheese
and you are out use fresh asiago.
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Be Thrifty
Italians waste nothing. Some may call this
frugality, others may call this smart, and some
may call this good economics. I would call it all
three. If there is leftover bread (not, "puffed
up 90 air" bread real, delicious, and hot
bread) it is left out to dry, seasoned or left
plain, and made into croutons. If there is
leftover pasta it is saved and use latter. I love
to top left over pasta with a little olive oil,
sun dried tomatoes, olives, and a pinch of salt
and pepper.
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Be Prepared to Include Coffee
Coffee is a major part of Italians life. Italians
usually enjoy a very dark, roasted, robust coffee
as well as cappuccinos, caffe latte, and caffe
macchiato. It is very likely if not customary to
serve coffee to any guests an Italian has in
his/her house.
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Be Hospitable
Italian cooking does not stop at the food,
coffee, or ingredients. Italian cooking usually
if not always starts and stops with hospitality.
Italians always make their guests feel at home
and there is nobody else in the world they would
have over than you (The guest). The good Italian
cook knows how to add more ingredients or add an
extra side dish to make enough if he/she has
unexpected guests. The good Italian cook always
has enough food, coffee, and joy for everyone.
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