http://memoriediangelina.blogspot.com/
This food blog is inspired by the wonderful home cooking of my Italian grandmother, a native of a small town in Campania called Apice Vecchio. You'll find her recipes here, plus some of my favorite dishes from other parts of Italy, especially Rome, where I lived for ten memorable years.
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Recent Posts Tagged With 'contorno'
Jul 03
For many Italians, Summer means outdoor grilling, just as it does for much of the rest of the world. One of my grilling favorites is the grigliata mista, mixed grilled meats. The choice of meats is up to the cook, but it usually includes lamb, pork, (read full article)
contorno, grilled foods, Meat, secondi, vegetable
Jun 24
Here's a 'master recipe' for one of the most common techniques in Italian cookery for preparing vegetables, particularly green, leafy vegetables. The technique is called rispassato in padella or saltato in padella which literally means 'tossed in the (read full article)
contorno, Nana, vegetable
May 28
I normally like my salads with a simple oil and vinegar dressing in the typical Italian manner, but once and a while I get the urge for one of those rich and creamy salads like cole slaw or Russian salad … or this French classic: céléri rémoulad (read full article)
antipasti, contorno, french, vegetable, Vegetarian
May 08
Tuscans love beans. They eat them as part of many of the famous Tuscan soups like ribollita, they eat them in a salad with tuna as an antipasto, and, of course, they eat them as a contorno, or side dish, especially with grilled meats like the mythica (read full article)
contorno, summer, Toscana, Vegan, vegetable, Vegetarian
Apr 30
A Springtime Roman treat, la vignarola is a vegetable 'medley' made from spring onions, fava beans, artichokes, peas and tender lettuce. It comes in an entirely vegan/vegetarian version and one that uses a bit of guanciale or pancetta to lend flavor (read full article)
antipasti, contorno, Lazio, secondi, spring, Vegan, vegetable, Vegetarian
Feb 24
This is one of the easiest and most versatile vegetable dishes in the Italian repertoire: funghi trifolati, or 'truffled' mushooms, so called because the thinly sliced and sautéed mushrooms are said to resemble that other, more highly prized tuber. (read full article)
contorno, Fall, Vegan, vegetable, Vegetarian, winter
Jan 31
Here's another quick and easy vegetable side dish or light supper: "Neapolitan style" cauliflower, known in Naples itself as cavolfiore con passi e pinoli.It may come as a shock, but this dish contains no tomato, giving lie to the notion that all Nea (read full article)
Campania, contorno, nuts, Vegan, vegetable, Vegetarian
Jan 30
If there were an 'all purpose' side dish, this might be it. Cipolline all'agrodolce, also called cipolline in agrodolce, in English 'sweet and sour baby onions', go with just about any meat dish, although it is particularly lovely with roasts. And, t (read full article)
contorno, Vegan, vegetable, Vegetarian
Jan 29
So far on this blog we have seen many of the most common techniques in Itailan cuisine for cooking vegetables, including in padella (lightly boiled and then sautéed in garlic and olive oil), fritti (deep-fried in a flour and egg batter), gratinati ( (read full article)
contorno, vegetable, Vegetarian
Dec 11
One of the dishes I miss most from my Roman days is the winter salad known as le puntarelle. Puntarelle are a kind of chicory native to the countryside around Rome. In fact, the vegetable is sometimes called "Roman chicory" in English. The shoots are (read full article)
antipasti, contorno, Lazio, Salads, vegetable
Nov 30
Cardoons are one of my favorite winter vegetables but they can be hard to find. So when I spied some in the market the other day I did a double-take and smiled. I hadn't had them quite literally for years. The bunch I found was a bit bruised but woul (read full article)
contorno, vegetable, Vegetarian
Nov 11
While Sundays dinners at Angelina's house were once-a-week, belly-busting, meaty affairs, she practically lived on vegetables during the week. This was long before vegetarianism went mainstream and she would not have thought of herself as a 'weekday (read full article)
bean, Campania, contorno, Nana, secondi, Toscana, Vegan, vegetable, Vegetarian
Oct 03
While it's true that we mostly eat Italian at home, there are some dishes that even I have to admit the French do better. (I hope Angelina isn't listening....) One of them is mashed potatoes and, more specifically, the incredibly buttery version made (read full article)
contorno, french, vegetable
Aug 31
This dish of green beans dressed with fresh lemon juice and olive oil, to my mind, typifies the simple elegance of Italian cuisine. Fagiolini all'agro, also known as fagiolini all'insalata, is austere in its simplicity but yet, when made with the fr (read full article)
contorno, Salads, vegetable
Aug 16
Everyone has heard of, if not made, fried peppers, a summertime standby. They make an appearance at just about every Italian street festival. So this dish can be a bit banal. But Angelina had her own, special way with fried peppers, one that made th (read full article)
Campania, contorno, Lazio, Nana, vegetable
Aug 16
There are four quintessential Italian summer vegetables: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and zucchini. Of these, zucchini seems to get the least respect, perhaps because zucchini plants are so prolific that the surfeit soon becomes a problem. New zucchin (read full article)
antipasti, Campania, contorno, summer, vegetable
Aug 06
These pan-fried potatoes make for a wonderful accompaniment to lamb and other meat dishes, and they are incredibly simple and easy to make: peel and cut waxy, yellow-fleshed potatoes into wedges, put them in a non-stick frying pan with olive oil, a s (read full article)
contorno, vegetable