10 most common errors that ruined Italian food

10 most common errors that ruined Italian food

Italian cuisine is one of the most international but, as with all regional preparations globalize, on the road has lost many of its fundamental aspects. Worldwide eat pasta and pizza, but, in most homes and restaurants the basic rules of traditional Italian cuisine, much given, moreover, culinary dogma are not respected.

Academia Barilla, one of the most prestigious cooking schools in Italy -located in the city of Parma-, this week published a Decalogue with the most common mistakes foreigners make when approaching the Italian food. The institution, which has among its objectives "to defend and safeguard the Italian food products made by renowned artisans and appellation shoddy imitations" and "promote and disseminate the role of these products in traditional Italian cuisine" It leaves no room for heterodoxy. Or is Italian cuisine, or it is not.

The list of the ten most common mistakes is clearly geared to the Anglo diner, but in Spain, despite being closer, either we get rid of punishing the Italian cookbook. Until recently the only Italian we knew was preparing macaroni and sausage, and not just al dente, and although now is "the most" provide cover risotto, keep making errors book. For all lovers of Orthodoxy in the kitchen -and with respect to the Italian tradition following tradition is a guarantee of success-these are the ten mistakes you should never make.

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1. Give the pasta as an accompaniment

Or pasta or risotto should never be served as accompaniment. Except in recipes like meat "Milanese", pasta and rice are taken in Italy as main course something that also is required if we want our calories to trigger. In Italy it is "sacrilegious" to use as a garnish, a space that is reserved almost exclusively, to vegetables.

2. To throw ketchup to pasta

The absolute height of all attacks Italian pasta recipe is accompanied with ketchup, a sauce spaghetti still bathing the middle -dorados- Spain, especially when diners are aimed at children. Academia Barilla qualify this practice as an "authentic culinary sin," although he forgets the other boat tomato sauces, which are nothing widespread in Italy. The reality is that to succeed with a good plate of pasta with tomato, you need to prepare a homemade sauce. There are thousands of recipes and, although there are very worthy products, any industrial preparation exceeds the benefits of a sauce made with fresh tomatoes in season. In winter, however, the pot peeled tomatoes may be the best alternative.

3. Cook the pasta in water with oil

In Spain is very usual squirt of olive oil to the pasta water, a practice that according point in the Academia Barilla, adds nothing to the dishes cooked. In his view, the oil should be added after draining the pasta.

Another ugly Spanish custom of the Decalogue is to forget to wash the pasta in cold water before drain it, which only serves to make it lose flavor. The Academy offers its own instructions to cook the pasta "al dente". One of the secrets, chefs say, lies in drain the pasta a minute before the cooking time indicated on the package, because the pasta will cook while making the sauce.

4. Serve the spaghetti with Bologna sauce

While the spaghetti Bologna are one of the most popular Italian dishes, the Academia Bacillary says the recipe is an international invention impossible to find in any restaurant in town that shares its name. The famous sauce, which itself is one of the basic classics of Italian cuisine, often accompanied by tagliatelle, pasta typical Bologna in Italy always cooked egg, not spaghetti.

Fussy remarks aside however much tell the difference between Academia Bacillary spaghetti and noodles is about to jump from the poles-, there are many Italian recipes that have perverted their way to international recipes. In the case of Spain spaghetti carbonation, which tend to smear cream, bleeding is particularly lacking an ingredient of the authentic Italian recipe that is made with egg.

5. Use the chicken as an ingredient in a pasta dish

"Nobody in Italy would throw chicken to pasta," says Academia Barilla Decalogue. According to the cooking school it is very typical in the US. In Spain, however, it is not at all popular. With the ingredients we seem to be more respectful, but perhaps it's because we have a similar raw material. One of the most ingrained habits in Spain is to prepare the pasta with tuna, which also make the Italians. In fact, in Italy the paste with fish or seafood is tremendously popular. Spaghetti with fruity de mare, or just with mussels, are one of the most successful preparations.

6. Ask a Caesar salad in Italy

The Caesar salad is a popular dish, present on the menus of cafes and restaurants around the world, but it is not an Italian recipe. In fact, it is very difficult to find in the country of the boot. There are different versions about the origin of the salad, but all agree that it began to pour in Mexico and later went to the US. It is believed that its inventor, Alex Cardin, which itself was designed in the Italian-restaurant that his brother, Caesar Cardin, ran in Tijuana: the Cesar's Place. While other stories place its origin in Serenade, what is certain is that Caesar Cardin patented the sauce in Los Angeles in 1948 and has since started to become popular in the US.

7. Decorate the restaurant with red checkered tablecloths and white

The cinema has exploited the image of the typical Italian restaurant with candles, great pasta dishes, jugs of wine and checkered red and white tablecloths. The first three elements may be true, but according to the checkered tablecloths Academia Bacillary are not typical anywhere in Italy.

8. Ask for a cappuccino after lunch

In Italy the cappuccino is only taken at breakfast, never after meals, when the espresso or machination (the equivalent of our cut) is taken. Not that it served in restaurants, but it is something reserved for tourists. Remember that the cappuccino is stronger than our "relaxing" coffee with milk, which in many parts of Spain is halfway between machination and cappuccino.

9. Find the Fettuccine Alfredo in Italy

Although Fettuccine Alfredo themselves are an Italian invention, no one in the country knows that name. The Alfredo sauce is a simple accompaniment for pasta made with butter and Parmesan cheese became famous in the restaurant Alfredo all Scrota in Rome, owned by Alfredo di Leloir. For some unknown reason, the recipe became popular in the United States and therefore in the world with the name you gave the seasoned restaurateur, but is only a version of the traditional Fettuccine -that donkey to say, "the butter "- one of the basic dishes of Italian cuisine, which itself can be found in any restaurant.

10. Go eat alone

The last point of the Decalogue of Academia Barilla, which could well have entitled "Italian cuisine for Dummies" - has more to do with the customs of the Italian company with the food itself. According to school chefs in Italy you will never go to a restaurant alone (which, today, is shocking if true), since the food is always enjoyed with family or friends. "The love and family is everything," says the Decalogue.

10 paths to painless pizza-making

10 paths to painless pizza-making

As you may have noticed, we’re kind of into pizza in the smitten kitchen. I mean, just a little. I can’t help it–in my mind, it combines the best things on earth: homemade bread, charred-edged ingredients, pairing well with a green salad and wine, and–the way I make it, at least–it never feels like a heavy meal.

Every time I post about pizza, I answer at least five or seven of the same ten questions in the comments, so I thought that it was time to create a FAQ on the topic that will hopefully answer all of your questions (feel free to ask additional ones in the comments) in one tidy URL. Consider this a primer for the new pizza recipe I will tell you about next.
Like the bread-making tips I shared way back in the newborn days of this site, my point of these are not to fill your head with reminders and cautionary tales that will cause you more worry when you get into the kitchen–there are enough sites that do that, I know that for many people, anything yeast-based is scary enough. Instead, I want to impart to you how easy it can be, and how strongly I feel that anyone on earth can succeed in making impressive pizza at home. I hope this helps.

1. You don’t need a bread machine, a dough hook or a food processor to get it right.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: people having been making bread a lot longer than these fancy machines have been around. Sure, they can knock a few minutes off your prep time (and that dough hook sure creates a smooth and supple dough), but a simple pizza dough takes so little time to make by hand, in our dishwasher-free kitchen at least, it’s rarely worth the extra dishes it will create to bust out the machines. I mix my dough ingredients with a wooden spoon in a large bowl, knead it for a few minutes on a counter, then oil that bowl and use it to let the dough rise. Dish- and drama-minimizing, it’s my favorite way to cook.
2. It needn’t take all day.
That process I described above–stir then knead–takes no more than ten minutes. If your kitchen is on the warm side, the dough takes just an hour to double. It’s certainly not the fastest weekday night meal out there, but it might just be the simplest. Nevertheless, if you’re in a hurry, you can speed up the dough rising time with a stellar tip I borrowed from Simply Recipes: heat your oven to 150 degrees, then turn it off. Place your dough in an oiled bowl in this warmed oven to rise.

3. It can be ready for you when you get home.
I’ve been promising you this refrigerator tip for ages, but, sadly, that’s how long it took me to test it out. If you’d like, you can mix and knead your dough ingredients in the morning, plop them in an oiled bowl, cover it with oiled plastic wrap and leave it in your refrigerator while you go to work. The dough will slowly rise–truly developing the best flavor–while you’re away. By the time you come home, it should be doubled. Take it out, let it get back to room temperature, deflate it on a floured counter and you’re on your way.
4. You don’t need a pizza paddle.
This is another one of those tools that are fun if you have them, but are in no way a prerequisite for making pizza at home. A tiny kitchen demands that I don’t even consider such extras. Instead, I slide the pizza dough, prepped with toppings, onto a piece of cornmeal-dusted parchment paper that’s been placed on the back of a baking sheet. With a little shove-and-yank, I slide the parchment paper with the pizza right onto the pizza stone in the oven. It bakes right on the parchment paper, which I use to yank the pizza out to the oven when it’s done.

5. You don’t need a pizza stone.
Pizza stones improve the crust of pizza and breads, no question about it. But it doesn’t mean you can’t make delicious pizza without them. I have more than once baked pizza on the back of a baking sheet, lined with parchment paper and sprinkled with cornmeal, just as I described above, and been thrilled with the results.
6. You don’t need a professional pizza oven, but high heat is your friend.
One of the most salient differences between the brick-oven beast at your favorite pizza shop and, say, the smitten kitchen’s diminutive, apartment-standard white-painted oven is that the former gets much hotter than the latter–by even 500 degrees. Your best bet to get the brick-oven effect at home is to turn your oven all the way up to broil for a good ten minutes before you pop your pizza in, and step back from the inferno as you open its mighty jaws, lest you want a high-heat facial!
7. Pizza cooked under the broiler is amazing.
Speaking of broilers, there are a few in-the-know pizza types out there that swear by the broiler for making perfect, Patsys-like pizza (say that three times fast!). The technique, described in full, with a colorful story on SeriousEats.com, involves getting a cast iron skillet hotter than the fires of Babylon and cooking a pizza on the back of it for about 1.62 minutes, and is totally worth checking out.

8. You can cook it on the grill, but only if you invite me over.
I absolutely love grilled pizza, and it’s a fun way to use the grill at the point in the summer when you’re so sick of steaks-n-burgers-n-skewers. Here’s my highly-refined (ha) method: Brush your heated grill with oil. Have your pizza dough rolled out, and your toppings at arm’s length. Throw the dough over the grill for a minute or two, until you get a bit of coloring underneath (shouldn’t take long). With tongs and a deep breath, flip it out onto a platter, uncooked side down. Top it as you wish, slide it back onto the grill and cover the lid. It should be ready in about five minutes.
9. You can cook it on the stove.
At Mario Batali’s Otto Pizzaria in the Village, the astoundingly good pizza is cooked on the stove, not in an oven. His product line’s stove-top (or oven-friendly) pizza pan mentions this only casually in the description, but I’ve been captivated ever since. Sadly, I haven’t tried it out [See above: Tiny kitchen, filled to capacity, etc.] but I hope to, soon.
10. You can buy pizza dough from your local pizza shop.
Yes, I know I have spent a terrific amount of time preaching the virtues of homemade, dead-easy pizza dough but you know what? Sometimes, even I get tired of eating dinner at 10:30 p.m. in the name of purist cooking pursuits. [I hope you were sitting down for that one.] Go to your local pizza shop and ask to buy a dough. In NYC, this is a cinch, of course, and the doughs run about $3 each. Once you get it home, it’s ready to go. Heck, that’s even faster than ordering one from that Shmomino’s racket!

Cilantro Chili Pizza

Cilantro Chili Pizza

Weary and tired, Sweets and I dragged our jet-lagged bodies into our rental car, and headed up the coast line to Hilo to eat up time before we could collapse in the vacation house we had rented. The ten hour flight did not lend itself to a full night’s sleep, which only contributed to us feeling a bit more out of our element than usual.
My job as navigator proved to be challenging as well,
“Umm… take a left at this next K-street”.
“K- street? Can you sound it out?”
“No…” I whined not sure what to make my mouth do with all the vowels., “Kam-ah…” in my head whirled the bad Hawaiian joke seen on t-shirts in high school: Kam-on-a-wana-lai-u?
Magically our car was pulled in the direction of good food and we found ourselves at Cafe Pesto. In an unexpected fit of nostalgia we giggled at the appearance of Oregon Chai on the menu and ordered iced sweet chai and a Southwestern pizza. What came to us from that kitchen is one of the best pizzas I have ever tasted…tangy chipotle chicken on a bed of garlicy cilantro pesto, and topped with red onion rings, smooth creamy goat cheese crumbles and sweet chili sauce. We swooned, finishing off every slice, licking the sweet vinegar sauce off of our fingers.
This flavor combination of cilantro pesto and sweet chili sauce has become a cult favorite in our house ever since…

Cilantro Chili Pizza, ala Cafe Pesto
Preheat the oven to 500F, preferable with a pizza stone on the middle shelf. Allow the oven to heat 30 minutes or more.
Meanwhile, prep your favorite pizza dough. If using refrigerated pizza dough, allow it to come to room temperature before shaping. Preparation of the pesto and chili sauces can be accomplished in the time it takes for the pizza dough to rest:


Cilantro Pesto
   This recipe makes more pesto than needed for pizza. Use the leftovers as a marinade for grilling, or go crazy making this pizza for all of your friends.
 In a food processor or blender combine:

• 1/2 cup peeled garlic cloves
• 1 cup of cilantro leaves, stems and roots
• 1 Tbs of ground pepper
• 1 tsp of salt
• with enough canola or olive oil to help grind the ingredients into a paste

 Store in the refrigerator or freezer with a slight film of oil on the pesto surface to help maintain the bright green color.


Sweet Hot Garlic Sauce
   This is my number one favorite ingredient, to always be found in my refrigerator. It is excellent paired with fried crispy foods, grilled meats, drizzled on curries, and on top of this pizza. Fortunately this tasty sauce is becoming increasingly common in grocery stores, often called Nahm Jeem Gratiem, or Tuong Ot Ngot.
 In a sauce pan combine

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup vinegar
• 2 Tbs minced garlic
• 1 tsp salt

 Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to low, simmering to reduce and thicken to a syrupy sauce approximately 20 minutes or more. When thickened, stir in 1 Tbs of chili garlic sauce and allow to cool to room temperture. Store in the refrigerator.

Shape your pizza dough in the size you want, stretching it out thin with your fingers and hands. Place it on a piece of waxed paper, trimmed to match the foot print of the pizza dough shape and transfer the dough to a pizza peel for easy sliding onto the pizza stone.
Spread several tablespoons of the cilantro pesto on the surface of the dough. Sprinkle with a slight pinch of salt. Continue to top the pizza with chopped sundried tomatoes,red onion slices and chopped red bell pepper.
Slide the pizza onto your hot pizza stone and cook until the bottom is crusty brown, approximately 5-8 minutes.
Immediately top the pizza with crumbled goat cheese upon removing it from the oven. And lastly, the most important step, drizzle the pizza with Sweet Hot Garlic Sauce.
This pizza is also excellent topped with any grilled meat or seafood. If the goat cheese is omited this is a very tasty vegan meal.
Enjoy!