Modular Food™ by Joia is has been an exercise in creating imagery that illustrates just how simple, cool and fun it can be to evolve multiple dishes from a few base products.  Joia™ is a new Hudson Valley-based company with a mission to bring locally-sourced and produced, hand-cut, slow cooked foods back to the table again. This 1+2=3 project was designed using loads of graphic food imagery to illustrate just how easy it is to work with Joia™ through its website and collateral materials. Whether heated and eaten as they are or used to innovate new dishes, Joia Modular Meals™ save hours of sourcing, preparing and cooking whole ingredients into healthy and delicious meals.

To learn more about Modular Food™ by Joia™, visit: www.joiafoods.com

Weekends call for delicious, home cooking, sometimes with the involvement of even the smallest hands in the Tonelli household.

The kitchen resembles an elementary school arts and crafts class, even though real-time cooking with Dad is a lot more fun. Tiny fingers pinch flour and eggs in an enormous well, then knead and roll the dough for Agnolotti – an art not unlike mastering Play-Doh when you are 7- or 9-years old.  Pliable and brilliant in color the dough and filling are fun, just like art class, but much tastier to eat. Next, picture perfect pasta sheets get layered into handmade lasagnas or spotted with seasoned braised meat and spinach filling before folding, cooking and finishing to enjoy around the table together – the way a perfect Sunday dinner should be.

Francesco cooked, styled and shot over 100 recipes for Italian Cooking, a book released in March by Wiley publishers as part of the Culinary Institute of America’s atHome series. The book, which gives readers a taste of authentic cuisine from Italy’s diverse culinary regions, is co-authored by two Italian chefs, Gianni Scappin and Alberto Vanoli, and features wine pairings by Steven Kolpan.

While Gianni and Alberto prepared the majority of the food, Francesco brought visual life to the inspiration behind their recipes and finished each dish to be cooked, assembled and styled for the shoot. With the exception of a few photographs taken at the CIA campus, most of the book was shot in Francesco’s studio, where he was assisted by his wife, Lynn, who was also in charge of all the prop styling.

The production spanned a period of several months, during which Francesco not only photographed every recipe for the book, but also tasted virtually every dish along the way — leaving him especially attune to conveying the realness of the tastes through his images.

If you want to learn more about Italian Cooking at Home you may check its page on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Tripe, trippa in Italian, is the stomach of an animal, in this case beef. It’s texture is unique and very different from other offals or meat cuts. Very rubbery and tough when raw, becomes gentle and gelatinous when cooked slowly with a liquid.

This is one of many ways of cooking tripe. Various regions in Italy cook it in slightly different ways, changing the type of tomato product and its quantity, adding more or less liquid, various type of beans, herbs, spices and other ingredients. It is a humble, inexpensive dish and a true delicacy to be enjoyed in the cold months.

Buonappetito!

Recipe below… Read the rest of this entry »

Corzetti alla Maggiorana e Pinoli

Spaghetti al Nero di Seppia

Risotto con Asparagi e Spugnole

Penne al Pomodoro e Basilico

Ongoing project on Italian Pasta and Primi Piatti cookbook with The Culinary Institute of America.

Completed the Spring Shooting Session of the Pasta Book, co-authored with Chef Gianni Scappin and Chef Alberto Vanoli.

This is a preparation that takes a very special place in my heart as it reminds me, more than others, about the food that my mother used to cook.

It is a savory bread typical from the Marche but also found in other regions from central Italy. Prepared at Easter time is consumed with boiled eggs seasoned with sea salt and spices, sliced salame, and a glass of good white wine.

Made with flour, yeast, extra virgin olive oil, lots of Parmigiano and black pepper it’s aroma spreads through the house while it is cooking and it is pure torture to have to wait until it cools down to eat it.

The cookie-like crust outside and the moist and flavorful texture inside have this amazing olive oil and Parmigiano aroma and flavor. It is delicious by it self, as you can imagine, simply enjoyed with some cool white wine. But it pairs amazingly well with boiled eggs either hard boiled or soft boiled and seasoned with salt and pepper or with the addition of ground spices such as cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg.

It smells and tastes like Easter to me and always brings back wonderful memories.

Making abundant risotto has never been a problem in my house.

But trying to add liquid the next day and re-heating it to create a “born-again” version typically produces a sub-standard result, there are a few preparations that can be made using leftover risotto that don’t make you feel like you are eating leftovers at all. On the contrary, these preparations can be presented as new dishes on their own and their quality, if properly made can be outstanding. One of these simple preparations is called Arancini di Riso, which are risotto balls about the size of a lime or clementine, stuffed with sausage, vegetables or cheese and other delicious garnish bites, then breaded and deep fried. This same preparation in some parts of Italy, is also known as Suppli‘.

Now because the cooking is really quite fast and enclosed inside of the breaded crust, the rice reheats and remains moist without needing to absorb more liquid and without overcooking. The result is an irresistible crispy bite on the outside that leads to a creamy risotto and a flavorful filling in the center. In fact, it is so good that it is almost not fair to call it a leftover.

The surprise bite at the center or stuffing can be totally up to you of course and is best selected respecting the main flavor of the risotto you are using. Normally a good melting cheese like mozzarella or Fontina or even Taleggio or Gorgonzola by itself or paired with a vegetable variation like tomato, tomato sauce, or peas or with a meat like sausage or cooked ham.

Arancini can be prepared ahead of time and fried just before you plan to serve them. Give it a try, next time you cook more risotto than you can eat and I am convinced that cooking extra risotto every time won’t be considered an accident anymore.

Being from Milano, risottos hold a special place in my heart.

The richness, creaminess and texture, the incredibly rich flavor and endless variations that these humble preparations are capable of offering have few matches in the Italian culinary world.

There is one for each season and one for each taste. From the healthiest, vegetarian varieties, prepared with seasonal vegetables and vegetable broth, to the most indulgent seafood based on shellfish and crustacean meat and broth, to the cheesiest and meatiest prepared with rich meat broth and braised meats or melted cheeses. Risottos are like a world of their own, where only your imagination and good taste are the limit, once you master the basic technique.

Read the rest of this entry »

A different way to enjoy pork.

Imagine a perfectly roasted rib-end roast complemented by a delicate sauce composed by the creaminess of milk, the sweetness of roasted garlic and onions, the acidity of white wine and the richness of the cooking drippings of the roast.

This recipe is inspired by a typical preparation from the Italian region of Lombardia called “Arrosto al Latte” and I see it as a humble, more simple version of the Classical French Veal Orloff with the sauce being a rustic version of the Soubise. Of course it could be prepared with veal instead of pork if you prefer.

Mild, elegant, yet rich, it is wonderful accompanied by braised Savoy cabbage and potato purée. Absolutely incredible if you could shave some white truffle on it just before serving. But that’s totally optional.

I like to use the rib-end not just because it makes a beautiful presentation, but mostly because of the texture and flavor that this particular cut offers thanks to the tenderness and fat content of its meat. It is the pork counterpart of a beef standing rib roast or prime rib.

To prepare it, season the loin with salt and pepper at least 1 hour before you plan to cook it. In the meantime dice a large onions and peel six cloves of garlic that will cook with it and also start preparing the side dishes you are planning to serve.

Read the rest of this entry »