Gourmet Italian

photo credit: ellievanhoutte

I had this Italian Easy 5-layer Dip at a party a few years ago and now I serve it at my own dinner parties.  Everyone loves it.  What’s not to love about cheese and pesto, right?  It doesn’t get much more Italian than that.  Plus it has roasted red bell peppers, so we have all the colors of the Italian flag represented.  You can serve this with crackers, but it is absolute heaven with gourmet Italian rosemary bread, which is extremely easy to make if you have a bread machine.  Just be sure to use a good quality rustic bread.

photo credit: HiMalta

I found this gourmet Italian frittata recipe years ago in the now sadly defunct Gourmet magazaine.  People go nuts over this recipe and it is really easy to make.

A frittata is kind of like an open face Italian omelet.  It is bulkier and sturdier than the delicate French omelet, and is therefore easier to make.  You can use any combination of meats, cheeses and herbs that you have handy.  People even include leftover pasta in frittatas with great success!  In Italy, people often take a wedge of leftover frittata with them for lunch!  It is really like a quiche – without the crust.  Hello Low Carbs!

We can most likely thank the Genoans for Pesto.  This quick Italian green mixture will brighten up any dish.  The name actually derives from the Latin word “pesta” – meaning to crush or pound.  Of course, the key ingredient in Pesto is basil.  Basil thrived throughout the region near Genoa, so it was widely used.  Pesto is basically pounded basil, garlic, olive oil, Parmesan cheese and pine nuts.  Basil also thrived beautifully in the region of Provence, France.  They make a similar sauce, but pine nuts – or pignoli – are not used in the French version.

photo by Dominick Hundhammer

Everyone has heard of Italy’s incomparable Gorgonzola cheese being used in cooking gourmet dinners.  This is primarily made with cow’s milk and it is a wondrous creamy, piquant cheese that originated around 879 in a little town outside of Milan named … You guessed it!  Gorgonzola!  Today Gorgonzola is a suburb of Milan.

Although the cheese dates back to the 9th century, it wasn’t until about 200 years later than that greenish/blue mold was introduced to the cheese making process quite by accident.  The green veins are actually penicillum glaucum.  Really, the mold in gorgonzola is more green than blue.  The London Stock Exchange is lined with green marble and they refer to it as “Gorgonzola Hall”.

Authentic Italian food just wouldn’t be the same without tomatoes, right?  Did you know that it was not until the Spaniards brought the tomato to Italy from the New World in the 16th century that Italy even knew what a tomato was?  If it wasn’t for the Spaniards, we might never have had the marvelous Marinara sauce!

Many Italian easy dishes are made using eggplant.  Eggplant used to be called mela insana or “mad apple” because people thought it caused insanity!  This probably came about because eggplant and tomato are both in the nightshade family.
Eggplants come in a wide variety of colors, shapes and sizes. I love the smallish lavender variety that can be found more readily today.  Since the flesh of eggplant is mild, it is a perfect to combine with cheeses and oils and herbs.

Thousands of years ago, the curing of pork became an art in the glorious region of Tuscany and today it is used in all sorts of gourmet Italian food.   To this day, pork remains the favorite meat to cure for traditional Italian salumi - cured meat. Imagine sitting in a trattoria with your friends. The waiter comes over and says, “Affettati misti?” He is asking if you would like him to bring an assortment of cured meats to share between you . Of course, you all respond “YES!”. Served with some fabulous, probably unsalted bread, this is a wonderful start to an informal meal. Some may come to your table sliced and plain, while others may arrive in a marinade of olive oil, maybe some pepper or a little touch of lemon.