Gourmet Italian

photo credit: thebittenword.com

Simple Italian soups are so welcome this time of year, and none are more comforting that Split Pea and Potato soup!    A nice warm bowl of soup, a crusty chunk of bread and a fireplace and I’m in heaven.  The addition of potatoes to the pea soup just make it that much more hearty.

I used to make this soup with beef broth.  However, I recently had some good homemade chicken broth, so I used it to make this simple Italian soup and I liked it better than ever.  I also used Yukon Gold potatoes and they added a nice dimension to the soup.

photo credit: Maggie Hoffman

Most Italians love fish soup.  And it really should be no surprise, because Italy has miles upon miles of shoreline and countless lakes and rivers.  There are so many variations on healthy Italian fish soups, but this one seems to be quite special.  It is called Zuppa di Pesce Castagna.  Zuppa is Italian for “soup” and Pesce is Italian for “fish“.  Castagna is a restaurant in Portland, Oregon, which many acclaim as the best Italian restaurant in the entire city.

photo credit: @sahxic < twitter

There is a common misconception about this Italian Chicken dish – Pollo alla Marengo.  The story almost always appears when you read a recipe for Chicken Marengo.

There is a city in Italy, just south of the Piedmont region, called Marengo.  This is where Napoleon defeated the Austrians in the early summer of 1800.  Napoleon felt it was bad luck to eat before a battle, so the story goes that he was starving after defeating the Austrians.  He supposedly told his Chef, Dunan, to scrounge up whatever he could from the locals and make him a fabulous meal.  Dunan returned from his “scavenger hunt” with chicken, tomatoes, garlic, eggs and a few crayfish.  With that, he created Napoleon’s signature victory meal – Chicken Marengo.