pasta

Pasta fazool, for the immigrants we have all become

Pasta fazool, for the immigrants we have all become

We've never eaten pasta e fagioli in Italy. We've never even seen it on a menu there, though a reliable source (Michele Sciocolone) tells us it is Neapolitan. (That's why we posted the Neapolitan chef and food vendor miniatures above. They're masked for Carnavale and sold on the same street as Christmas creche figures.) The dish—‶pasta fazool″ in the Neapolitan dialect—has an Italian-flavored familiarity that marks it as real comfort food. Turns out that it's known mainly in Italian-American cuisine. It's from that branch of cooking born when immigrants made do with canned and dried commodities rather than the fresh ingredients they knew in the old country. We're all immigrants now to the world of social distancing and staying indoors. We're making do with canned...Read More
Christmas lasagna with Brolio Chianti Classico

Christmas lasagna with Brolio Chianti Classico

As readers of our last post know, we've been exploring Chianti with dishes for the Christmas season. Our last post highlighted a Brolio Chianti Classico Riserva with roast pork. But we're also fond of Brolio's basic Chianti Classico, which sells for about two-thirds the price of the riserva. The wine is intensely ruby red, with a more open nose than the riserva. Floral notes of iris and violet mix with red fruits and woodsy aromas. With less barrel aging, the wine is more loosely structured and the tannins are very soft. Typical of Brolio wines, though, it shows a slightly flinty minerality that we quite enjoy. With apologies to Italy, we decided that this wine would drink well with a French-influenced version of lasagna. Our...Read More
Summer travel picnic: pesto, chicken & corn

Summer travel picnic: pesto, chicken & corn

For the next couple of posts, we'll been doing the reverse of “bringing the taste of travel back home.” When we're faced with long road trips in the summer, we often resort to dishes that bring the taste of home out on the road. One of our stand-bys for rest-stop picnics or campground suppers is a pasta dish we call “pesto salad.” That's shorthand. The dish evolved pretty much by accident. We grow a lot of basil in our garden. When it flowers madly in hot weather, we keep the growing tips clipped to prolong the season. That means we have a gallon or so of basil sprigs every few days. Since it doesn't refrigerate well, we turn it into pesto, adding a lot of...Read More
Valpolicella Classico matches chocolate-spiked ragù

Valpolicella Classico matches chocolate-spiked ragù

We discovered a Fumanelli Valpolicella Classico Superiore 2013 nestled among bigger reds in our limited wine storage. Not having a lot of room to hold wine means drinking bottles when they're ready. With the 2014 already in the market, we figured this welterweight red was ready to go. But what dish would do it justice? The Marchesi Fumanelli family (www.squarano.com) has been making top-flight Valpolicella wines since 1470 at their estate just outside Verona. Perhaps the age of the vineyards (up to 40 years) accounts for the clean flavor and deep fruit expression. The blend has a backbone of 40 percent each of Corvina and the bigger clusters of Corvinone. The rest is Rondinella, which deepens the color and gives the wine more body. The...Read More

Scrigno del Duomo serves food fit for a treasury

From the outside, it would be easy to think that the restaurant called Scrigno del Duomo is at least as venerable as Le Due Spade (previous post). The building dates from the 14th century and has some faded frescoes to prove it. It was built as the treasury for the cathedral across the plaza. The restaurant, however, is much more recent. It opened in 1999 and quickly became one of Trento's favorite establishments. The strategic location on the main plaza helps, no doubt, but the kitchen stands on its own merits. Many diners at Scrigno del Duomo opt to eat at the wine bar. The bar menu focuses on the local sausages and cheeses, as well as some small pasta dishes. The local wine list...Read More
Provisions provides pitch-perfect Boston bistro

Provisions provides pitch-perfect Boston bistro

We wondered if the opening of State Street Provisions (255 State St., Boston; 617-863-8363; statestreetprovisions.com) during December's holiday blur was like Hollywood releasing its most promising films just before Christmas to make them eligible for award consideration. In that case, Provisions wins Best Boston Bistro of 2015. But that hardly makes the place out of date for 2016. Readers of HungryTravelers know we rarely write about our home turf, but Provisions seems so representative of dining trends we're seeing in Europe and the U.S. alike that we couldn't resist. Also, we expect a lot of visitors to Boston this year, and we're happy to send them to this waterfront bistro/gastropub where they'll get good value (and great food and drink) for their money. Executive chef...Read More

Corn ravioli with Australian black truffles

I received a shipment of truffles from the Truffle and Wine Company (truffleandwineusa.com) early this month. The truffles are spectacular, but it's not like I can tuck them away to use weeks from now. They have to be eaten quickly, which means developing a bunch of ways to use them with summer produce. For the last 10 days, Pat and I have been cooking with black truffles, repeating some favorite dishes and trying to create some new ones. We'll be posting new recipes in quick succession in case you want to order some truffles yourself before the season ends next month. When I was working on the Robb Report story, I spoke to a number of American chefs who exulted in using the Australian black...Read More

Peddling truffles with Simon Friend

When I researched the Robb Report story on Australian truffles, I had the pleasure of meeting Melbourne-based Simon Friend and his partner Bryan Burrell. They do business as Friend & Burrell (friendandburrell.com.au), but they might as well be called The Good Tastes Guys because they're Australia's go-to suppliers of gourmet mountain hams from Spain, Giaveri caviar, and big tins of Iranian saffron. The two former tennis professionals are also major distributors of black truffles from the Australian Truffle & Wine Company. As the Melbourne Truffle Festival was about to start last July, I joined Simon Friend on his sales and delivery rounds in Melbourne. The state of Victoria has its own truffle industry, but production is dwarfed by the Manjimup farm, a four-hour plane ride...Read More

Tortellini in brodo is a Modena treat

Before I visited Modena, I kept seeing references to the city as the home of stuffed pasta. It made little sense to me, but when I arrived, I discovered that the signature pasta of the region are those diminutive stuffed crowns known as tortellini. (They also serve tortelloni, which are much bigger and go better with tomato sauce.) Specifically, the classic dish of Modena is tortellini in brodo: the little pastas served in a strong chicken broth. Every home cook has a family recipe for the broth—and most people just go to the market and buy terrific fresh tortellini from local producers like Doremilia (www.doremilia.it). I got a chance to see Doremilia's pasta factory in the hill village of Monchio di Palagano, about 45 minutes...Read More

Pomodorina belies canned tomato image

Pomodorina is tomato sauce rethought, and it's my most unexpected find on a recent research trip to Modena. We've already written about “What to buy in an Italian grocery store,” but here's a product I'd definitely add. Pomodorina has been the best-selling product of one of Italy's best food factories, Menù, since it was introduced in 1967. It's made only during the roughly six-week tomato harvest season and combines freshly harvested and cooked tomatoes with celery, carrots, onions, fresh basil, and some olive oil. Menù sells it as a base ingredient for sauces, but I discovered that some restaurants consider it good enough to sauce pasta on its own. That's spaghetti sauced with Pomodorina above, and it was delicious. Menù (http://en.menu.it/) is based in Medollo...Read More