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Recipes

Italian classics with the method explained: what goes wrong, why it works, and what an Italian would say.

A bowl of spaghetti alla carbonara with cubes of guanciale and coarse black pepper.

Primi · Roma

Carbonara

Eggs, pecorino, guanciale, black pepper

The sauce is an emulsion, and the pan is what breaks it.

A bowl of tonnarelli cacio e pepe with cracked pepper and grated pecorino romano alongside.

Primi · Roma

Cacio e pepe

Pecorino romano and black pepper

Four ingredients and one of them is water.

A steel pan of ragù alla bolognese with a wooden spoon resting in it.

Primi · Emilia

Ragù alla bolognese

The long meat sauce

Artusi gives it in three lines, and the three lines assume you already know what a soffritto smells like when it is ready.

A shallow plate of saffron risotto alla milanese, loose enough to spread across the plate.

Primi · Lombardia

Risotto alla milanese

Saffron risotto

It should move on the plate. If it stands up in a dome it has gone too far.

A baking dish of melanzane alla parmigiana, browned on top, with the aubergine layers showing.

Secondi · Campania

Melanzane alla parmigiana

Aubergine baked with tomato and cheese

Salting is not seasoning. It is drawing water out so the dish does not flood.

A turned out panna cotta on a white plate with sauce pooled around its base.

Dolci · Piemonte

Panna cotta

Cooked cream

It should wobble. Most recipes give too much gelatine, because a firm one is easier to turn out.

Zabaione in a stemmed glass, thick and pale gold, with a copper bowl and whisk behind.

Dolci · Piemonte

Zabaione

Egg yolks, sugar, sweet wine

Stop whisking and it grabs. Too hot and you have sweet scrambled egg.

A square of tiramisu dusted with cocoa, its layers of savoiardi and mascarpone cream visible at the cut edge.
Photograph: Raffaele Diomede, CC BY 2.0, source

Dolci · Veneto

Tiramisù

Coffee, mascarpone, savoiardi, cocoa

No cream, no gelatine, no baking. The whole dish is an assembly, and it is the coffee that decides it.

A Neapolitan pizza margherita on a white plate, the rim blistered and spotted dark from the oven.
Photograph: Fabryx98, CC BY-SA 4.0, source

Pizza e pane · Campania

Pizza margherita

Tomato, fiordilatte, basil

A domestic oven is 250C and a pizza oven is 450C. Everything about home pizza is working around that gap.

Three carciofi alla romana on a white plate, stems upward, sitting in their oil and herb sauce.
Photograph: C. Shen, CC BY-SA 3.0, source

Contorni · Roma

Carciofi alla romana

Artichokes braised with mentuccia and garlic

Trimming looks brutal and is not. Most of an artichoke is inedible and the confidence to remove it is the whole skill.

A portion of lasagne verdi on a plate, the green pasta layered with ragu and besciamella and cut so the layers show.
Photograph: GastRomagna, CC BY-SA 4.0, source

Primi · Emilia

Lasagne alla bolognese

Egg pasta, ragù, besciamella, parmigiano

There is no mozzarella in it, and the besciamella is doing the job people think the mozzarella is for.

Two panettoni cooling in their paper moulds, domed and cut with a cross on top.
Photograph: N i c o l a from Fiumicino, Rome, CC BY 2.0, source

Dolci · Lombardia

Panettone

The Milanese Christmas bread

Three days, a live starter, and the one recipe on this site we would tell a beginner to skip.

Round choux buns filled with cream and covered in dark chocolate, on a white plate.
Photograph: Ralph Daily, CC BY 2.0, source

Dolci · Italia

Profiteroles

Choux buns, panna inside, chocolate over

The buns fail for one reason and it is opening the oven door. Everything after that is filling them and covering them.

A plate of caponata: aubergine, celery and onion in tomato, with a sprig of basil on top.
Photograph: Auregann, CC BY-SA 4.0, source

Antipasti · Sicilia

Caponata

Sweet and sour aubergine

Everything is fried separately and combined at the end. Cooking it all together makes a stew, and a stew is not a caponata.

Two bowls of minestrone with courgette, beans and tomato, each with a spoonful of pesto on top.
Photograph: jules, CC BY 2.0, source

Primi · Italia

Minestrone

The vegetable soup, whatever is in season

There is no fixed list of vegetables. There is a fixed order in which they go in, and that is the actual recipe.

A bowl of bucatini all'amatriciana in a deep red sauce, dusted with grated pecorino, on a household table.
Photograph: Blackcat, CC BY-SA 4.0, source

Primi · Lazio

Bucatini all'amatriciana

Guanciale, tomato, pecorino

The tomato is the newcomer and the guanciale is the dish. Everything that goes wrong here happens in the first five minutes, before the tomato is anywhere near the pan.

A marble mortar with a wooden pestle resting in bright green pesto, seen from above.
Photograph: AlfonsoLucifredi, CC BY-SA 4.0, source

Basi · Liguria

Pesto alla genovese

Basil, pine nuts, two cheeses, a marble mortar

The blender is what turns it bitter and brown. A mortar grinds; a blade cuts and heats, and basil objects to both.

A piece of braised veal shin resting on saffron risotto, scattered with chopped parsley, on a laid table.
Photograph: Gerda Arendt, CC0, source

Secondi · Lombardia

Ossobuco alla milanese

Veal shin, slow braise, gremolata at the end

The marrow in the middle of the bone is the reason the dish exists, and the gremolata goes on after the heat is off.

Rigatoni alla gricia finishing in a pan, with batons of guanciale and grated pecorino visible.
Photograph: Key West Wedding Photography, CC BY 2.0, source

Primi · Lazio

Pasta alla gricia

Guanciale, pecorino, pepper, no tomato

The oldest of the four Roman pastas and the one nobody outside Rome has heard of. Take the tomato out of an amatriciana and this is what is underneath.

A plate of sliced tomato with torn mozzarella and basil leaves, dressed with oil and pepper.
Photograph: Victorgrigas, CC BY-SA 3.0, source

Antipasti · Campania

Insalata caprese

Tomato, mozzarella, basil, and nothing else

There is no balsamic in it. Three ingredients, no technique, and a dish that is entirely decided by the tomato you bought.

Thin slices of cold veal covered with a pale tuna sauce, scattered with capers and caper berries.
Photograph: cyclonebill, CC BY-SA 2.0, source

Secondi · Piemonte

Vitello tonnato

Cold veal under a tuna and caper sauce

It sounds wrong in every language and it is not. Cold veal, tuna sauce, and a dish eaten in July because it is cooked the day before.