142 Italian recipes. Page 4 of 6. Compare ingredients and cooking times. Chili Garlic Pork Belly Arrabbiata Penne.
Pork belly, fried until the fat turns translucent and the edges crisp, gives this arrabbiata a richer, meatier base than the usual garlic and chili tomato sauce. The heat comes from Korean gochugaru instead of dried Italian chili, so it lands as a familiar, warm Korean spiciness.
A dry coat of rice flour, no batter, lets the shape of the red mullet fillets and squid rings show through. Latterini, tiny silversides, are fried whole, and the prawns keep their heads and shells, making a platter of very different pieces. Everything is patted dry before flouring, because any water left on the seafood makes the flour clump thickly and the oil spit. The oil stays at or below 175°C, and waiting for it to come back up between batches keeps later batches from turning soggy. Squid comes out when the center of its thickest piece reaches 63°C, not when the coating looks done. Everything is served in a single layer with just salt, never piled or covered.
This South Tyrolean version wraps the apples in a sweet, buttery shortcrust instead of hand-stretched strudel dough or puff pastry, so the outside eats more like tart pastry. Inside are raw sliced apples with sultanas, pine nuts and rum, plus fine breadcrumbs toasted in butter that catch the apple juice as it bakes.
Egg yolks, sugar and Marsala are whisked over steam until they swell to two or three times their volume, and the warm foam is spooned straight over strawberries and blueberries. The heating is brief and a fair amount of the wine's alcohol and aroma stays; if that is too much, half the Marsala can be orange juice. Yolks scramble easily, and this recipe takes the bowl off the heat by the thermometer, at 71°C, not by how the foam looks.
Bacon crisped in butter leaves behind a smoky, salty fat, and the onion and garlic cook in it before any cream arrives. Milk thins the cream until the sauce coats a spoon lightly instead of sitting heavy on the pasta. A hard boil reduces it too far and can split it, while a gentle simmer at the edges keeps it smooth. Parmesan melts in after the heat is off, and either penne or spaghetti works.
With only tomato, mozzarella and basil on top, a Margherita lives or dies by its base. The baking tray heats inside the oven during preheating and gives the dough a strong first hit of heat, which firms the center instead of leaving it soft. Mozzarella drained, torn by hand and scattered with gaps keeps its moisture from pooling and browns in spots. The sauce stays thin with the rim left bare, since too much of it turns the crust soggy. A thin center and a slightly thicker rim give the edge room to puff. Basil, Parmesan and olive oil are added after baking, when their aroma is still fresh.
Pulling the shrimp out early and returning them for only the last 30 seconds keeps them tender instead of rubbery. While they wait, the cream reduces in the same pan and picks up the garlic butter and shrimp juices, so the sauce needs no stock.
Meatballs browned on the outside finish cooking in a thick tomato sauce, then go into warm sub rolls under melted mozzarella. Breadcrumbs and egg hold the mixture together, so mix it with your fingertips only until it holds and shape the balls without packing them; heavy kneading makes them dense. The pan only colors the outside, leaving the centers to finish in the sauce. The sauce stays thick on purpose: anything runny soaks the bread before you reach the last bite, so reduce it a little longer if it looks watery. Melt the cheese under a broiler or with a torch just until it blankets the meatballs, and serve before the rolls soften.
Duck legs braise on the bone for 90 minutes and are then pulled into shreds, which gives a coarser, meatier texture than a ground-meat ragu. The flavor starts with the sear: left alone in the pan rather than nudged around, the skin turns deep brown, and the red wine later dissolves that browned layer into the sauce. Wide pappardelle is the right shape to hold those strands. The ragu tastes deeper after a night in the fridge, which makes it easy to cook a day ahead and boil only the pasta on the day you serve it.
Crisp toasted ciabatta, a thin layer of pistachio paste, loosely folded mortadella and soft burrata each bring a different texture, and none of them should be pressed flat. Folding rather than stacking the mortadella keeps the sandwich airy. Peppery arugula and a thread of balsamic glaze cut through the fat of the ham and cheese.
The Roman original binds butter, Parmigiano and pasta water with no cream at all; this version adds a small amount of heavy cream. The sauce still depends on finely grated cheese, and adding it to a pan that is too hot makes it clump or split into grease. Plenty of freshly ground black pepper cuts through the richness of the butter and cheese.
Thick veal shanks braise in tomato, white wine and chicken stock until the meat separates under a fork, with the marrow still sitting in the middle of each bone. That marrow is the best part, so the shanks are turned and lifted gently with tongs rather than jolted. A light, well-shaken coat of flour on the shanks browns in the oil instead of scorching. Onion, carrot and celery soften in the same oil until sweet, and white wine lifts the browned bits from the bottom to start the sauce. The shanks braise covered in the oven with their tops just showing above the liquid. Gremolata, a mix of lemon zest, parsley and garlic, is scattered on just before serving to brighten the long-cooked sauce.
Unlike boiled potato gnocchi, these are rounds cut from semolina cooked in milk, chilled flat and baked under butter and cheese. The tops go golden and crisp under the grill. The one real hazard is impatience: cut before the slab has fully set and the rounds tear with ragged edges.
Loose, creamy cornmeal makes a soft bed for mixed mushrooms seared until their edges brown. The polenta is sprinkled into the boiling water little by little while whisking, since dumping it in all at once leaves lumps, and it is spooned into bowls while it still flows, before standing firms it up.
Eight minutes in a hot oven is all this dish gets, just long enough for the mozzarella to melt and stretch over tomato-coated gnocchi. Because of that short bake, the gnocchi come out of the water the moment they float. Extra time in the pot would leave them soft and swollen after baking. Half the basil goes into the sauce and half on top after baking.
Not a drop of water goes into this Neapolitan braise; the octopus releases its own liquid, and together with crushed tomatoes it becomes the sauce. Black olives and capers handle the briny side, while crushed red pepper adds a low, steady heat. That heat and the garlic are drawn into the oil over low heat at the start, and the tomatoes are added before the garlic browns. Reducing the sauce waits until the octopus is truly tender; if it still resists after the long covered simmer, the lid stays on for longer. Done right, the sauce clings to the octopus with no thin liquid pooling on the plate.
There is no extra cooking oil: garlic and anchovies cook in the olive oil from the tuna can, spiked with chili oil, and that fat already carries the taste of tuna and heat. Capers, black olives and anchovies bring the briny, salty edge of a puttanesca, while the tuna flesh is added late and left in big flakes you can actually bite into.
Lemon juice and capers give a sharp, salty edge to a butter pan sauce that cuts through the richness of salmon. A light dusting of flour gives the fillet a thin crust, and the browned bits left in the pan dissolve into chicken stock to start the sauce. The fish is only partly cooked in the first sear and goes back into the sauce for the last couple of minutes, so it stays moist instead of drying out.
Anchovy fillets melt into garlicky olive oil until they disappear, leaving salt and savor with no fishy edge, and gochugaru, Korean chili flakes, adds a warm heat to that oil. Broccolini cooks in the pasta pot during the last minutes so it stays crisp and slightly bitter, and pan-toasted breadcrumbs give the soft, ear-shaped orecchiette something crunchy to play against. The crumbs are kept aside and scattered on just before serving so they stay crisp.
The mushroom stems are not thrown away: they are chopped, cooked with garlic and mixed into a filling of cream cheese, Parmesan and breadcrumbs that goes back into the caps. In the oven the top of the filling turns golden and the melted cream cheese mingles with the mushroom juices.
Italian sausage, slipped out of its casing and torn into rough pieces, browns in the pan and leaves behind fat that becomes the base of a tomato and cream rosé sauce. Tearing rather than slicing gives the meat more ragged surface to brown. When the sausage throws off a lot of fat, blotting some away keeps the finished sauce from turning greasy once the cream is in. Gochugaru, Korean chili flakes, gets only about 20 seconds in the oil, enough for a mild warmth without a burnt edge, and the grooves of the fusilli catch both sauce and crumbled sausage.
Thin veal cutlets topped with sage and prosciutto cook in only a few minutes, then share the pan with a quick white wine and butter sauce. Speed matters because veal toughens fast, and each piece stays in the pan for no more than 2 to 3 minutes in total. Starting prosciutto side down fuses the ham to the meat without any toothpicks. The sage perfumes the veal against the salty cured ham, and chicken breast or pork tenderloin work the same way.
Gochujang cream pasta combines Korean fermented chili paste with an Italian-style cream sauce. Gochujang adds sweetness and heat, Parmesan contributes salt and aged cheese flavor, and bacon provides a crisp contrast. Onion and minced garlic cook in the fat left by the bacon. In this formula the chili paste is mixed directly with cream, rather than fried alone for a long time. Bacon, gochujang and cheese supply the seasoning, so the pasta water is left unsalted. The reserved water gives control over the sauce thickness; it is a supply for adjustment, not a quantity that must all go into the pan.
Chilled, thinly sliced veal disappears under a cold sauce of tuna, capers, and anchovy blended smooth with mayonnaise and lemon. The meat is gently cooked in white wine over a bed of onion, then cooled completely so it slices thin without tearing. That cooking liquid is saved to loosen the sauce until it flows slowly off a spoon. Capers and anchovy bring the salt and acidity that the mild veal lacks, and a few extra capers are scattered on top before it is served cold.