Italian

A creamy risotto might make a main course, but for this Italian dish of braised veal , you might want to bend the rules of one dish cooking to be able to serve a traditional Italian-style side dish. Making risotto is not demanding—you can make it with ease while the veal shanks are braising.

Spaghetti and meatballs get spiced up with a classic Italian sauce. All'amatriciana hails from Amatrice, a town northeast of Rome. Classic all'amatriciana sauce is made from tomatoes, guanciale (salt-cured pig's jowl), and hot peppers. Here, bacon stands in for the guanciale.

An Italian take on the classic Mexican starter.

For leftovers of this classic seafood stew, increase the recipe by half.

Minestra di porri e castagne Piemonte

Recipes from two New York women respected in the food business influenced this dish: In her book A Fresh Taste of Italy, Michele Scicolone (once my Brooklyn landlady) offers Spaghetti with Rubies, where the rubies are chunks of roasted beets sautéed in olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes. At her legendary Brooklyn trattoria Al di Là, chef/co-owner Anna Klinger serves ravioli stuffed with beets tossed in brown butter and poppy seeds. Beets, together with poppy seeds, are typical in dishes of the northern Italian regions of Friuli and Alto Adige. With all these factors in mind, I came up with my own combination of pasta with beets and poppy seeds.

Casônsèi della Val Camonica Casônsèi dates back to the fourteenth century and is a specialty of Brescia in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. It is also known as casunzièi in Belluno, in the northeastern region of Veneto. The word casônsèi comes from the ancient term "cassoncelle," which probably meant "small caskets." Similar to ravioli, these half-moon-shaped parcels are made of an egg-based dough and can have a variety of fillings. The Renaissance version was bittersweet in taste, combing cinnamon and almonds. In the traditional cuisine of Brescia, casônsèi is typically filled with a mixture of sausage, bread dipped in milk, and grated Parmesan.

Cavatelli 'ncatenati In times past in poor regions like Molise, when meat was scarce, eggs were an available and affordable source of protein. A dish of pasta dressed with eggs combined the nutrients of two staple foods for a meal that was naturally nutritious and sustaining. I love these pastas sauced withe eggs, and tasty versions can be found all over Italy, especially in Abruzzo, Molise, and Lazio (Rome), where the most famous dish of this type, spaghetti alla carbonara, originated. This Molisano version is particularly appealing, with cavatelli, scrambled eggs, and bacon, and with grated Fontina Val d'Aosta tossed in at the end—a bit out of region, but absolutely delicious here. In Molise they would use grated pecorino, of course, and it is lovely that way, too.

One of the delights of making tiramisù is its versatility. This recipe makes a family-style dessert in a large dish, but you can easily compose single servings in dessert glasses, wine goblets, or even elegant teacups for a more impressive presentation, in the style of Signora Garatti's original "coppa imperiale." And while the conventional version of tiramisù calls for espresso soaked savoiardi, I've found that other flavors can be incorporated into the dessert with great success. Here, the brightness of fresh lemons and limoncello liqueur lace the cream and soaking syrup to make for a tiramisù that is refreshing and irresistible.

We found the greens for this salad by foraging in the woods and fields. You can forage farmers’ markets for tender young dandelion greens, purslane, wild fennel, and pea shoots to make a tasty salad. Even your refrigerator or kitchen garden might yield some goodies, like chives, tender young Italian parsley, thinly sliced red cabbage, or the yellow leaves from celery hearts.

This classic and delectable pasta dish originated in the region of Abruzzi, in the little town of Amatrice, northeast of Rome, where it was traditionally prepared without tomatoes. But it is the Roman version of pasta all’amatriciana, with tomatoes, that I share with you here—the version that is best known and deservedly popular. Lots of onions; chips of guanciale (cured pork cheek, now available in the United States, see Sources, page 340), pancetta, or bacon; and San Marzano tomatoes are the essential elements of the sauce, Roma style. Note that the onions are first softened in water, before olive oil is added to the pan—a traditional but unusual step that is said to make the onions sweeter. The standard pasta used is bucatini or perciatelli (spaghetti are only tolerated). The long, dry strands of perciatelli resemble very thick spaghetti but are hollow like a drinking straw. When cooked, they are wild and wiggly, so you might be tempted to cut them. Do not—once you’ve got them on your fork, they’re delicious and fun to eat. It is quite all right to slurp them. Indeed, as kids we would suck them in so fast that the end of the noodle would whip us in the nose, splattering sauce all over our faces. What a wonderful memory!

This zesty dish is suitable for all sorts of occasions. As a first course, it will turn an ordinary meal into a festive occasion. It’s also a great main course for a family dinner, with a salad and pasta. Heap the sausages and potatoes on a big platter, and let people help themselves.

Traditionally, calamari are cooked with the skin on—it is the skin that gives a purple hue to the sauce. But if you want, you can peel it off.

This Italian take on shrimp and grits comes together in just 25 minutes for a creamy, comforting dinner.

A good bread salad soaks up the juices from the tomatoes, olive oil, vinegar, and all the other seductive flavors that go into a really top-flight panzanella, and I love it! The tomatoes should be at their juicy, high-summer peak and the bread bakery-fresh, with a pleasingly soft crumb and chewy crust. My recipe not only calls for the best tomatoes and bread, but also relies on green, fruity, extra virgin olive oil, zesty red wine vinegar, salty capers, and freshly grated lemon zest. (I use a microplane when I zest citrus fruit and I highly recommend you do the same.) I also add other vegetables such as red onion, bell peppers, and fennel, garden-fresh basil, and some inky black olives for a salad bursting with summer.