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Cauliflower and broccoli florets turn out crisp around the edges and chewy in the center when dried in the convection oven at a low temperature. Serve them warm from the oven with one or a selection of the suggested dipping sauces. The cauliflower and broccoli are best served freshly roasted, but the dipping sauces can be made several hours ahead and refrigerated.

The convection oven makes easy work of this recipe. While you roast the potatoes, cook the bacon in the convection oven. This leaves your cooktop splatter free.

Oven-drying concentrates the flavor and aroma of tomatoes, something I like to do especially in the winter, when fresh tomatoes are not always flavorful. In the convection oven, the tomatoes dry in about half the time of a conventional oven. You can store the dried tomatoes in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Otherwise, wrap them well and freeze them for later use. I love them served this way: Simply topped with fresh mozzarella and seasonings on a crisp crouton. They’re great in salads, or as an accompaniment for oven-grilled chicken breasts.

These little cubes of chicken resemble chicken nuggets and are perfect when you’re trying to think of something to feed children. Eliminate the hot spices if the kids object (but one of my granddaughters announced, “I like hot!”).

This is a great quick snack or appetizer. To make it a bit heartier, add more toppings like chopped green onions, diced peppers, bits of sausage, or additional cheese.

Serve these toasts hot out of the oven. They’re a real crowd-pleaser and the recipe is easy to multiply to serve lots of people. If you make three panfuls at a time, position the oven racks so that they are evenly spaced and bake all three at once.

This old favorite is a quick snack or accompaniment to a simple soup and salad meal. You can get the bread ready for roasting as the oven preheats. In the summer, I like to serve slices of toasted bread with a topping of chopped or thinly sliced fresh tomatoes from the garden.

Throughout history, Sardinia has been a territorial prize for the great powers of the Mediterranean Basin, and every period of dominion has left its mark on the island. One of the most distinctive influences—both cultural and culinary—was the 400-year rule of imperial Spain, from the early 1300s to the early 1700s. Today, in Alghero, on the west coast of Sardinia, residents still speak a form of the Catalan language. And the spiny lobster that abounds in the waters off Alghero is prepared alla Catalana—cooked, chopped into large pieces, and tossed into a salad. In Sardinia, it is expected that you will grab a chunk of lobster from the salad with your fingers and dig into the shells with gusto. Here at home, I do the same thing with our great Atlantic lobsters, which are certainly as good as if not better than their Mediterranean cousins. I prepare them alla Catalana and serve them Sardinian-style, with lots of moist napkins and bowls for the shells, encouraging everybody to dig in.

If you are traveling in Sardinia, this is the dish to have. And if you want a taste of Sardinia at home, this is the dish to make. Pardulas resemble large ravioli, stuffed with sliced provolone. They’re not cooked like pasta, though, but fried until crisp and oozing melted cheese. They’re like grilled cheese sandwiches—kids love them. In fact, everybody does. Pardulas make a great appetizer flanked by some tossed salad or sliced tomatoes. For a more elaborate and substantial turnover, add some blanched asparagus or broccoli, or prosciutto or ham, to the stuffing; just cut down a bit on the cheese to make room. And if you make them half-sized, they’re a terrific hors d’oeuvre to pass at a cocktail party. They are traditionally served drizzled with honey but are delicious just fried and plain. For convenience, make and fill pardulas in advance and fry them when your guests arrive. If necessary, you can fry them up to 30 minutes ahead of time and keep them warm in the oven.

It always pleases me when such a simple recipe can be so good. But every ingredient and every step must be perfect—the calamari, fresh; the olive oil, the best; and the pan must be hot for the quick cooking. I always prefer to buy whole calamari and clean them myself (you can see how easy it is to do in my book Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen). I also like to leave the skin on the bodies, because it takes on a lovely color when cooked. However, now that squid are frequently sold already cleaned, which is a convenience, the body skin is usually peeled off as well. So, if you like the skin, as I do, ask the fishmonger at your market to leave it on. If that’s not possible, don’t worry: the dish tastes marvelous either way. (And if you are not a fan of squid, you could also prepare scallops, swordfish, or even a fillet of cod using this recipe.)

A technique I have always liked, when preparing vegetables for a pasta dish, is to toss them in the pot with the pasta as it boils. Depending on which takes longer, I put the vegetable in first and then add the pasta, or vice versa. Either way, I believe this maximizes the flavor and nutritional value of the vegetables, and I know the pasta absorbs some of the vegetable flavor as they cook in the same water. I was glad to see this technique used frequently in preparing pasta dishes in Calabria, like this one, where orecchiette and arugula are cooked in the pot together before they are tossed with the other dressing vegetables, favas, and cherry tomatoes. Great to make in spring when fresh favas are in the market.

In the introduction to this chapter, I tell about the extraordinary red onion from Tropea. Its healing qualities have been promoted since Roman times. And though not widely publicized, the wine-red onion is particularly valued by the men of the coast for its capacity to enhance a certain romantic vigor—a legend now confirmed by recent scientific research, we were told, that found la cipolla rossa di Tropea naturally rich with the same compound as delivered by the drug Viagra! I can’t comment on that, but I can tell you with certainty that one can only love any dish featuring the Tropea onion, whether raw or cooked. This wonderful soup, with lots of onions and good San Marzano tomatoes, is the one that we sampled in Calabria and that I have since re-created at home. Made with American-grown sweet onions, it is almost as good as the original version. It can be a meal in itself, or a very special opening course.

In the coastal areas of Basilicata, the varied catch of the day is the basis of this uncomplicated yet very tasty fish soup. Here I recommend using monkfish and grouper fillets, both with firm texture, so they won’t fall apart in the zuppa. Halibut is another good choice. Indeed, many varieties of fish and shellfish can be prepared this way, as long as you adjust the cooking time so the flesh remains intact and avoid overcooking. If using clams or mussels, use a wider pot, so the shells do not break the meaty fish as they open. For a more substantial dish, place a slice of grilled or toasted country bread, or a few slices of spicy potato, Patate Lessate con Diavolicchio (page 302), in each soup bowl before ladling in the zuppa di pesce.

Like many traditional Lucani dishes, this one is fashioned from the handful of ingredients one would find even in the most humble peasant pantry: dried peppers, yesterday’s bread, a chunk of hard cheese, olive oil, and garlic. Minimal yet delicious. The fire in fiery maccheroni, of course, comes from dried diavolicchio, the hot chili peppers so beloved in Basilicata and other southern regions. Here, whole dried peperoncino pods are soaked until soft, then puréed into a pesto to dress the pasta. Toasted bread crumbs play an important role in this dish, too, when they’re tossed in just before serving. They pick up the paste and garlicky olive oil, cling to the strands of pasta (preferably bucatini or perciatelli), and give crunchy, fiery sparks of flavor to every enjoyable bite.

Small ditalini and well-cooked broccoli di rape are all you need to make a delicious, warm, nourishing, and comforting dish—moist and almost soupy in consistency. Of course, you need the basic seasoning of the Basilicata cook, too: olive oil, garlic, lots of peperoncino, and pecorino. If you feel the need to add more to this simple dish, slivers of chicken breast can cook right in the pot with the ditalini and will give a meaty substance. Another natural addition would be cubes of provola just before serving (see Wedding Soup, page 299, for tips on adding provola to a soupy dish).

Lentils and pasta are a traditional pairing in Italian cooking, and most of the regions in the southern part of the boot enjoy pasta con lenticchie in some form, usually in soups. In this dish, which I was served in Basilicata, the lentils were cooked with other vegetables into a sauce that served as a delicious dressing for rigatoni. It was excellent that way. This sauce seems to me even more delightful as a dressing for whole-wheat or barley pasta.

The trio of seasonal vegetables here lends a distinctive flavor and texture to this skillet-cooked vegetable dish. Crisp and soft at the same time, it is a deluxe version of home fries, with the artichokes and favas adding color and excitement to the familiar flavor of pan-fried potatoes. It’s a great dinner vegetable dish, as well as a terrific accompaniment to eggs at a springtime breakfast or brunch. (If you are watching your carbs, omit the potatoes and increase the amounts of other vegetables by half.)

This recipe makes a wonderful tomato-and-sausage sauce for pasta. Typical of Basilicata, it is uncomplicated yet yields a complex and delicious flavor. It is important to use the best sausage, preferably a mix freshly made by a real Italian butcher. If there’s one available to you, ask for sweet, all-pork sausage, preferably a medium grind of meat with some texture, rather than a fine grind, which tends to be pasty. To save work, since you want the meat to be loose, ask for the sausage mix before it is put in the casing. As for the pasta, I recommend bucatini, which is what I first had in Basilicata. But I like spaghetti with this, too—a whole-wheat spaghetti would be especially nice.

Potatoes will never taste the same after you have tried this dish. This preparation captures the beauty of the cooking of Basilicata: straightforward, simple, but full of brilliant flavor. Even if you are not so passionate about hot pepper, I encourage you not to be timid with the peperoncino in this dish. Of course, this kind of simple cooking depends on fine ingredients. Excellent olive oil and good potatoes are key. I like russets, but Yukon Gold or waxy varieties would work, too.

The deep flavor and delightfully varied textures of this pasta dressing develop in the oven, where you bake the cherry tomatoes coated with bread crumbs just before you toss them with pasta. Roasting them this way intensifies their flavor, and the bread crumbs become crunchy. It is a lovely dish to make when sweet cherry tomatoes are in season, but it is also good with the lesser cherry-tomato varieties you get in winter; these can be used successfully here because of the concentration of taste and texture during baking. This dressing is suitable for almost any pasta, but I particularly like it with spaghetti, gemelli, or penne. Because the tomatoes are at their best as soon as they come out of the oven, the dressing and pasta should be cooked simultaneously, and I have written the recipe to ensure that you will have your pasta and baked tomatoes ready for each other at the same time.