Italian

Cioppino is a delicious Ligurian fish stew, and since many emigrants from Liguria settled in San Francisco, some of the best renditions of the dish on this side of the ocean are found in San Francisco. California Italians were great contributors to the American fabric, and I am sure they all enjoyed a good bowl of cioppino. It might be a bit more complicated to eat, and perhaps your guests will balk, but I like my cioppino with crab legs in their shells.

Fried calamari is one of my favorite foods. When it is lightly floured and cooked in fresh oil, rather than in a constantly reused deep-fryer, it is spectacular. But, sadly enough, I have found it to be one of the most poorly made dishes on my travels across the United States. So, if you long for good fried calamari, make yourself a batch at home. Here is my simple recipe.

There are endless renditions of lasagna: with just cheese, with vegetables, with mushrooms, with meat. Once you have mastered the art of cooking and layering the pasta, the filling can be your choice. But here I give you the Italian American rendition, one that you make with store-bought dry pasta. The major effort here is in making the Bolognese sauce, and in the Bolognese recipe I give you on page 158, you can make the sauce in advance and freeze it, all ready for when you decide to make a lasagna.

Whenever stuffing anything, one may be tempted to overstuff. Well, the elegance in this dish is to stuff the calamari lightly. When you cook fish or meat, remember that it always tightens a bit, and if there is too much stuffing, it bursts out. So keep it light—follow the recipe.

I have had squid prepared many ways, but never in a Milanese cutlet style until Tanya and I encountered this dish on our trip to San Diego when we went to Anthony’s Fish Grotto. The calamari cutlet was a thick slab, like a veal cutlet, quite different in size from the smaller version of calamari I am accustomed to cooking on the East Coast, and yet very tender. This popular calamari may be up to 2 feet in length; the giant squid can get to approximately 43 feet; in 2003, a colossal species of squid was discovered that can be upward of 46 feet. I’m not sure which calamari was used for my Milanese at Anthony’s, but it was very good; I tested the recipe with the traditional-sized calamari, and it worked deliciously.

The Sicilians have a tradition of using bread crumbs in many of their recipes, like involtini di pesce spada, or swordfish rollatini, which are dressed with dried-oregano-seasoned bread crumbs and olive oil. It makes sense that the large Sicilian immigrant population in the States would keep up the tradition here using fillet of sole, an easier, more economical catch than swordfish, especially for the early immigrants.

Cannelloni—that delicious stuffed pasta, literally translated as “big reeds”—is always a sign of a festive occasion in Italy. This baked dish can be made in advance and serve a large group of people, and it is loved by most. What you stuff it with almost does not matter, although a meat-and-vegetable combination is the most common choice. Cannelloni was a big-hit item on menus of Italian American restaurants in the sixties and seventies. If you have a gathering of family and friends, as Italians often do, this is a good dish to make.

I cooked this simple dish in my first restaurant, Buonavia, which I opened in 1971. I made it with fresh lemon sole and fluke, bought directly from the fishermen on Long Island when in season. But you can make it with the fillet of any white fish. It is delicious and quick.

This dish is best when the tomatoes are fresh and ripe, but it will be almost as good with canned plum tomatoes. It makes a complete one-pot meal, including vegetables and protein. I used spinach, but escarole is a good Italian American substitute.

Chicken Tetrazzini is an American creation. The one thing we know about it for sure is that it was named after the famed Italian soprano Luisa Tetrazzini, also known as the Florentine Nightingale. She was a favorite with the San Francisco Opera audiences, and it is said that the dish was invented there, but there are some conflicting claims that the dish was created in New York, at the then Knickerbocker Hotel, where most of the Metropolitan Opera stars stayed in the early 1900s. Another confusion about Tetrazzini is whether chicken, turkey, or salmon should be used in the recipe. As far as I am concerned, any or all of these options can make a good Tetrazzini.

On one of my visits to Roberto’s on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, I picked up this delightfully spicy chicken recipe. It pairs wonderfully with the tomato-and-bread salad on page 94.

I don’t encounter stuffed shells in Italy much; stuffed paccheri (big and floppy rigatoni-lookalikes) are much more common there. But I have sold a lot of stuffed shells throughout my restaurant days. This is comfort food—pasta stuffed with milky ricotta and topped with oozing melted cheese, and just about everybody loves it. It is a common dish, present in many Italian American restaurant menus and households. It is also very convenient, because the oven does the work, and you can feed a large number of guests.

Poached chicken served with salsa verde or another piquant sauce is common in Italy, and this is a perfect example of cultural blending between Italian and American styles. Today in America, Chef Fortunato Nicotra often makes this dish at our restaurant Felidia. It is light and yet very tasty, especially for lunch. I like it over an arugula salad, but he serves it on top of a light fresh-tomato sauce as well. It is delicious both ways.

When this dish was first made—in Emilia-Romagna, particularly in the city of Parma—it included veal and grana cheese, such as Grana Padano or Parmigiano-Reggiano. The bread crumbs, tomato, and mozzarella were all added later, and chicken has often been used as a more economical substitute for veal. This has got to be one of the most popular Italian American dishes. You can find it across America, in every Italian American restaurant, and it has now penetrated the fast-food chains, thanks to its popularity and reasonable costs. If done well with the best of products, it is a great dish.

Baked ziti is a real crowd pleaser. It is easy to assemble, one of those recipes that you can multiply and make double or triple the amount on those occasions when you have to feed your kids’ soccer team. It is also a versatile recipe as we become more attentive to our intake of nutritious proteins and vegetables; it is delicious with additional steamed or leftover vegetables or chicken. Legend has it that, as Attila approached Rome, Pope Leo I brought baked ziti with him to meet the invader. After the meal, Attila developed serious gas, considered a bad omen by the gods, and turned around and left Rome untouched. I don’t know many who could leave a steaming plate of baked ziti untouched. Sicilian in origin, this was a favorite of many Italian immigrants, who could take the ziti into the fields or mines with them and have a tasty lunch.

Macaroni and cheese has to be one of the quintessential American comfort foods. To most people it brings back fuzzy memories of a childhood family table. Even Thomas Jefferson had a thing or two to say about this dish. He ordered a macaroni-making machine and instructed the cook to use cheese liberally on the pasta and bake it like a casserole. It appears that this “macaroni” was more similar to the spaghetti of today. A lot of the versions of macaroni and cheese that you may have eaten would have had some form of cream sauce or roux, but here I’ll give you a recipe for this dish as an Italian in Italy would make it: a simply delicious rendition.

I would venture to say that, along with chicken parmigiana, chicken scarpariello is one of the most recognized chicken recipes in America. Chicken scarpariello is a composition of a few favorite ingredients: chicken, lots of garlic, and vinegar. In this recipe, I added some sausage, which is not unusual, especially if you have a big brood coming over. To multiply the recipe: proceed in batches; then, once you have brought the whole thing to a boil, transfer to a roasting pan and finish cooking in a 450-degree oven, stirring the chicken periodically so all the pieces get crispy.

This dish has roots back in the Renaissance, when people hunted for food and only the wealthy could enjoy chicken. This is good when made with a whole chicken, but I prefer it made only with drumsticks and thighs. It can be made well in advance, and will reheat and remain moist. It is great with polenta or pasta, but I love it with a chunk of crusty semolina bread.

The first mention of ravioli seems to have been at the fourteenth-century household of Francesco di Marco Datini, merchant of Prato, who describes pasta pockets stuffed with meat and (during Lent) with herbs and cheese. One of the first ravioli shops in America, Bruno Ravioli, was started by Bruno Cavalli in 1905 in Hackensack, New Jersey. Ravioli is less popular on Italian American menus today, but in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s it was all the rage. For Italians, ravioli is a Sunday meal, more common in the north of Italy, where fresh pasta is made, than in the south, where dry pasta is used more. Everybody loves the sense of accomplishment of making ravioli, stuffing the little pasta pockets with savory and delicious fillings. I think one of the major ingredients in filling ravioli is love. When the family gathers at the table and a steaming platter of ravioli arrives, there are always sounds of exaltation. This is an easy recipe, made with readily available sausage and ricotta, a delicious combination. Simple marinara or butter sauce will be the perfect dressing.

Pollo alla sorrentina is always topped with eggplant and melted mozzarella. But what does that have to do with Sorrento? Naples and Sorrento are in the region of Campania, where the best mozzarella comes from, so it would make sense that it would be used for cooking there. In Italy, rarely do you find the name of a locale in the title of the dish. On the other hand, the names of many Italian American dishes seem to include cities in Italy. The choice seems to be driven by nostalgia, remembering and honoring one’s place of birth in the recollection of how things tasted there.