Tuesday, August 3, 2010

The Excellent Range Of Italian Recipes

By Henry Wellington

Italy carries a well-established and deserved reputation for producing high-quality recipes and mouth-watering cuisines. Best known for pizza and pasta, Italian food also includes many outstanding meat and seafood dishes, besides excellent cheeses, and fabulous desserts.



Food in Italy is a means of spending quality time and bond with family and friends. Italian cuisine is all about attention to detail that goes into creating each dish just perfect. Italian food varies from region to region and are generally simple and straightforward to prepare. A few of the favored ingredients utilised in many Italian dishes include potato, bell pepper and tomato. Cheese is considered a vital ingredient and is used in majority of Italian dishes.

It has often been noted that Italy is a place of great regional variations - and that is certainly true, indeed the country was only unified in 1861 - and this fact is reflected in the diversity of Italy's regional cuisine. Over the centuries Italy has been invaded many times by different countries, Italy has also been involved in heavy trade and indeed this shows in the variety and origin of its cuisines.

Lets take a quick gander on a few of the Italian cuisines:

- Northern Italy's native products include balsamic vinegar, bolognese sauce (ragu), lasagna, mortadella (a heat-cured pork sausage, served as a cold cut) parmigiano (parmesan cheese) polenta (a dish constituted of boiled cornmeal), prosciutto (dry cured ham) and tortellini (stuffed pasta). Rice is grown in both Lombardy and Piedmont (although they differ in these two regions), and used to make risotto.

- Tuscan cuisine often features meat, white beans and unsalted bread.

- Mozzarella and pizza, not to mention sfogliatelle (Italian filled pastries) originate from Naples.

- Roman cuisine often uses pecorino (cheese made out of sheep's milk) and offal. Rome is also known for its ultra-thin pizzas

- Calabria (the region corresponding to the "toe" of Italy) is renowned for its spicy variety of salami

- Pecorinio is a sweet dish and is common and popular in Italy. It is essentially a type of cheese and is made from sheep's milk. Its especially popular in Sardinia.

- Sicilian cuisine is noted for its Arab influences in its cooking (with the usage of lemon and pistachio), as well as for its seafood (including tuna and swordfish). Sicily is also the home of gelato (ice cream) and granita (a delicious semi-frozen dessert made using sugar, water and flavorings).

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