Herbs & Spices

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.

Mackerel is not a popular fish, but I love it: it is flavorful and very nutritious. As with all fish, but especially with mackerel, the freshness of the fish is the key. This dish is very good eaten hot, but also at room temperature.

Ralph’s claims to be the oldest Italian restaurant in Philadelphia, and it is still run by the original family. It was opened in 1900 by Francesco and Catherine Dispigno, emigrants from Naples, who named the restaurant after their son Ralph. A host of celebrities have eaten at Ralph’s, and while we were eating there, a nearby couple told us they travel an hour each way once a month to come and eat there. The original mosaic-tile floor is beautiful, and eating in the upstairs room transports you back to the 1920s. Now Jimmy and Eddie Rubino, still part of the family, run the restaurant, and this chicken dish has been on the menu as long as they can remember.

Veal piccata is a familiar dish in most Italian American restaurants across America: thin slices of veal briefly sautéed in butter with some lemon juice added to it. In this recipe, however, I added some capers, green olives, and thin slices of lemon. It brings much more body, flavor, and complexity to the dish. Chicken and turkey scaloppine are also delicious prepared this way.

This is the quintessential Italian American dish: from the 1950s through the 1980s, every Italian restaurant had it on the menu. It is still one of America’s favorite dishes and is easy to make. The important part of the recipe is to begin cooking the meat and mushrooms separately, then combine them at the end so the flavors blend. Marsala is the special ingredient in this dish. Around the city of Marsala, Malvasia, a varietal of a very aromatic grape, grew in abundance. Wine has been made from this varietal for centuries, and the English took note of it and began importing it. The history of England and the New World needs no retelling, and this is most likely how Marsala made it across the pond. When the Sicilian immigrants settled in America, and rediscovered it, it was a natural reunion.

Veal saltimbocca, which literally translates as “jumps in the mouth,” hails from Rome. It is rather simple, but simplicity is hard to achieve. In the late 1960s, when I worked in Italian restaurants to help pay for my college tuition, veal saltimbocca was always on the menu but never tasted like it did in Rome. The important flavor ingredients here are the prosciutto and the fresh sage. The early immigrants were curing hams into prosciutto at home, which eventually developed into formal businesses, such as the Volpi & Co. in St. Louis, now known as Volpi Foods. In those days, fresh herbs were hard to find—unless you were Italian and grew them at home. By the time I opened Felidia in the 1980s, fresh herbs were coming to the supermarkets, and by the 1990s, Prosciutto di Parma began crossing the ocean, so now the saltimbocca has regained its true flavors. So, unless you use fresh sage, skip it.

This dish is traditionally made with veal, but is also delicious when made with pork or chicken. However, the best way is with tender veal chops, pounded while still on the bone, then boned, breaded, and fried. Served on the bone is a bit more expensive than the boneless-leg cut, so, if you want to splurge, by all means buy 4 or 6 chops to make this recipe. In restaurants in Milano most likely you would be served Milanese on the bone.

The important thing is that pesto is a raw sauce and should not be cooked when dressing the pasta. Just toss the hot pasta with a little of its cooking water and the pesto. Stir well, add some cheese, and dinner is ready.

Spinach and walnuts go well together and make a great pesto to dress pasta. This recipe is ideal for a quick meal; sometimes I like to add a few tablespoons of fresh ricotta to the pasta.

Everybody loves a quick and tasty pasta dressing, and there is nothing better than a pesto. All you need is a blender. Combine all the ingredients, and—voilà—you have a sauce. Everybody by now is familiar with pesto made with basil and pinoli nuts, but during one of my visits to Sicily, I enjoyed a pleasant pesto surprise: the pinoli were replaced with pistachios. Although Sicily is known for its delicious pistachios, 98 percent of the pistachios eaten in the United States come from California. So do try this pesto rendition.

Spaghetti aglio e olio is one of those basic recipes that just about every household in Italy, and every Italian American household, has made at one time or another. Searching for flavors of home, Italian immigrants could create a tasty dish with just pasta, olive oil, and flavorful garlic. The simplicity of these three ingredients and the technique used here is what makes it so good. Do not burn the garlic, and add pasta water to make it into a sauce—the secret is as simple as that. In my recipe, I have added some shredded basil, since I’ve found in my travels that the addition of basil to a garlic-and-oil sauce is quite common. I often add basil to recipes: when in season, it brings freshness and that pleasant garden bouquet to many dishes.

This marinade is great with all cuts of pork: loin, butt, ribs, fresh ham, or chops.

You might be familiar with this salad made with stale bread, but for some more texture and taste, try making it with taralli, often sold as pepper or fennel round bread biscuits at Italian specialty stores in the United States. Actually, taralli are small bread rounds, much in the style of bagels, which are baked and toasted to a crisp. It is a traditional food from Puglia, Calabria, and Basilicata. The story goes that the taralli were made specifically for the shepherds and workers to take to their fields. The taralli lasted and traveled well, and, once tossed with some condiments, they would revive and be delicious.

I found the St. Louis pizza to be different from any other pizza I have had before. The crust has a texture between a cracker and shortbread, and the cheese mixture recalls the milky-velvety mozzarella cheese found in Italy. The pizza is cut into squares, which makes it easy to eat. Here is a recipe I developed after several visits to Imo’s in St. Louis, and I think it is quite close to the St. Louis original

This is a unique rendition (and spelling) of veal parmigiana that I had in Rigazzi’s, one of the oldest restaurants on The Hill in St. Louis. It exemplifies the frugality and the ingenuity of those early immigrants. Instead of expensive veal cutlets, they ground lesser, tougher cuts of veal, then shaped them and treated them like a veal cutlet; the result was delicious and tender! At Rigazzi’s, it was the special of the day when we visited.

When in season, soft-shell crabs are a big seller in all of our restaurants. People just love them. We make a light batter, fry them nice and crisp, and set them over a salad for our guests. During one of my trips to Baltimore, I wanted to go visit Crisfield Seafood in Silver Spring, Maryland, known for its soft-shell crab sandwich. The experience was good: the soft-shell crab, nice and crispy, was the best part; the sesame bun and the coleslaw were the usual suspects. In this recipe I’ve added my own twist to the bread and ingredients. Get a good semolina roll, and top the crabs with an arugula-and-egg salad, an Italian American solution. If you want to serve this as a salad, double the salad and dressing and omit the rolls. Serve crabs on top of the greens, with dressing dolloped on the side.

This soup has weathered well among the generations of the Italian immigrant families that have cooked it. As I travel through America and look for the flavors and recipes the Italian immigrants brought with them, this recipe is almost always remembered fondly. It is still cooked with nostalgia and reverence, and at holidays, particularly in the homes of immigrants from southern Italy. It is a dish usually served when the whole family is at the table. Even if the “marriage” mostly likely refers to the marriage of the ingredients, the soup is also thought to give strength to a newly married couple for their wedding night.

Italians stuff all kinds of vegetables, such as peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, and more. In America, white button mushrooms were plentiful and cheap, and delicious when stuffed, so the Italians added them to their stuffed vegetable list. Stuffed mushrooms of different varieties can now be found in Italian American homes and restaurants, from the simple button mushrooms to the large portobellos. All types make a delicious dish and satisfy today’s vegetarian diners as well. I like mushrooms best stuffed simply with bread crumbs and cheese, but I have seen them stuffed with everything from crabmeat to shrimp to foie gras. Let your fancy guide you.

Fried mozzarella is a tasty dish that children especially like; it can be half fried in advance, then reheated in the oven when guests arrive. It is great finger food to be passed around at a party.