This Spezzatino di Coda di Manzo is a recipe from the northeastern Italian Alps. It includes typical mountain seasoning like juniper berries and bay leaves. This is not the iconic oxtail stew from the area of Rome/Lazio, called Coda alla Vaccinara, which has tomatoes and batons of celery in it. 

Oxtail has a lot of collagen, so slow cooking develops it into a rich, delicious stew full of umami goodness. Leftovers make a great sauce for pasta.

Here is an interesting recipe, the name of which means "mushrooms cooked like tripe". There's no tripe in here, it's a vegetarian dish; the name comes from the inclusion of some tomato and oregano.

This frittata is typical of Lombard tastes, although it could certainly be made anywhere in Italy. 

This one is rich and heavy enough to be served at any meal. It would be fine with a little pepper jelly, or maybe a glass of Barbera d'Alba!

This Fagiolini Rifatti, or "twice-cooked beans" is nothing at all like Tex-Mex refried beans! Italian uses the same word, fagioli, to mean both green beans and dried beans.

This is an easy dish that bursts with the contrasting flavors and colors of the green beans and the red tomatoes. 

Chicken alla Romana is a classic Roman dish of chicken with bell peppers. There are many recipes, but maybe the best known is that of Sora Lella.

Sora Lella was a fictional character portrayed on TV and in movies for decades by Elena Fabrizi. Elena was also a renowned foodie and restaurateur in Rome. This was her cornerstone dish. 

Here's an intriguing idea - a mint-leaf omelette!

I saw this a lot while researching i frittati, usually near other simple omelettes that called only for garden-fresh herbs. During nice weather we always have plenty of spearmint and peppermint in the garden, so I decided to give this a try.

It's delicious! The mint needs nothing else, no cheese or onion, and certainly no sugar. It's simple and elegant! 

I'd wanted to try this old style cocktail for years, since first reading about it in Ted Haigh's fun book Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails.

The reason that it took this long to mix this particular forgotten cocktail is that the main ingredient, Orange Gin, is a true vintage spirit that has been extinct for decades. But now Tanqueray makes one, their Sevilla Orange Gin, so I got to try it. 

I think a lot of people would like it, but it's not my new favorite. The gin is quite sweet, so I tried again and doubled the lemon juice, and that helped a lot. Your mileage may vary, or course!

I thought this sounded interesting, and I kept an open mind about how good it would be. After all, I am trying lots of new Italian recipes these days, and it's as much an exploration as it is just making another dinner every night. But this one I really liked, and I will definitely make it again! 

Here's a Spezzatino Speziato, or spicy pork stew.

It's not spicy the way we Americans usually employ the term; it is not hot at all, but it's loaded with ground cumin and coriander, and the lemon gives it a light citrusy zing.

This would be good served over rice. 

This Pampanella is a strange recipe from Molise that I found in the encyclopedic La Cucina, The Regional Cooking of Italy, from the Accademia Italiana Della Cucina (I wish the USA had such an institute!). 

You rub morsels of pork with garlic and chili and roast it, then pick the cooked meat out of the juices and finish them with vinegar, and discard the juices. It's a strange preparation, but i couldn't stop picking at it when it was finished... it's bewitching.

 

This recipe for Spezzatino di Maiale all Bolzanese comes from Bolzano, in the northeastern Italian Alps, beyond Venice. The paprika is a clue that this dish has Austrian roots, from the long period that northern Italy was under the control of the Hapsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire.

The pork shoulder has enough flavor to support the other strong flavors and the mix or tomatoes and paprika makes is a memorable cold-weather dish!

This is traditionally served with hot polenta. 

We had had way too much fish during the Covid19 lockdown and were eager to explore some vegetable recipes. This one was a hit! It's easy to make and tasty, and it was satisfying to us as the center of a vegetarian dinner.

This is a simple and delicious preparation of fresh sweet Italian sausage or fresh fennel sausage. It makes a nice change of pace from the often heavy dishes that feature sausages.

Here's a basic boiled-beef recipe, called a brasato in Italian.

There are many brasati, with regional specialties and differences for the seasons and holidays. This is an everyday recipe that's good for any season. The beef is cooked with onions, which provide the braising liquid and ultimately become a sauce for the beef.

This is a simple and satisfying recipe when you can get fresh trout.

You cook the cleaned fish in a skillet with oil and some seasoned breadcrumbs for a filling. When the fish is ready, it is tender and succulent, and flakes easily away from the skin so you can serve the whole fish or just the fillets.

This is a rich Ligurian frittata that features two flavors that we don't often see paired in the United States.

It also includes cheese and breadcrumbs, so it's a hearty dish. It's good served hot or cold, as for a picnic. 

You can try this the traditional way in an omelette pan, flipping it by sliding it onto a plate and then flipping it bac into the skillet, but this has so much "stuff" in it that it breaks easily. It's easier to just bake it in a moderate oven.

This omelette is best made in late summer at the height of tomato season. If you can't get fresh ripe in-season Tomatoes, in my opinion you're better off using good quality canned tomatoes; at least they were ripe when they went into the can!

I especially like this with some nice flaky sea salt. 

Tropea is in southern Calabria, way down near the toe of the Italian boot. It is especially known for red onions of unexcelled sweetness and mildness.

We had an intimate surf & turf dinner for St Valentine's Day 2021 because, after 9 months of all-fish-all-the-time during the Covid lockdown, I was on strike. So instead of our usual lobsters and champagne, Lorna had a lobster and I had a steak! 

It went like this:

 

• Aviation cocktail
• The Sultan's Onions
• Frosted Green Beans
• plus a lobster for her and a steak for me 

 

This is wonderfully delicious and worth the time it takes to cook it. 

It calls for dried Porcini mushrooms, as pretty much all traditional Italian dishes do. Porcinis are the same as King Boletes (I've bought those in Polish markets) and Cepes (the French name).

You can use other types of dried wild mushrooms if you cannot find Porcinis, but the combination or Porcini mushrooms with red wine is a classic flavor of the Italian Northwest so it's worth the search.  

This is just a quick pick-me-up drink for a cold afternoon when you are cooking pasta.

The pasta water already has salt, and some starch from the cooking pasta.  You add a full-bodied inexpensive red wine, a pinch of pepper, and maybe a few flakes of dried red pepper if you like. 

This is particularly welcome after shoveling snow when you come in cold and wet and you smell dinner cooking! 

This is about a simple as it gets, and it's delicious in its simplicity. You must use fresh sage for this.

I have seen photos of this with the sage leaves visible in the finished frittata, but I have never yet had the patience to try one that picture-perfect when it will be in my belly in 5 minutes... 

Here's one of those hearty rib-sticking dinners that must surely be unhealthy but it's mighty comforting on a cold January night!

This uses two very different cheeses: the Taleggio adds robust flavor, but you can substitute Italian Fontina or Parmigiana-Reggiano), and the Scamorza brings a stringy-zingy cheesy fun to the dish (a smoked Scamorza is just at stringy and adds a nice smoky flavor for a snowy night).  

Cod is consumed all over Italy even though it is not caught in Italian waters. Stockfish is North Atlantic Cod caught and dried in Norway; it has been part of Italian cuisine for centuries since it was brought by Norman conquerors a thousand years ago.

It's especially used in the winter and in interior areas where it's harder to get fresh fish. Stockfish (stoccafiso) has to be refreshed just like Salt Cod (and many of the recipes are the same), but stockfish is even dryer so it must be refreshed for a coupe of days or more.

There are lesser grades used in West African cooking, but for Italian cooking you want the expensive Grade A. I got this bag from an importer in Houston, so the dried fish travelled thousands of miles to get to my kitchen!

Here's another pesto from Liguria, this one made with walnuts! It's great on different ravioli, especially those filled with butternut squash or with cheese, and it's really something on lobster-filled ravioli!