Aldo Zilli - Simple Italian Cookery

Contents

In Simple Italian Cookery, Aldo Zilli proves just how easy it is to bring a taste of Italy to your kitchen. The book includes Soups and Starters; Rice Dishes and Pasta Sauces; Fish; Meat; Chicken and, of course, a selection of delicious desserts.

Aldo demonstrates 40 delicious Italian recipes, each with simple step-by-step instructions. From the ever popular Spaghetti with a Quick Tomato Sauce to Tagliatelle Carbonara and a truly foolproof Tiramisu, Aldo includes all the most popular Italian dishes. For a taste of something a little more exotic, why not try Seared Tuna Sicilian-style, or Rump Steak Paillard grilled with Raddichio, Olive Oil and Lemon Dressing?

With colour photographs to accompany each stage of the recipe, Aldos foolproof instructions will guarantee even the novice excellent results every time.

Aldo Zilli is the founder and chef patron of the award-winning Italian restaurant group that incorporates Zilli Caf, Zilli Fish and Signor Zilli Restaurant & Bar. He has written many fish and Italian cookbooks as well as regularly appearing on radio and television.

First I would like to thank you for buying my book, and I hope you will get as much pleasure from recreating my recipes as I did writing them. After my third book I said to my lovely agent, Fiona Lindsay, please dont get me any more book deals because of the time and effort it takes, but she convinced me that it would get easier and easier. So I agreed to do this one and I am really pleased I did, because I enjoyed writing it much more than the others. A very special thank you goes to a very special person, my personal assistant, Luisa Alves, for working wonders with all my scribbles. What would I do without her? Another special thank you goes to my home economist, Suzy Theodora, who always blames me for making her put on weight, as she has to test all the recipes. A big grazie goes to Enzo di Marino, my head chef, who helped me to create some of the best recipes. As we both come from the same region in Italy we understand each other really well so important when you share a kitchen with someone, especially when it gets very hot! A big thank you to my family too for putting up with me.

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Epub ISBN 9781409074892

Version 1.0

10 9 8 7 6 5

BBC Digital, an imprint of Ebury Publishing,

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BBC Digital is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies
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Copyright Aldo Zilli 2001

Aldo Zilli has asserted his right to be identified as the author
of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988

First published in hardback as Foolproof Italian Cookery in 2001

Food photography Jean Cazals 2001

www.eburypublishing.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library

ISBN 9781409074892

When I was a boy, money was always tight, as I was the youngest of eight children. My mother had to make do with whatever was available in the garden. Luckily we had a large garden, so we could grow all the vegetables and herbs we needed. We lived near the sea and during the school holidays I would help the local fishermen, who paid me in fish. So in summer, fish was always on the menu, cooked in a variety of ways with our garden produce and pasta or gnocchi.

From a very young age, I loved helping my mum in the kitchen. She used to create the best dishes with just a few fresh ingredients and a passion that characterizes Italian food all over the world. So please dont be worried about cooking any of my recipes. If you are short of an ingredient, dont panic; just substitute or do without and you can create your own dishes.

Italian chefs are naturals in the kitchen because from an early age the family tradition of cooking and eating together creates a passion for food, and life in general.

Through this book I hope I can share some of my passion for Italian food. So get cooking these great but simple dishes!

Over the last 20 years, I have cooked certain recipes over and over again, in various restaurants and in my own home. So I thought I would share some of my family favourites with you in this book, such as Tagliatelle Carbonara, Rigatoni with Traditional Pork Bolognese and Pork Valdostana. This book shows how easy Italian cooking is, especially since it has become one of the worlds most popular cuisines. Nowadays even English cooks enjoy preparing Italian food, as we can see with Jamie Oliver and Delia Smith, two of my favourite television chefs. Part of the attraction of Italian cooking is the simplicity of the ingredients, most of which are easy to find now that supermarkets stock a large selection of fresh and dried Italian produce. However, it is always a good idea to visit an Italian deli for your essentials, such as good pasta, olives, Parmesan cheese, and Pavesini biscuits to make your tiramisu much lighter.

Remember, cooking is supposed to be fun, so get in your kitchen and enjoy yourself and dont forget to include the kids, so they can grow up without being scared of cooking and learn to love food, like I did.

Italian food is renowned for its freshness and flavour. This section lists some of the more mainstream Italian ingredients and will give you a helping hand when you are doing your food shopping.

These tiny fish are available either preserved in salt or oil. The ones packed in salt are the best, and you should be able to find them in Italian delicatessens, in tins or sold by weight. They need a good wash and soaking in water before use to remove as much of the salt as possible. In most recipes you can substitute anchovy fillets in oil if you cant get the salted ones.

This mahogany-coloured vinegar from Modena has a syrupy consistency and is low in acidity. It is aged in wooden barrels over many years, with the type of wood and size of barrel changing each year to produce a complex, concentrated flavour. It is primarily used uncooked, either in dressings or drizzled on cheese or fruit.

The best balsamic vinegars may be aged for as long as 50 years and are very expensive. If you are using a cheap balsamic vinegar, a good trick to enrich its flavour is to boil it until reduced by half, then mix it with oil as usual to make a dressing.

Italians use a lot of dried beans in soups and stews, such as borlotti, cannellini and chickpeas. However, there is such a good range of tinned beans available now that it hardly seems worth having to soak dried beans overnight and boiling them for hours on end. If you use canned beans, drain them well and rinse them under cold running water before use. However, dont forget fresh borlotti or cannellini beans in season. Once shelled, these do not take very long to cook and their flavours are fabulous.