Rossella Rago - Cooking with Nonna: Sunday Dinners with La Famiglia

Cooking with Nonna: Sunday Dinners with La Famiglia

Copyright 2022 by BaciTV, LLC

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by Harper Horizon, an imprint of HarperCollins Focus LLC.

Photography by Evi Abler.

Makeup by Maria Pennacchi.

Hair by Marjorie Ortiz.

Any internet addresses, phone numbers, or company or product information printed in this book are offered as a resource and are not intended in any way to be or to imply an endorsement by Harper Horizon, nor does Harper Horizon vouch for the existence, content, or services of these sites, phone numbers, companies, or products beyond the life of this book.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7852-4994-8 (Ebook)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7852-4977-1 (HC)

Epub Edition August 2022 9780785249948

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022934023

Printed in China

22 23 24 25 26DCP10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

PULL UP YOUR CHAIR, AND WELCOME TO THE ULTIMATE Italian American Sunday dinner.

Whether youre of Italian descent or hail from another fabulous global locale, you will relate to the planning and preparation of the weekly feast. You will revel in the gathering around the table as Rossella and Nonna honor you and your la bella famiglia with their culinary expertise.

In Cooking with Nonna: Sunday Dinners with La Famiglia, you will find sumptuous recipes that tell our Italian story, ingredient by ingredient. The photographs are gorgeous, and the instructions are easy to follow. Soon you will be making some of your favorite Italian dishes and filling your Sunday table with hungry relatives who cant get enough of your cooking. Rossella shows you how!

This exquisite cookbook is a guidebook to help you create your own special Sunday meal. You will master recipes course by course from antipasto through dessert. You will create fragrant sauces and classic main courses you have come to love. If you hunger for buttery garlic knots, piquant puttanesca sauce, or penne alla vodkathis is your cookbook!

Abbondanza! Risotto or ziti or stuffed shells give way to crispy chicken and potatoes, or a delicate stacked eggplant parmesan. You will find recipes for the classic dishes you loved as a child as well as new recipes perfected in Nonnas kitchen for the modern cook. Your family will be delighted and thank you.

Desserts are Nonna and Rossellas crowning glories. You will feast on Nutella roll-ups, rum cake, and sweet ricotta brioche rolls. This heavenly trio of baked sweets are three of my favorites, but you will choose your own. This may be the most complete collection of Italian American delicacies to ever appear in a cookbook.

Sunday dinner is not only a destination but the heart, soul, and palate of family life. Sunday dinner is also the memory of times past, when generations of our families gathered together once a week to exchange news and stories, share a traditional meal, and catch up. As the years rolled on, the preparation of the meal went from our great aunts and nonnas to our mothers generation, and now to us. As the spatula is passed (or, in the case of Nonna Romano, the wine glass), Rossella Rago creates Sunday dinner for a new generation.

Every Italian American family has a similar story of a nonna who, with very little, created a delicious feast for her family served on Sundays after mass. The care and technique handed down generation to generation is shared with you in the pages of this book. You will learn how to make pasta dough and match the sauce to the cut. You will revisit your memories of watching your nonna make stuffed mushrooms and whip the eggs for a featherlight artichoke frittata.

Rossellas soup course is a delicious mlange of traditional hot soups and cold appetizers that you can easily incorporate into any family dinner. The main courses are scrumptious. Be sure to leave room for dessert! And what is any family gathering without the signature cocktail? You will have many choices. I made the Blood Orange Sangria and Rosellas version of the negroni. Bellisima!

Rossella Rago is a miracle. She is the curator of our Italian American kitchen. She is the keeper of the flame, of the old ways, but always delivered with a twist. Shes a chef, connoissseur, teacher, daughter, student, sister, and friend. Rossella is also an astute writer who, with time and care, stood next to her nonna and learned how to make our best Italian dishes. Rossella also learned grace and largesse from her mother and grandmother. Its the women in our families that pass down the recipes and the stories. Rossella does an extraordinary job on these pages. She knows how to create an exquisite family table.

Rossellas passion for cooking began in Nonnas kitchen, where warmth and laughter, along with the perfect ingredients prepared with ease, were the foundation of their family life. Now, you can do for your family what Nonna and Rossella did for theirs. This is not just a cookbook; this is the book of life, one that the world needs now more than ever.

Adriana Trigiani

Author

April 2022

THERES SOMETHING ABOUT SUNDAY. WHATS SO SPECIAL ABOUT this seventh day that ends in y? God intended it to be a day of rest, but not when youre Italian American. Instead we feast, and I love every single thing about the ceremony of a Sunday dinner. The waking early to buy fresh bread at the bakery. Sipping wine out of my favorite old Nutella jar at noon (okay, sometimes 11:00 a.m.) as my sauce simmers. The multiple courses that start with cold antipasto platters early in the day and end well into evening with hot, sambuca-laced espresso. I love it all! And even more, I love sharing it with people I love.

The table must be set for ten people, minimum. Well find more folding chairs as needed because all are welcome on Sunday. I pull one of countless tattered tablecloths from the drawer, each with an origin story. My personal favorite has a faded lemon print and is woven through with blue and green ribbons, a sweet memory of my Nonna Romanas honeymoon trip, which took her out of her native village of Mola di Bari to the Amalfi Coast for the first time. Whenever I look at this tablecloth, thoughts about the story behind it dance through my mind. What was Nonna thinking when she bought this? Why did she pick this one? Did she pay full price or haggle? How much time did she spend shopping on her honeymoon? Each of the recipes youll find in this book has a story to tell too.

In Cooking with Nonna: Sunday Dinners with La Famiglia, I pay homage to the customs and gatherings that bring family together from far and wide each Sunday. Sunday Dinners is filled with stories, recipes, and tips from my own lovable nonna. It includes over 125 easy-to-follow, classic Italian American recipes, such as Penne alla Vodka, Artichokes Gratinati, Pasta e Fagioli Soup with Pancetta, Chicken Francese, Cannoli Tiramisu, and many more. Some of these dishes have authentic Italian roots, and some were born right here in Italian America. The book is organized by course and will take you through hosting a perfect Sunday dinner celebration from start to finish.

Many Italian cookbooks begin with rules that must be adhered tofor example, you should only pair a certain cut of pasta with a specific sauce. This is not one of those books. I encourage you to make each and every recipe your own. If you dont have something, leave it out. If you dont like something, change it. Hate the anchovies that I melt into the oil for my Orecchiette with Broccoli Rabe and Sausage Italian American Style? Fughettaboutit! Do you want to make pignoli cookies, but youre allergic to pignoli nuts? No problem! Use toasted almonds or even the ultimate American nutthe peanutinstead. Todays improvisations may very well become tomorrows traditions.