Italialicious

My strawberry sauce is perfect for gelato or panna cotta. You really really have to try this. And when you do you’ll never stop making it again and again.

Ingredients
3 cups strawberries
1 cup sugar
1 cup pomegranate juice
¾ cup strawberry jam

Wash the strawberries and cut them into thin slices. Cover with the sugar and let them rest for at least 1 hour. In a saucepan whisk the jam with the juice, and cook over medium heat. Add the sugared strawberries (they will be very juicy) and continue cooking until it comes to a simmer. Serve cool, accompanying your dessert.

You can use strawberry juice, but I think that the pomegranate juice suits the strawberry flavor perfectly. It even makes the flavor more intense.

I love the idea of having roasted chicken for a weekend lunch. This is an excellent and super-easy recipe, with just the right amount of garlic.

Ingredients (for 2 chickens)
2 chickens
6 garlic cloves
½ stick of butter
1 Tbsp olive oil
Salt, pepper, peperoncino, dry oregano

Thoroughly rinse the chicken and then dry it using paper towels. Season the chicken with salt. Don’t forget to also put some salt in the interior of the chicken. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a saucepan melt the butter over low heat. Add the olive oil and slightly sauté the garlic cloves for about 12 minutes. You want to infuse the butter with the flavor and aroma of the garlic. The olive oil will prevent the butter from burning. When you feel the garlicky aroma all over your kitchen, put 3 of the sautéed garlic cloves inside of each chicken. Pour the melted butter on the chicken. Add more salt, pepper, peperoncino and oregano. Cook in the oven for about 80 minutes. Then broil for about 5 minutes.

This is not the traditional Caesar salad, but does anyone really know the original recipe? Also, I didn’t want to make a Caesar salad, but the result was quite near to that, so let’s say this is a Caesar-like salad.

Ingredients
Romaine hearts
Grilled chicken breasts
Avocado
Sourdough bread
Olive oil
Garlic
Tomato
Parmigiano reggiano cheese

Dressing
3 Tbsp mayonnaise
2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp Olive oil

Grill the chicken or simply put ready-to-cook frozen chicken strips in the oven.

Instead of croutons, I used bruschetta. So, I toasted some bread under the broiler – I used red onion sourdough bread, which is perfect to make bruschetta or crostini. When the bread is golden brown, rub some garlic over it (cut a garlic clove in half and just rub it over the bread), rub some tomato over the bread (in the same way you did it with the garlic), then add some olive oil and salt.

Put the clean romaine leaves onto a serving plate, add cubes of avocado, the strips of grilled chicken breast – I like the chicken warm – and then toss the dressing over the salad. In order to make the dressing, simply whisk all the ingredients together until creamy and homogeneous. Top with grated parmigiano reggiano cheese.

Note that the original Caesar salad was conceived of by an Italian-born Mexican, so the idea of not chopping the lettuce – which allows you to eat it with your fingers almost like a fajita – and the idea of adding avocado both seem pretty fine to me.

As you can see throughout my recipes I simply love shrimp, so I add them to almost everything. This is my version of spaghetti alle vongole which is Italian for clam spaghetti; but I added shrimp too. So it would be something like spaghetti con vongole e gamberetti. It’s really easy to make, very Italian, and I love it because it reminds me of the bay of Naples. You have to remember, dried pasta like spaghetti, tomato based sauces and seafood – they all conjure up Southern Italy, and by that we mean south of Rome.

Ingredients
1 pound spaghetti
24 clams, medium size
1 can tomato sauce (about 30 oz)
1/3 cup white wine
1 garlic clove, minced
1 bunch baby arugula
2 cups shrimp
Salt, pepper, peperoncino
2 Tbsp olive oil
Parmigiano reggiano cheese

Submerge the clams in salted cold water for at least 1 hour. In a saucepan make a soffritto sautéing the minced garlic with the olive oil, salt, pepper and peperoncino. Add the tomato sauce, and when it comes to a simmer add the rinsed clams. Add the white wine and the shrimp, and cook for a couple of minutes. Cover the saucepan with a lid and cook until the clams are all open. Cook the pasta. When it is al dente, drain and toss over the sauce. Add the arugula, give a quick stir, pour in some grated parmigiano reggiano cheese and serve.