Easy Italian Recipes for Authentic Italian Food. Quick and Delicious!

Picture courtesy of Jon Sullivan

Quick and easy Italian recipes for you to try. Authentic Italian food is delicious! Just like mama used to make! Find recipes for pasta, breads, meat, fish, salads, desserts, poultry etc.

Italian food recipes are usually very simple and straight forward. The key to their success is found in the freshness of the ingredients. Food in Italy is simply out of this world. The locals are passionate about their food and I have sat at a restaurant where nothing was ordered until they knew where the ingredients had been grown, how it was going to be cooked, and what was going to be added before it was going to be brought to their plates.

When we were in Italy this summer our new Italian friends were asking my 3 children what they were studying. My eldest said that although he was working as a planner he hoped to study project management. My daughter told them that she was soon off to medical school. They smiled politely and nodded in approval. Franca and Alessandro then turned to my youngest of 16. "I want to be a pastry chef," he replied.

Suddenly great euphoria erupted and he was slapped on the back and shouts of joy reverberated around the table to the large group present. "A chef! Mama mia! Do you hear that everybody? Devon is going to be a chef!" To us, that epitomized the level of how Italians not only love their food, but to them, chefs have a higher status in their culture than doctors or engineers. And why not?

I remember the first time I visited Italy I couldn't believe how wonderful a tomato could taste. And the rock melons just burst with flavor during the height of summer. In the summer I live on melons and prosciutto for breakfast! Italian cooking is full of simple, uncomplicated and easy Italian recipes like these. So why does their food taste so wonderful?

I have come to the conclusion it is because they are farming varieties of vegetables and fruit that have existed for centuries. Very few Italians farm intensively and on a large commercial scale. Therefore, they are not into genetically modified food. To an Italian this would be considered sacrilegious. They still buy their food almost daily, and frequent the local farmers' markets. Most of the food sold is organic, or grown naturally as nature intended. Many of the seeds that they use today are considered by others to be heirloom varieties that are sold at high prices through the Internet and seed suppliers.

If ever there was a country that was an advert for what food tasted like in the days of our grandparents before man decided to mess with nature, it's Italy! Enjoy these delicious and easy Italian recipes and if you haven't made a trip to Italy yet, it is one of those countries you have to visit before you die!

Finally, if you want to see another one of my websites, that deals just with Italy. Visit us at The Travel Italy Grapevine. This is where you will find more easy Italian recipes, as well as being able to submit your own, and learn some travel tips of places in Italy that you didn't know about.

If you are thinking about buying some Italian cookbooks and finding some easy Italian recipes of your own, but are not sure where to start, have a look at some of the bestsellers, and those that we can personally recommend through our Italian Cookbooks page.

EASY ITALIAN RECIPES FOR STARTERS - Mushroom Boccocini Salad

4 large flat mushrooms

2 oven-dried tomatoes

8 small balls of boccocini

lettuce for garnish

Balsamic Dressing:

1/2 cup aged Balsamic vinegar

1 cup brown sugar

2 shallots, chopped

2 tablespoons white vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Lightly pan fry mushrooms in a little olive oil until tender. Remove from pan and allow to cool. When cool place one mushroom per plate. Top with one half of tomato and 2 boccocini. Place lettuce attractively on the side. Mix balsamic dressing ingredients together. Drizzle with the finished balsamic dressing and add additional olive oil to finish.

EASY ITALIAN RECIPES FOR LAMB - Lamb Abruzzi Style (4)

1.5 kg leg of lamb

4 tbsp olive oil

1 clove of garlic, chopped

salt

1 sprig rosemary, chopped

2 peppercorns, crushed

4 tbsp white wine

1 lemon

2 eggs

1 tsp grated Parmesan cheese

Cut the meat into cubes. Heat the olive oil and the finely chopped garlic in a pan and add the meat. Season with salt and brown meat. Add the chopped rosemary leaves, and crushed peppercorns. Braise the meat for 10 minutes.

Pour in the white wine and boil for 10 minutes to reduce. Squeeze the lemon and pour the juice into a bowl. Add the eggs and Parmesan cheese and season with salt. Beat the lemon juice, eggs and cheese thoroughly with a fork.

Pour the mixture carefully over the meat. Shake the pan and stir with a wooden spoon until the eggs are set.

Serve the meat garnished with rosemary and cherry tomatoes.

EASY ITALIAN RECIPES FOR POULTRY - Chicken alla Cacciatora

(Pollo alla cacciatora)

Chop one large onion and keep it for more than half an hour in cold water, then dry it and brown it aside.

Cut up a chicken, sprinkle the pieces with flour, salt and pepper and saute, in the fat which remains in the frying pan.

When the chicken is brown add one pint fresh or canned tomatoes and half a dozen sweet green peppers and put back the onion.

When the gravy is thick enough add hot water to prevent the burning of the vegetables.

Cover the pan tightly and simmer until the chicken is very tender. This is an excellent way to cook tough chickens.

Fowls which have been boiled may be cooked in this way, but of course young and tender chickens will have the finer flavor.

EASY ITALIAN RECIPES FOR PASTA - Homemade Ravioli

Put on the bread board about two pounds of flour in a heap; make a hollow in the middle and put in it a piece of butter, three egg-yolks, salt and three or four tablespoonfuls of lukewarm water. Make a paste and knead it well, then let it stand for an hour, wrapped or covered with a linen cloth. Then spread the paste to a thin sheet, as thin as a ten-cent piece.

Chop and grind pieces of roast or boiled beef: add to it an equal part of marrow from the bones of beef, finely chopped basil, finely chopped onion, three yolks, some crumbs of bread soaked in milk or broth and some grated cheese (Parmesan or Swiss). Rub through a sieve and make little balls as big as a hazel-nut, which are to be placed at equal distances (a little more than an inch) in a line over the sheet of paste.

Beat a whole egg and pass it over the paste with a brush all around the little balls. Cover these with another sheet of paste, press down the intervals between each ball, and then separate each section from the other with a knife. Moisten the edges of each section with the finger dipped in cold water, to make them stick together, and press them down with the fingers or the prongs of a fork. Then put to boil in water seasoned with salt or, better still, in broth. The ravioli are then to be served hot seasoned with cheese and butter or with brown stock or tomato sauce.

Making homemade ravioli is not difficult with our easy Italian recipes, just a little time consuming with this one, but worth it in the end.

EASY ITALIAN RECIPES - Spaghetti del Capitano (4)

1 clove garlic

7 tbsp olive oil

80g anchovy fillets in oil

1/2 cup black olives

200g cherry tomatoes

1/3 cup capers

200 g spaghetti

salt

olive oil

small chili

Peel the garlic and chop finely. Heat the olive oil and saute the garlic for 2 minutes. Do not burn. Add the anchovies and infuse for 4-5 minutes. Pit the olives and chop coarsley. Wash and dry the tomatoes and cut into quarters. Add the capers, chopped olives, and tomatoes to the anchovies in the pan. Simmer for 5 minutes.

Boil the spaghetti in salted water until "al dente" and remove from water, and drain. Add to the sauce. Infuse for 5 minutes stirring the sauce constantly.

Season with a dash of olive oil and small pieces of chili. Serve immediately.

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