Summer was filled with barbecues and the occasional sagra. Some of them, quite frankly, aren’t worth going to. But the absolute best summer food to be had in Abruzzo, and Luigi’s all-time favorite, are arrosticini. Arrosticini are basically mutton on a wooden skewer, but don’t think of the traditional shish-kabob with big hunks of meat. [...]
Posts under ‘Abruzzo regional recipes’
Time to make the sausage
One of the things I like best about living here is how tied we are to the seasons. Everything should be done at the right time – and that includes making sausage. O and his family would usually buy a whole pig (years ago they raised it themselves), have it slaughtered and make sausage, sopressata, [...]
Decoction Concoction – Good for what ails you.
My latest bought with the cold, the flu, bronchitis, or whatever it was had me really worn out and tired. Coughing was an all-day, all-night affair and there were no medicines available to help out. I was “treating” myself by drinking hot honey and lemon and was stopping the cough with cough drops and hard [...]
Musical spaghetti
Although I don’t have a lot of time lately to indulge in some of my favorite activities, I still do manage to squeeze one in now and then. One of those activities is preparing and cooking traditional foods. Whenever I taste something locally made, I want to know how to make it and I want [...]
Le sagne
Not to be confused with lasagna, le sagne are homemade pasta noodles that are sometimes cut like tagliatelle and other times cut into what is called tacconelle – basically a diamond shape. Now, all homemade pasta is not created equal. Yes, the standard recipe calls for 1 egg per every 100 grams of flour. And [...]
Pieces of Lamb
Just about every town in Italy has it’s special dish. Most of the time it’s shared with other towns in the area, but often each town has its own version of the same dish. That can make things interesting when it comes to trying to figure out a recipe for something you’ve tasted. Yes, you [...]
Not your ordinary chicken a la king
It is a chicken dish and it’s named after a king, but that’s about all it has in common with the chicken a la king that we’re used to seeing. I found this recipe in a book called “I sapori di Abruzzo e Molise” (the flavors of Abruzzo and Molise) that I picked up here [...]
Sausage Ragù
Usually when I make pasta it’s fairly light, with vegetables or tomato sauce and without meat. But, every once in a while a good stick-to-your-ribs meaty sauce (ragù) like this one hits the spot. Of course, these kinds of sauces also take more time to make since the longer the cook the better they taste. [...]
What’s cooking? Pallotte Cac’ e Ov’
Here’s a fantastic local dish that couldn’t possibly be any simpler. It’s one of those things that, when you first eat it, you swear you’ve eaten it before. At least I did, but I’m pretty sure I’d never had it. Warning, it’s by no means “diet” food. But, it’s definitely worth indulging in now and [...]
What’s cooking? Pasta con aglio, olio e peperoncino
This is a great recipe for the busy holiday season. It’s quick, simple and tasty. We often have it if we’re in a rush and don’t have a lot of time to cook. It’s usually one of those things we decide to make on the spur of the moment. In fact, the other day, this [...]
