“Pasta,” which once meant only “spaghetti” to a lot of folks – if they used the term at all – now turns up on menus offering tagliatelle, acini de pepe, rigatoni, linguine, farfalle, orzo, cappelini, rotini, fetuccini, ziti, tortellini, ravioli and radiatore.
Find a kid who didn’t grow up loving meatballs and spaghetti, and you’ll likely find a kid who grew up vegetarian.
Now that we’ve pretty much bid ciao to the no-carb craze, it’s time to revisit our dear friends mostaciolli, gnocchi and manicotti – all of which can be found at one Italian restaurant or another.
And there are lots of “anothers.”
Based on the most recent figures from the Colorado Restaurant Association, there are almost 800 Italian restaurants statewide and 17,500 nationwide. Cindy Weindling, executive vice president of the association, says it is the nation’s most popular ethnic food.
“Italian food is so popular, I don’t think people even think of it as ethnic food anymore,” she says. “You see a menu in a regular restaurant and you see Italian items. Italian food has just been incorporated into American eating patterns in a way other foods haven’t.”
Think too of how our day-to-day vocabulary has changed, thanks to the Italian influence.
If you made salad dressing, you made it with cider, white or wine vinegar, not balsamic.
A little more than a decade ago, few non-Italians knew risotto from plain rice or biscotti from a buttermilk biscuit.
Today, California-based Lundberg Family Farms makes eight risotto mixes that are ready for the table in less than a half-hour.
Polenta comes ready to slice and fry.
Parmigiano-Reggiano is cut and shrink-wrapped in supermarkets.
We still love ice cream, but we also love gelato (past participle of the Italian verb gelare, “to freeze”).
Ever since Marco Polo returned from the East bearing those curious dried strands of flour and water, we’ve glommed onto them with a vengeance.
Something about lasagna, eggplant Parmesan and fettucine Alfredo keeps us coming back.
Is it the rich aroma of garlic, onion, oregano and olive oil in a Bolognese sauce that permeates the senses? Or the subtle, citrus-laced loveliness emanating from a veal scaloppine with lemon and capers?
Why are Italian eateries rarely empty?
Old, new, expensive, not-so-pricey, northern Italian, southern Italian, eat-in, take out – the ristorantes Italiano just keep coming. Witness Denver’s newest arrival, Via.
The Momo brothers, Venanzio and Anthony, of Cherry Creek’s Cucina Colore, have redone the old Brasserie Rouge space, scaled it back in size and opened Via, the city’s latest tribute to the cucina Italiano.
Andrea Frizzi, a native of Milan, presides over Via’s kitchen.
“People love Italian food because it’s everyday food,” Frizzi says. “It’s pretty to look at, it’s filling, it’s not expensive and it’s good.” It is simple, fresh, and the flavors are at once subtle and exciting in the mouth. And it isn’t all pasta.”
At Via it might be stuffed calamari with capers and parsley, charred octopus with salsa verde and chick peas; Neapolitan pizza; chicken Milanese with broccolini; or Piedmont beef meatballs.
“That’s what we are, some of everything,” Frizzi says. “America calls itself a melting pot. Well, we Italians have our melting pot too. Our food is the result of many, many occupations, dating from Julius Caesar to France, then Spain. You have sweet and sour food in Venice because of (the travels of) Marco Polo.”
But we have the Saracens, who invaded from North Africa in 827, to thank for the cinnamon, cloves and cayenne that flavor the foods of Sicily.
“Food varies from town to town because the land and history varies, so you have these amazing tomatoes from San Marzano because the water is just so, the latitude is right, the sun shines just the right way,” Frizzi says.
Look north to the Friuli – a secluded region where the Alps almost touch the Adriatic, and the unpretentious home cooking of the Friulian hill country presents prosciutto, salt cod, polenta with grilled game and desserts like those found in neighboring Austria.
Just as regional dishes vary throughout Italy, there is an Italian restaurant here for every pocketbook, from slightly pricey Luca d’Italia, Barolo, Panzano and Il Fornaio, to more affordable family-friendly chains like Maggiano’s, Olive Garden and Buca de Beppo. And then there are the local long-timers, like Patsy’s, Pagliacci, Valente’s and Three Sons.
Easy-on-the-budget places like Sbarro and Fazoli offer viable alternatives to airport and interstate quick-fix options.
But there are no quick fixes in Il Fornaio’s kitchen, for even the simplest of dishes. Chef Massimo Ruffinazzi says that although he does authentic Italian meals at his wine tastings, he sticks to traditional but more familiar dishes for everyday dinnertime dining. Ruffinazzi is also from northern Italy, near Milan.
“I think the Mediterranean food and diet is one of the healthiest around the globe,” he says. “It’s seasonal and healthier. I try to stay to stay close to real Italian, but unless I’m doing a special Italian wine-tasting dinner, when I can go around and explain everything, I wouldn’t do, say, an aragosta con melone – lobster and cantaloupe – risotto for everyday. Most people wouldn’t eat it.”
Ruffinazzi says his signature dish is a conchigile con pollo, shells with pasta, and his most popular seller is ravioli filled with Grana Pandano, a semi-fat hard cheese that has been made by Cistercian monks since the 13th century. The ravioli are topped with a cream asparagus sauce.
Latest to enter the fast-casual dining category is Marco’s Tuscan Grill, on Colorado Boulevard in Denver’s Hospital District.
Chef Gianluca Sciagata, hails from Italy’s Piedmont region, and anticipates bringing to Marco’s the same attention he gave to Gusto in Aspen, La Bottega in Vail and La Dolce Vita in Castle Pines.
Mark Tarbell, owner of Tarbell’s in Phoenix and co-owner of The Oven in Lakewood, will be on hand for the Festival Italiano in Belmar next weekend, where he plans to open his third restaurant, Home. He fell in love with Italian food in New England.
“I spent a lot of time in Boston’s south end, a traditional Italian neighborhood,” he says. “My best friend Joey’s mom was always cooking something, so we always hung out at his house.
“You just got this sense of love and joy in the kitchen. Italian culture is so rich and the food is so good, it just makes sense to me. Obviously I missed the whole Atkins (diet) thing.”
Italian meals prepared at home have gone beyond spaghetti and meat balls, lasagne and pizza, graduating to osso buco, chicken cacciatore, pasta puttanesca and stuffed zucchini flowers.
Because of Italy’s substantial coastline, the Italian table also serves fresh fish dishes, from white anchovy salad to tonatto vitello (tuna with veal).
The Olive Garden website has a slew of recipes, from antipasti to veal, including pasta fagioli, chicken marsala and panini, the Italian pressed sandwich (olivegarden.com).
And not to fret over the authenticity of meatballs, an ongoing favorite of Frank Bonanno, who owns the Capitol Hill restaurant Luca d’Italia. The meatballs served at Luca remain a magnificent mystery recipe, but as at most other Italian restaurants, removing them comes close to sacrilege.
“I love meatballs, and you find them all over Italy,” he says. “But traditionally they’re a first course or part of an antipasti plate. Whatever is left over you’d eat for lunch the next day with pasta.”
So there’s authentic justification for a hearty lunch of meatballs and spaghetti. If only there were justification for an authentic post-pasta Italian nap.
Ellen Sweets can be reached at 303-820-1284 or esweets@denverpost.com.
Mezzi Rigatoni with Green Peas and Italian Sausage (Mezzi Rigatoni al Sugo di Salsiccia e Piselli)
This easy-to-do recipe from the Emilia-Romagna region comes from the Barilla test kitchen. Serves 4-6.
Ingredients
Directions
Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add onions and sautee 5 minutes or until translucent.
Add sausage and cook until it sticks to bottom of pan. Add wine; mix well and sautee until liquid is reduced.
Add half-and-half and peas. Salt and pepper to taste, then simmer until cooked through.
Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain, toss with sauce and serve immediately.
Wine ideas: Emilia-Romagna’s most famous wine is the fizzy Lambrusco. It can be great (really!) but perhaps better here would be the dense, warm, plummy Sangiovese di Romagna from Tre Monti or Umberto Cesari, one of the region’s most prominent producers, whose wines can be found for less than $15. -Tara Q. Thomas
Hunter’s Chicken (Chicken Cacciatora)
From “Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking,” by Marcella Hazan, godmother of the Italian kitchen. Try to find San Marzano tomatoes at specialty stores such as Spinelli’s, Marczyk’s or Whole Foods Markets. Serves 4-6.
Ingredients
Directions
Wash chicken and pat dry with paper towels. In a large sauté pan, heat oil to medium high. Coat chicken in flour, shake off and slip into pan, skin side down. Brown well on both sides. Transfer to warm plate and season with salt and pepper.
In same pan, cook onions until deep gold. Add wine. Let simmer briskly while scraping loose crispy residues on side and bottom of pan. Return all chicken pieces to pan, except the breasts, which cook faster and will go in later. Add remaining vegetables, including tomatoes and juice.
Adjust heat to slow simmer and cover tightly. After 40 minutes, add the breasts and continue cooking for at least 10 more minutes until chicken highs feel tender. Turn and baste pieces occasionally while cooking.
When chicken is done, transfer to a warm serving plate. If pan juices are thin, reduce them to an appealing thickness. Pour over chicken and serve at once.
May be cooked ahead of time and warmed slowly. Serve over spaghetti.
Wine ideas: Traditional Chiantis have the red fruit flavors to match the red sauce and the tang of acidity to match the weight of a white meat dish like this. Lanciola Chianti Colli Fiorentini and Teruzzi & Puthod Peperino both run about $15. -Tara Q. Thomas
Basil Pesto
Add more garlic if you want and spread it over bruschetta, fresh sliced tomatoes or toss it with your favorite pasta for a side dish or an entree. This recipe is adapted from chef Mark Tarbell. Serves 4-6 people
Ingredients
Directions
In a blender, combine oil, pine nuts and Parmesan. Pulse on/off for several seconds. Add basil, lemon juice, salt and pepper and blend until almost pureed (if not using immediately, store refrigerated in a jar with a thin layer of olive oil to prevent pesto from darkening).
Frittata with Aromatic Herbs (Frittata Alle Erbe)
In its original version this dish from the mountainous Friuli region contains a festival of wild greens.You can approximate it with a gathering of greens and herbs such as spinach, chard, leeks, sage, parsley, basil, marjoram, mint, and rosemary, all fresh if possible. The blend creates a wonderful freshness and combines into a convincing and original flavor. From “Bugialli’s Italy,” by Giuliano Bugialli. Serves 6-8.
Ingredients
Directions
Soak spinach and chard in a large bowl of cold water for half an hour. Bring a large pot of cold water to boil, add salt to taste. Drain vegetables, add to the pot, and boil for 5 minutes.
In a large casserole, heat butter and 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. When the butter is melted, add leek and pancetta and sautee until the leek is translucent, 3 to 4 minutes. Finely chop the sage, parsley, basil, majoram, mint, and rosemary together. Add to casserole and sautee for 5 minutes more.
Drain spinach and chard and cool them under cold running water. Lightly squeeze them and coarsely chop them on a cutting board. Add them to the casserole, season with salt and pepper and mix thoroughly. Cook for 10 minutes more, stirring occasionally.
Tranfer contents of the casserole to crockery or glass bowl and let rest until cool, about half an hour.
Using a fork, lightly beat the eggs with salt and pepper to taste and pour them onto the cooled vegetables. Mix well. Heat a 10-inch omelet pan with the remaining tablespoon olive oil over medium heat. When the pan is hot, add the egg mixture.
Level the mixture with a fork and keep puncturing the bottom with the fork as the eggs set, to allow the liquid on top to move through the bottom. This will help the eggs to cook uniformly. When the eggs are well set and the frittata is well detached from the bottom of the pan, put a plate, upside down, over the pan and invert the pan, turning the frittata out onto the plate.
Return the pan to the heat and carefully slide the frittata into the pan and cook the other side. After 30 seconds, when the eggs should be well set, reverse the frittata onto a serving platter.
Cut into wedges and serve warm or at room temperature, garnished with basil and parsley leaves.
Wine ideas: Cool, mountainous Friuli -and neighboring Slovenia – are treasure chests for white wines with lots of flavor and zingy, high acidity. Pinot grigio is a popular grape here, but also look for wines made from the nutty tocai friulano and the rich ribolla gialla. -Tara Q. Thomas
Broccoli Sauteed in Wine and Garlic (Broccoli al Frascati)
Cooking cruciferous vegetables without boiling them, as in this recipe, seems to make them more fragrant and heady-just the way the robust Romans like their food, according to Mario Batali, whose latest book, “Molto Italiano” has more than 300 regional recipes. Serves 6.
Ingredients
Directions
In a 10- to 12-inch sautee pan, heat the olive oil with garlic over medium- high heat until just sizzling. Add the broccoli and cook, tossing frequently and gradually adding the wine to keep the garlic from browning, until the stalks are tender, 8 to 10 minutes. Add red pepper flakes and zests, tossing well, and serve immediately.
Game Hens with Pomegranate (Beccanzini alla Melgrana)
In this recipe from Sardinia, the natural sweetness of the tasty birds is accentuated by the pomegranate seeds and the orange peel, so there is no need for a gravy or elaborate sauce. Serves 6.
Ingredients
Directions
In a small bowl, just cover the pomegranate seeds with the Marsala. Gently mix in the mint and set aside, covered, for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 375.
Season the birds inside and out with salt and pepper.
Drain the pomegranate seeds, reserving the liquid. Stuff the birds with half of the seeds, reserving the remainder for later. Using a kitchen twine, tie together the legs of each bird.
In a large ovenproof sautee pan, heat 2 tablespoons of the butter with the olive oil over high heat (if necessary, use two pans). Add 3 of the sage leaves and cook for 1 minute. Add the hens and brown well on all sides, about 5 minutes. Lower the heat to medium and add the remaining 9 sage leaves and reserved pomegranate seeds.
Transfer the pan to the oven and roast for 7 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven, drizzle 3 tablespoons of the reserved Marsala over the hens, and dot with 4 tablespoons of the remaining butter. Baste the hens with the pan juices and roast for 10 more minutes, or until the juices run clear when a thigh is pierced.
Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, melt the remaining 4 tablespoons butter over low heat. Add the orange zest and cook for 5 minutes, stirring gently so that the zest absorbs the butter. Remove from heat.
Transfer hens to a serving dish. Sprinkle with the orange zest and drizzle the pan juices, with the pomegranate seeds, over them. Serve immediately.
Wine ideas: Sardinia’s carignano (the same grape as carignan, which is found throughout southern France) takes on a rich, spicy fruitiness in the warmth of the island’s soils. Capichera and Santadi make versions that live up to their $30-$40 price tags, and would match this dish in richness and exotic flavor; also check out Cline Cellars’ intense Ancient Vines Carignane from California, which runs less than $20. -Tara Q. Thomas
Osso Buco
This hearty meal of veal shanks is as much a staple in households in Milan as meatloaf and mashed potatoes are in American homes. Although it is often served with risotto, it’s sublime with mashed potatoes, risotto or lemon-flavored rice. This recipe, which calls for root vegetables, comes from Maggiano’s Little Italy, courtesy of chef George Poston, who recommends polenta. Don’t feel guilty about using a mix: just follow the directions, using chicken stock instead of water, and finish it with butter, cream and Parmesan cheese. Serves 4.
Ingredients
Directions
Season osso buco with salt and pepper and coat with seasoned flour, shaking off excess.
Sear veal in half the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed dutch oven until browned on all sides. Remove from pan and set aside.
Add remaining oil to pan, enough to cover the bottom of the pan. Add onions and season with salt and pepper. Over medium-high heat, sautee onions until nicely browned. Remove, Cool and reserve. Add turnips and carrots to pan (add oil if needed) and season with salt and pepper. Sautee, stirring occasionally, over medium-high flame until vegetables are slightly browned. Remove and set aside.
Preheat oven to 350.
Add portobellos and button mushrooms to pan and season lightly with salt and pepper. Sautee mushrooms until slightly browned. Remove and set aside. Lower heat and add butter, garlic, thyme and rosemary. Sprinkle flour in pan and sautee for a few minutes, stirring constantly.
Add wine, stir and increase heat to high. Stir mixture until it is smooth and reduced by half. Add chicken and beef stock, stewed tomatoes and bring to a simmer. Skim any foam or fat that rises to the top. Add veal shanks to the dutch oven and simmer, covered, for 1 hour.
Turn shanks and add carrots, onions, mushrooms and turnips to the sauce. Cover and cook an additional hour. Meat should be very tender.
Wine ideas: Large chunks of meat on the bone slathered in sauce are typically a call for a big, tannic red. If you’re feeling flush and want to play up the extravagance of the dish, spring for a Barolo or Barbaresco from Italy’s Piedmont. To spend less money and enjoy the hearty hominess of the long-cooked dish, try a basic nebbiolo from the Langhe – the region in which Barolo and Barbaresco find their home. The coop Produttori di Barbaresco makes some of the best deals in the region; Parusso also makes an excellent version for about $21. -Tara Q. Thomas
