I still had about a quarter of the pepper left, but it tasted just right. It was so good that although it's supposed to serve six, four of us demolished the entire bowl (as a first course!). Bingo -- into my repertoire it went.
It's a bit odd that Knopf published "Lidia's Italy" in the spring; in general the dishes feel more autumnal or wintry than spring-like -- roast goose with \o7mlinzi \f7(homemade pasta baked dry) from Istria, \o7gemelli\f7 with smothered cauliflower and saffron from Sicily. And curiously, there are relatively few antipasti.
In any case, what's so refreshing is that Bastianich talks us through cooking by feel -- something so rare in cookbooks now.
Not all of the recipes are nearly as basic as that spaghetti, but many are very simple, and the six recipes I tested turned out to be terrific. Braised pork chops with savoy cabbage was irresistible -- and made all in one pan. Season and sear loin chops on the bone, remove them and deglaze the pan with white wine, add a little butter and olive oil, then drop in blanched savoy cabbage -- a lot of it -- and caramelize it in those pan juices. Add the chops back in, season and you're good to go. Fabulous.
Chicken with artichokes, from Rome, is perfect for this season -- a simple, delicious braise with white wine, tomatoes and garlic. From Piedmont, roasted peppers filled with tuna make a wonderful antipasto. The tuna filling, made with Italian tuna packed in olive oil, and spiked with capers, anchovies, cider vinegar, mustard, mayo and Italian parsley, is somewhat addictive, even on its own.
Are all those recipes perfect? Alas, no. Often there's too much to fit in the pan called for: That was a problem with those pork chops (no, 3 pounds of them plus 4 pounds of cabbage doesn't fit in a 13-inch skillet). It was also a sticking point with an otherwise wonderful recipe for sausages with fennel and olive -- the recipe calls for 12 Italian sausages, about 2 pounds; I couldn't fit more than nine in a 13-inch skillet (the recipe calls for a 13- or 14-inch skillet), and even then they were packed so tight I couldn't "tumble" ingredients together as instructed.
With the tuna-stuffed peppers, the amount of peppers called for wasn't nearly enough for all the filling. Bastianich called for three to four peppers; we needed eight to 10 for all that filling (we adjusted the recipe accordingly).
