That Little Bit Of Magic...

pwarbi

pwarbi

Community Member
Mar 15, 2015
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England
I'm sure that most people on here love italian food and many are capable of making various recipes with varying capabilities!
I cook italian food quite regularly, nothing too fancy just the usual dishes but i was wondering has anybody got any little special tips that they use to make it a little bit special? something a bit out of the ordinary...
I'm not talking about divuldging family secrets, just any little ideas that people may be unaware of that we could try
 
I don't know if this counts as a special tip, but the reason why food tastes so good at restaurants is because they use a TON of butter in dishes. Seriously. You can saute or cook almost anything in butter and it'll be delicious. Garlic is another thing that's extremely prevalent whenever I cook. My ex-roommate used to think I was a gourmet chef while all I was doing was sweating some garlic and onions ;)
 
In the sauce, any sauce add a ladle of pasta waterit makes it really creamy and aids in coating the pasta
 
Mozzarella tips. Here we talk of true mozzarella ball-shaped and packed in a sealed plastic bag with water.

The big secret is: mozzarella water is not a waste, its wonderful for baking due to its content of salt, fat and milk probiotics, its like a leavening booster.
Or just add it to the pasta water, you will need less salt.

Tip two: mozzarella gets better when warmed.
So, heat a small pot half-filled with water, when the water is almost boiling turn off the fire, dip the sealed mozzarella bag and leave it in the warm water half an hour. Then open the bag and have your warm buttermilk oozing mozzarella.
 
It think it always helps to use fresh and quality ingredients to make food taste better. For example high quality olive oil and good wine when you are using it for cooking. I think it is always important to cook with the same wine that you drink, especially if it is one you will be drinking with the meal. Also, you will always see fresh basil by the window of an Italian home. It makes a huge difference when you use fresh basil compared to something out of a package or the dry stuff.
 
Nearly everybody yopu talk to about cooking as some sort of secret ingredient that they always use. Normally it s a family recipe passed down from generation to generation.
Then again, this doesnt just apply to Italian cooking but all cooking i guess but for me it seems like Italians always make the best dishes.
 
Aww, Regina beat me to it! :D
Yes, basil! Use basil and you'll get that sweet taste of Italy :) Preferably, use it fresh, but if you don't have fresh basil, some dry condiment will work too :)

Also, I would add: pesto sauce. I'm sure you know what pesto is, it's main ingredient is basil, of course! You can either buy it (if you find it in your area) or you could try making it at home. It's mainly used in pasta dishes, but I personally use it on my super - secret - ingredient sandwiches :D shh!

I also think parmiggiano reggiano is traditionally added to Italian dishes. Armenian, in translation :) I think, outside Italy, it is mostly added on pizza or pasta.. but Italians add Parmesan even in their soup! So, add some grated cheese to your dishes and you'll be eating Italian style :)
 
My "go to" ingredient would be dry vermouth. Often times I would buy it to have on hand at parties I was throwing in case anyone wanted to make martinis, but then the rest of the bottle would go to waste because you need so little of it for a martini. Typical drinking wine does not last long in my household at all, and it's rather difficult for me to keep some on hand for cooking with, which is where dry vermouth comes in. The great thing about vermouths though is that they are additionally fortified with all sorts of other herbs and spices to give them a more complex flavor, which works perfectly in sauces or marinades where you would normally use plain wine. Plus the little bit of alcohol it provides helps the other scents and smells become more pronounced to your nose.

Dry sherry is another one I would sometimes buy, for Asian recipes, because they don't sell rice wines where I live. I never knew what to do with it since I don't care for the taste of it straight up as a drink. But I found it works wonderfully in your basic tomato sauce for pasta, in place of the usual red wine. You can also bake fish in dry sherry and butter, along with some fresh parsley.

I would also suggest making some compound butters, which is basically butter (room temp and soft) mixed with some herbs and other stuff, like scallions or shallots, salt and pepper. Then you roll it up into a log in some wax paper and let it chill completely until you need to use it. It's nice to have on hand for simple recipes like when you are sauteing some veggies for a side dish, or even cut off a piece of it and let it melt over a steak you've just taken off the grill. It's so convenient to have on hand for many different purposes.
 
Oh, that's right! Italians do love their wine, but they use it to cook their meals with it too :D
I think wine is mainly used to cook meat dishes, I rarely heard of wine being used to cook something else.

I also forgot to mention: vegetables and olive oil.

Despite the fact that Italian meals have thousands of calories per serving (just kidding... not all Italian dishes are like that), vegetables are used very, very often! First of all, the most popular Italian soup is the minestrone. That's basically all the veggies you can think of put together in a soup plate!
I often wondered how come Italians have such a high life expectancy. Well, I think eating so many vegetables has something to do with it!

And olive oil.. well, it was already mentioned, but I'll mention it again because I don't think you will ever find an Italian family that doesn't have at least a few bottles of olive oil 'in stock'.
 
Olive oil, butter, and spices like basil and oregano, are all extras I use in my cooking. Not exactly knowledge I gained from Italy, just experimentation. My husband has yet to figure out who to use these components to flavor our food, so I do most the cooking. No complaints from him.
 
Basil and oregano are great to add that special flavor true, but when cooking tomato sauce (I don't know why, but I do associate tomato sauce to Italy!) don't forget to add a little sugar to cut the acidity. ;)
 
Rosie said:
Aww, Regina beat me to it! :D
Yes, basil! Use basil and you'll get that sweet taste of Italy :) Preferably, use it fresh, but if you don't have fresh basil, some dry condiment will work too :)

Also, I would add: pesto sauce. I'm sure you know what pesto is, it's main ingredient is basil, of course! You can either buy it (if you find it in your area) or you could try making it at home. It's mainly used in pasta dishes, but I personally use it on my super - secret - ingredient sandwiches :D shh!

I also think parmiggiano reggiano is traditionally added to Italian dishes. Armenian, in translation :) I think, outside Italy, it is mostly added on pizza or pasta.. but Italians add Parmesan even in their soup! So, add some grated cheese to your dishes and you'll be eating Italian style :)
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You can actually make pestos with a variety of ingredients. The most traditional I suppose would be to pair Basil with Pine Nuts, but Parsley and Walnuts also work really well too. In fact, some people don't like the assertive taste of that much basil, while other people react poorly to pine nuts - they can leave a really bad taste in certain people's mouths, what some describe as "metallic" tasting, for several hours.

Personally I only like basil based pestos in small amounts - I couldn't eat a whole plate of pasta tossed in it for example, because I find the basil too overpowering. But a parsley based one I would be fine with.

I've even seen recipes for pestos which use sun dried tomatoes - which leads me to my next recommendation, sun dried tomato mayo. It's super easy, just throw mayo and sun dried tomatoes (packed in oil) into a small food chopper and blend them together. It goes fantastic on burgers, grilled chicken sandwiches or pita wraps, as a dressing for a pasta salad, you name it.
 
pwarbi said:
I'm sure that most people on here love italian food and many are capable of making various recipes with varying capabilities!
I cook italian food quite regularly, nothing too fancy just the usual dishes but i was wondering has anybody got any little special tips that they use to make it a little bit special? something a bit out of the ordinary...
I'm not talking about divuldging family secrets, just any little ideas that people may be unaware of that we could try
Click to expand...
If you're using wine in a dish then only use wine that is good enough to drink, people say if you use cheap wine it is the same, but it is not, it tastes cheap. Use a fairly decent wine, it does not need to be expensive, just not cheap.
 
And always buy two bottles of the wine, one to use to cook with and the other to drink just in case the food doesnt work out well. You can mask the taste and drown your sorrows that way!

How long do you spend usually in the kitchen to be able to prepare and cook all the above suggestions? Yor obviously far more advanced than I am when it comes to cooking but i'll definiitley be trying some of these suggestions...only on myself at first though just in case anything does go wrong,. or should I say WHEN it goes wrong!
 
Clairelouise84 said:
If you're using wine in a dish then only use wine that is good enough to drink, people say if you use cheap wine it is the same, but it is not, it tastes cheap. Use a fairly decent wine, it does not need to be expensive, just not cheap.
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Something to be careful with, with some of the more expensive wines, is some varieties can have really strong, and more distinct flavors which can over power the food you are cooking them with. There is a particular wine a friend of mine likes to drink which is a bit pricier, but it has very noticeable strawberry and floral, rose-like scents to it - it's fine for drinking on it's own, but not something I would put into a pasta sauce. Similarly, some of the more expensive varieties can have a strong woody taste to them which might not go well with the food they are being used with.

I think people's definitions of "cheap" wine vary too though - I usually stick with any variety of "table" wines for cooking, which also happen to be inexpensive. But I wouldn't put something like your convenience store variety of Mad Dog or Thunderbird in my dishes, lol. There are some really good boxed varieties of wine as well which work great for cooking. In fact any of the restaurants I've worked at which did use wine in their dishes, all used boxed wine.
 
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That's another interesting point. I often see boxed wine in my local stores and often wondered how good it was compared to bottled.

I know it's going slightly off topic as the thread was aimed at cooking but...what IS the difference between boxed and bottled wines?
 
OhioTom76 said:
Something to be careful with, with some of the more expensive wines, is some varieties can have really strong, and more distinct flavors which can over power the food you are cooking them with. There is a particular wine a friend of mine likes to drink which is a bit pricier, but it has very noticeable strawberry and floral, rose-like scents to it - it's fine for drinking on it's own, but not something I would put into a pasta sauce. Similarly, some of the more expensive varieties can have a strong woody taste to them which might not go well with the food they are being used with.

I think people's definitions of "cheap" wine vary too though - I usually stick with any variety of "table" wines for cooking, which also happen to be inexpensive. But I wouldn't put something like your convenience store variety of Mad Dog or Thunderbird in my dishes, lol. There are some really good boxed varieties of wine as well which work great for cooking. In fact any of the restaurants I've worked at which did use wine in their dishes, all used boxed wine.
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that is a good point, I had not thought of that, I would never use really expensive stuff (budget restraints mainly) but something decent enough that it does not just taste like vinegar.
 
I can't afford to buy expensive wine to drink, nevermind to pour into a dish I'm cooking so even though it's a good point, in my case I won't have that issue at the moment!
 
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