Easy Italian Recipes

Pizza, Pasta, and Gusto

Emigrants from Campania have given the world some of the most famous and bestloved Italian foods. Two ingredients define much of the cooking of Naples and the surrounding region: fresh mozzarella, the best of which is made from buffalo's milk, and sweet, flavorful tomatoes, most notably the plum-shaped San Marzano variety grown in the fertile volcanic soil surrounding Mount Vesuvius. Pizza Margherita, topped with those two ingredients and fresh basil leaves, was a nineteenth-century Neapolitan invention, and pizza is taken so seriously here that it has been awarded a DOC designation, comparable to those granted to great wines. This is also the birthplace of dried hard-wheat pasta, and along with pizza, spaghetti is the culinary icon of Naples and the region. The Amalfi coast is famed for its large, aromatic lemons and for limoncello, the sweet liqueur made from their rinds. The world-famous herbal digestive Strega is produced in Benevento. Grapes grown on the slopes of Vesuvius are used to make Lachryma Christi (tears of Christ), a light white wine. Greco di Tufo is a bigger, fruitier white from Avellino, where Taurasi, a robust red often called the "Barolo of the south," is also produced.

Culinary Signature: Mozzarella di bufala

The herds of water buffalo raised in the area between Caserta and Salerno produce one of Italy's greatest culinary treasures, mozzarella di bufalo. Mozzarella can also be made from cow's milk, but because buffalo's milk has two to three times the butterfat of cow's milk, buffalo mozzarella is exquisitely rich and creamy with a meltingly soft texture. The cheese is made by curdling the milk, softening the curds in hot water, and kneading them unti) they are elastic. The cheese maker lops off rounds of the kneaded curd (the Italian word for this action, mozzare, gives the cheese its name), which become individuai balls or braids of cheese. Mozzarella di bufalo is the melting cheese of choice for pizza and baked pasta and is enjoyed as a table cheese.

Regional Specialties

Pizza the two classic pizzas of the region are Margherita with buffalo mozzarella, tornato, and basil, and marinara, with tomatoes, garlic, and oregano

Dried pasta spaghetti and other dried durumwheat pastas, including rigatoni, penne, and fusili', prepared with a variety of sauces, most tomato based

Mozzarella in carozza fresh mozzarella sandwiched between slices of bread, dipped in an egg batter, and fried

Parmigiana di melanzane eggplant (aubergine) baked with tornato and mozzarella and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheeses

Insalata caprese a salad of mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, and olive oil

Fritto misto lightly battered and fried fish and seafood

Insalata di mare mixed seadfood salad

Sfogliatelle a horn-shaped flaky pastry with a sweet ricotta and candied orange peel filling

Photo: pizza and fresh basil, a member of the mint family, is the most widely used and recognizable Italian herb, lending its peppery flavor to sauces, salads, and pizzas.