Easy Italian Recipes

The Best of Land and Sea

Venice, a center of culinary and cultura! refinement since the Middle Ages, was the birthplace of the fork and the napkin, and it was in Venetian kitchens that both polenta and rice were first popularized in Italy. The cooking here revolves around the bountiful fish and seafood of the Lagoon of Venice and the Adriatic Sea—from shrimp (prawns), cuttlefish, and squid to sole, bream, and mullet—as well as salt cod (baccalà). Throughout the Veneto, risotto, often prepared with seafood, has traditionally been the most popular first course. Pasta turns up less frequently, with the exception of pasta e fagioli and bigoli. From Treviso, to the north, comes world-renowned red radicchio. To the west, Padua, Verona, and Vicenza have their own specialties, including squash-blossom fritters,potato gnocchi, pandoro (a sweet golden bread), and baccalà alla vicentina. The region's best known wines are Soave, a light white; Valpolicella and Bardolino, light, fruity reds; and Amarone, a rich variety of Valpolicella made in the passito method, in which the grapes are dried before fermentation.

Culinary Signature: Polenta

Maize carne to Italy from the New World via the port of Venice in the sixteenth century. Cooked into a mush as other grains had been before it, the golden grain—called grano turco because it was thought to come from Turkey—caused a sensation and became a staple of the Veneto and much of northern Italy. Slowly simmered with water or broth in a paiolo (hammered copper pot), it is traditionally eaten soft and warm with butter, milk, and cheese. It is also often poured into a thin sheet, cooled, cut into pieces, and fried. Although it requires more time to prepare, traditional polenta is creamier and has a more toothsome texture than quick-cooking polenta.

Regional Specialties

Pasta e fagioli a hearty, ham-based white bean soup made with pasta

Risi e bisi rice and peas with the consistency of a thick soup

Bigoli homemade thick, chewy whole-wheat (whole-grain) spaghetti

Risotto short-grain rice often made with seafood and cooked all'onda (wavy, or soupy)

Baccalà salt cod, served mantecato (pounded with olive oil and garlic until smooth and creamy) or alla vicentina (cooked with onions, milk, and cheese)

Seppioline cuttlefish, often served in a sauce made with their own ink

Brodetto seafood and tomato stew

Sarde in saor fried sardines layered with sweet-and-sour onions and raisins

Cicchetti the "tapas" of Venice—small-plate snacks, often seafood based, served at wine bars (bàcari)

Fegato alla veneziana thinly sliced calf's liver sautéed with onions and white wine