This Pasta e Fagioli recipe is one of those dishes that takes me straight back to my Nonna’s kitchen. Made with borlotti beans, small pasta and a simple soffritto, it’s thick, comforting and full of flavour without being heavy or overly tomatoey. Like so many of the dishes my Nonna made, there was never a…
Category: Italian
Italian Sausage, Fennel and White Bean Tray Bake
The combination of sausages and beans has been around for centuries, and almost every part of the world seems to have embraced it in one form or another. France has its rich cassoulet, Italy has rustic dishes of sausages and white beans, Britain has bangers and beans, and even the humble tin of sausages and…
Italian Stuffed Calamari (Calamari Ripieni)
Stuffed calamari is one of those dishes I’ve wanted to make for years. Whenever I saw it on a menu, I’d order it. Whenever I travelled through southern Italy, I’d take notice of how different restaurants approached it. Some were baked, some simmered in tomato sauce, some heavily stuffed and others surprisingly simple. It’s the…
Venetian Sweet and Sour Sardines (Sarde in Saor)
We ate Sarde in Saor standing at a little bacaro in Venice, spritz in hand, picking up silky sweet-and-sour sardines with tiny forks while people spilled into the laneway around us. It was one of those perfect travel food moments where something simple becomes unforgettable. If you’ve never had it before, Sarde in Saor is…
Nonna’s Italian Cabbage Salad
I almost talked myself out of putting this recipe on the blog. After all, it’s shredded cabbage dressed with olive oil, white vinegar and salt. Hardly groundbreaking. But then I remembered how often this bowl appeared on our family table — and how often it was one of the first things to disappear. That’s the…
Eggplant Parmigiana (Melanzane alla Parmigiana Recipe)
The first time I ate proper eggplant parmigiana in Italy, I remember thinking: what have they done to this? The eggplant was silky and rich, the tomato sauce deeply flavoured, and the cheese used with a much lighter hand than many versions I’d tried before. Instead of feeling heavy, the whole dish felt balanced —…
Mushroom Ragù
This mushroom ragù is rich, slow-cooked and deeply savoury — the kind of sauce that feels comforting without being heavy. Built using classic Italian technique, it relies on finely chopped mushrooms, olive oil, red wine and time to create depth and body. Rather than slicing the mushrooms, they’re chopped finely and cooked down slowly, allowing…
Traditional Carbonara
If there’s one pasta dish that’s endlessly misunderstood outside Italy, it’s carbonara. Creamy versions with bacon, garlic or onions are everywhere, but in Rome, carbonara is something else entirely — eggs, extra yolks, guanciale, pecorino, black pepper and pasta water. That’s it. This kind of cooking — where flavour comes from restraint rather than extra…
Clear-Out-the-Fridge Frittata
This is the frittata I make when I need to use things up before they go bad. A half capsicum, a few mushrooms, some asparagus that’s been sitting in the crisper a bit too long, good eggs from the markets — it all goes into one pan and gets finished under the grill. Sometimes I…
Tuna Crudo Recipe with Olive Oil & Lemon
This tuna crudo recipe is a simple way to serve fresh tuna with olive oil, lemon and a few sharp, salty elements for contrast. I’ve been thinking about doing a tuna crudo for a long time. It’s one of those dishes that feels deceptively simple, but only really works when the fish is excellent and…