Memorie di Angelina

Memorie di Angelina Italian Home Cooking Made Easy

These delightful cookies called serpette or ‘Little Snakes’ are from Domenica Marchetti’s superb new cookbook, Italian ...
30/05/2026

These delightful cookies called serpette or ‘Little Snakes’ are from Domenica Marchetti’s superb new cookbook, Italian Cookies.

Being a non-baker, my knowledge of the cookies is pretty much limited to a few of the ‘greatest hits’ like cantucci, mostaccioli and, of course, Angelina’s taralli dolci, which in our family we used to call ‘Nana’s cookies’. I had a lot to learn, so when I heard Domenica had just published a book on the subject, you know I snapped it up immediately. And ever since I’ve been practically devouring the recipes in this fascinating book, no doubt the most comprehensive treatment of the subject you’ll find in English.

With Domenica’s kind permission, I’m sharing with you one of her recipes.* It was a difficult choice, as there are quite a few I want to try out. Of course, it had to be something I hadn’t blogged about before. And something easy enough for a neophyte baker like me to pull off.

When I stumbled on serpette, I knew I’d hit pay dirt. The recipe comes from from my erstwhile hometown of Rome, or more precisely from the hilltop town of Monte Porzio Catone in the nearby Castelli Romani, an area perhaps best known for Castel Gandolfo, the Pope’s summer residence, and to foodies for Ariccia’s excellent porchetta. It’s also home to some gorgeous white wines. But I digress…

Serpette remind me quite a bit of the taralli dolci Angelina used to make, though serpette are rather more delicate as they are enriched with butter rather than oil, and scented with orange and lemon zest rather than anisette. And of course, rather than rings or twists, serpette are formed into a snake-ish S shape that lends them their name. Light and crumbly, sweet but not too sweet, they are definitely my kind of cookie!

Like my Nana’s cookies, serpette are delicious on their own, but even better enjoyed “inzuppate”—dunked in coffee or a sweet wine, classically the local Cannellino di Frascati.

It’s been years since I’ve made a sformato. Hard to say why. A sformato is one of the most versatile dishes imaginable. ...
23/05/2026

It’s been years since I’ve made a sformato. Hard to say why. A sformato is one of the most versatile dishes imaginable. You can make it out of just about any vegetable (and not only vegetables) and serve it for just about any course, on just about any occasion, from the most casual of meals to the fanciest of dinners. And to top it off, aside from a little prep work, a sformato super easy to make.

If you’re not aware, a sformato is something like a savory flan. Or perhaps a soufflé without the puff. The basic recipe could hardly be simpler—you make a batter of puréed or finely minced or diced main ingredient, typically but not always a vegetable, mixed with béchamel and eggs, then bake it until set.

Practically any vegetable you fancy is fair game for sformato making, so you can serve it all year round: peas or asparagus in the spring, zucchini or green beans in the summer, pumpkin or mushrooms in the autumn or winter, and so on. For this week’s post I decided I’d make a sformato di spinaci. Spinach makes an especially fine sformato, as its flavor lends itself beautifully to pairing with cheese and béchamel. These days you can find spinach all year long, but with fresh young spinach is in the markets—but not for long—now’s the perfect time for sformato di spinaci.

Classically, a sformato is baked in a loaf or ring pan and served unmolded, then sliced and sometimes napped with a sauce. (Hence the name, which means ‘unmolded’.) Served like this, it makes an elegant antipasto fit for the fanciest dinner party. Back in the day, in fact, it was often served this way as an intermezzo between the first and second courses during extravagant multicourse banquets. These days it could also be a light vegetable-centric main course.

But for everyday cooking, it’s not uncommon to bake a sformato in baking dish or cassrole and then serve it by the spoonful directly from its cooking vessel. In this homey incarnation, a sformato can serve also as a side dish, though admittedly a rather rich one, best reserved for accompanying simply roasted or gilled meats or fish.

You’ll find a link to the recipe in the comments below!

When I think of the food of Puglia, the region of Italy my grandfather Lorenzo hailed from, my mind goes to immaculately...
16/05/2026

When I think of the food of Puglia, the region of Italy my grandfather Lorenzo hailed from, my mind goes to immaculately fresh seafood, handcrafted pastas and gorgeous fruits and vegetables, and of course the wonderfully fruity olive oil the region produces.

But Puglia is no slouch in the meat department, either. I won’t soon forget my first encounter with bombette pugliesi during a recent trip to Puglia. Literally meaning “little bombs”, these delicious parcels of pork filled with pancetta, caciocavallo cheese and minced garlic and parsley, then grilled until golden brown, really do live up to their name. They virtually explode with flavor in your mouth.

Bombette are an absolute must try for your next trip to Puglia. Gastronomically they are perhaps most closely associated with the town of Martina Franca and the surrounding Valle d’Itra, about an hour’s drive south from Bari. But their popularity means you can find them elsewhere in the region—I had my introduction to bombette in Lecce—and indeed all over the country.

That said, there’s no need to wait until your next trip to experience this little flavor bombs. The recipe for bombette is really quite simple to make at home, involving just a handful of ingredients. Now that grilling season is here, it’s the perfect time to give them a try. And if you don’t have a grill, no worries. You can make these in the oven or on the stovetop as well.

The classic cut of meat used for making bombette is the capocollo, the same neck cut used to make the eponymous cured cold cut, another specialty of Martina Franca. It’s usually called pork collar or coppa in English. Pork shoulder butt, from just next to the neck, makes a decent subsitute.

You’ll find a link to the recipe in the comments below!

I have fond memories of May Days in Rome. If the weather cooperates, as it usually does, it’s a time for the year’s firs...
02/05/2026

I have fond memories of May Days in Rome. If the weather cooperates, as it usually does, it’s a time for the year’s first picnic fuori porta, literally ‘outside the gate’ meaning outside town. Romans will pick up and find any green spot to set out their picnic lunch. Even city parks if they can’t manage to get out of the town.

When we were living in the center of town, close to the Campo de’ fiori, we’d often go up the Gianicolo, a high hill just across the river with a lovely view of the city, for our May Day picnics. When we moved to a country setting on the outskirts, we could just sit outside on the terrace. And we would often come across strangers picnicking just down the hill from our house!

The contents of our picnic basket would vary, but there was one item that never failed to make an appearance: fave e pecorino, or raw fava beans and pecorino. Not really a proper dish at all, you just set out the fava beans, still in their pods, and a hunk of pecorino cheese. Each picnicker opens the pods for themselves and eats the raw fava beans they find inside with a bit of pecorino, washed down with a well-chilled dry white wine, preferably a crisp Frascati from the nearby Alban Hills. Odd as it may sound at first, once you try it, you realize it’s a combination that was just meant to be.

This week’s featured dish, pasta con guanciale fave e pecorino, uses this classic duo as a dressing for pasta, supported by a flavor base of guanciale, the quintessentially Roman cured pork jowl that turns up in just about every iconic Roman pasta (other than cacio e pepe).

There are are a few different ways to prepare pasta con guanciale fave e pecorino. The following recipe is the one I think is probably the crowd pleaser, as it produces a proper sauce. And since in this recipe the fava beans are puréed, you can dispense with the rather tedious task of peeling the fava beans

You’ll find a link to the recipe in the comments below!

Seppie con piselli in umido is a traditional Roman dish pairing cuttlefish with peas braised in tomato sauce. Strange as...
25/04/2026

Seppie con piselli in umido is a traditional Roman dish pairing cuttlefish with peas braised in tomato sauce. Strange as it may seem, squid and peas were made for each other. The sweetness of peas sets off the brinyness of squid perfectly, and the savoriness of a tomato sauce brings it all together nicely.

The recipe follows the typical pattern for countless Italian braises. You start, as usual, with a flavor base or soffritto. It’s a supremely simple one of onion—which helps accentuate the sweetness of the peas—sautéed in olive oil, to which I sometimes add a tiny bit of garlic for savor. Then in goes the cut up cuttlefish to mingle with the aromatics for a few minutes, followed by a splash of white wine, which you cook off before adding tomato, either a lot or just a bit as you prefer. Or, for that matter, none at all. Then you cover the pot and let the cuttlefish braise gently until tender. The peas go towards the end of cooking and simmer until they’re done.

It’s an iterative process that layers flavor upon flavor, balancing savory and sweet notes to produce a harmonious whole. And yet, it all come together in less than an hour.

Since cuttlefish is hard to find where I live, I make this dish with squid, which is a bit less ‘meaty’ than cuttlefish but still works perfectly.

You’ll find a link to the recipe in the comments below.

I recently received a package of fresh bigoli from Verona. That was cause for celebration since bigoli, the signature. p...
18/04/2026

I recently received a package of fresh bigoli from Verona. That was cause for celebration since bigoli, the signature. pasta of the Veneto region, is hard to come by where I live, and the fresh kind basically impossible to find. So I knew I had to do something special with them. The best known way to dress bigoli is in salsa—with an onion and anchovy sauce—but that I had made many times. I decided to try another classic preparation, bigoli con ragù d’anatra, bigoli dressed with a duck ragù.

The dish, called bigoi co’ l’arna in the local dialect, was originally a kind of piatto antispreco—a by product of boiled duck meant to use parts of the bird that might otherwise be thrown away. While duck itself was served as a second course with sauces such as the local favorite pearà, the giblets were chopped up and sautéed in butter as a sauce for a first course of bigoli, which were cooked in the duck’s cooking broth.

Well here’s a contemporary take on the dish I suspect would be more appealing to modern tastes. You take your duck, skin it and bone it, then mince the meat. Using the rendered skin as your cooking fat, you sauté the minced meat with a soffritto of aromatic vegetables and then braise them, either with or without a bit of tomato, for a couple of hours until it all turns into a rich, intensely flavorful sauce. Meanwhile you make a broth from the bones for thinning the sauce and boiling the pasta.

It’s a dish that, like its ancestor, doesn’t waste a thing. And tastes intensely of duck. Fresh bigoli have a rough texture and chewy texture, perfect for catching and absorbing this rich sauce. In this version of the dish, you lose your second course, but you won’t miss it. It can serve easily as a one dish meal, or a hefty first course before a light second.

You’ll find a link to the recipe in the comments below.

Truth is I don’t have much of a sweet tooth. In our house dessert usually consists of nothing more than a piece of fruit...
11/04/2026

Truth is I don’t have much of a sweet tooth. In our house dessert usually consists of nothing more than a piece of fruit, sometimes—especially in the cooler months— accompanied by one or more cheeses.

But when I’m having company, or just in the mood for something more elaborate, I often turn to fruit based desserts. And here’s one that I particularly enjoy, a crostata ai frutti di bosco or Mixed Berry Tart. It comes in three delicious layers: a bottom crust of pasta frolla (short pastry) a filling of crema pasticcera (pastry cream) and a topping of fresh berries. If you know your way around pasta frolla and crema pasticcera—as any proficient Italian cook should since they are veritable workhorses of Italian dessert cookery—this crostata is quick and easy enough to make on the regular. And yet it makes for such an elegant presentation, especially if you take some care to arrange the berry topping in concentric circles or some other decorative pattern, I wouldn’t hesitate to serve it for company or at an important family meal.

The recipe is also very versatile. You can top this crostata with a single type of berry or a mix of whatever berries you fancy. In fact, you make a crostata di frutta or fruit tart in much the same way. The possiblities are virtually endless!

You’ll find a link to the recipe in the comments below.

Abbacchio al forno con patate, or Oven Roased Lamb and Potatoes, is the quintessential Easter main course in Rome. It’s ...
01/04/2026

Abbacchio al forno con patate, or Oven Roased Lamb and Potatoes, is the quintessential Easter main course in Rome. It’s utterly simple to make but delicious.

You simply cut up baby lamb and potatoes, then toss them with garlic, rosemary, olive oil and salt and pepper. Laid on a baking dish or sheet and drizzled with a bit of white wine, it all goes into a moderate oven for 45 minutes to an hour. If you have the time, it’s a nice idea to marinate the lamb overnight, as it enhances the flavor and tenderizes the meat, but that’s totally optional.

The only real challenge to reproducing this Roman classic is finding the abbacchio or baby lamb. It’s basically impossible where I live now, and indeed difficult to find even in outside central Italy. I make do with bone in shoulder chops cut into serving pieces, which at least approximates the mouth feel if not the sweet delicate taste of the original.

Even with that substitution, I love abbachio al forno con patate. It’s a great choice for Easter dinner if you’re serving a smaller group, as you can scale it up or down for the number of guests. But it’s a fine choice for lamb lovers any time you feel like something toothsome you call pull off with minimal effort.

Many recipes for asparagus highlight the elegant slender form. Asparagi all’agro, asparagus served whole with a lemon an...
28/03/2026

Many recipes for asparagus highlight the elegant slender form. Asparagi all’agro, asparagus served whole with a lemon and oil dressing, or asparagi alla milanese—perhaps the best known asparagus dish in Italian cookery, come to mind. In today’s post, however, I want to share with you a more home style way to prepare asparagus, one that is sure to win your heart, frittelle di asparagi. or Asparagus Fritters. As the saying goes, fritte son bone anche le scarpe–even a shoe tastes good when it’s fried. And that goes for asparagus, too.

The recipe is simplicity itself. You steam or boil the asparagus, chop it up and mix it with an egg batter, which you fry in spoonfuls until golden brown. It’s something you can throw together in well under 30 minutes. And if you make the batter ahead, it only takes literally seconds to fry these frittelle up when you’re ready to eat.

Frittelle di asparagi make a lovely home style antipasto or savory finger food for enjoying with a glass of wine or cocktails before dinner. In large batches they could even serve as a vegetable based main course. They would also be right at home as part of a fritto misto.

If I had to name one food that best typifies Lent, the 40 day period of fasting when Catholics would traditionally absta...
21/03/2026

If I had to name one food that best typifies Lent, the 40 day period of fasting when Catholics would traditionally abstain from meat and other rich foods, it would without a doubt be baccalà, called salt cod in English.

Once a poor man’s food, Italian cookery—the traditional kind at least—is replate with all sorts of ways of preparing it.

Here’s yet another way to prepare baccalà, this one from Naples: baccalà con i peperoni, a particularly toothsome pairing of salt cod with roasted bell peppers. You fry fillets of salt cod until golden brown, then braise them with strips of roasted pepper in a simple tomato sauce for just a few minutes, until everyting gets acquainted.

At today’s prices, salt cod is no longer a poor man’s dish. But even if it’s become an occasional treat, baccalà still has a special place on my table, because it’s absolutely delicious.

And if baccalà is not your thing, no worries. The recipe works beautifully with fresh cod fillets or, for that matter, any other fish that tempts you.

You’ll find a link to the recipe in the comments below.

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