Cuisines
Italian recipes
Few ingredients, treated well.
16 recipes
Baked Lasagne
Ragu and béchamel layered thin between dried pasta sheets, baked until the top blisters and rested so it cuts into squares.
Classic Margherita Pizza
Three toppings, nothing hidden — this is the pizza that shows whether your dough is any good.
Herbed Farro Salad
Farro boiled loose in salted water like pasta, dressed while it is still hot, then packed with three soft herbs.
Pork and Fennel Meatballs
Pork mince bound with a milk and bread panade and toasted fennel seed, browned in a pan and finished in tomato sauce.
Potato Gnocchi with Sage Butter
Baked potatoes riced while hot and bound with as little flour as they will take, which is the difference between light gnocchi and bullets.
Slow-Cooked Beef Ragu
Coarse beef mince browned in batches then held at a bare simmer for three hours, finished in the pan with the pasta.
Vanilla Panna Cotta
Cream set with just enough gelatine to hold its shape for a moment on the plate and then slump under the first spoon.
Mushroom Risotto
Carnaroli rice cooked in stock a ladle at a time and beaten with butter at the end, so it spreads on the plate rather than sitting in a heap.
Braised White Beans with Sage
Dried beans soaked in salted water and held at a bare simmer, so the skins stay whole and the liquor turns silky.
No-Knead Sourdough Focaccia
A slow sourdough focaccia fermented overnight in the fridge, dimpled deep so the pockets fill with olive oil and flaky salt.
Basil Pesto
Basil, pine nuts, garlic and cheese pounded to a coarse sauce, kept cold throughout so the leaves stay green instead of bruising brown.
Simple Tomato Sauce
Tinned tomatoes crushed by hand and cooked slowly with garlic until the oil splits back out, which is when the sauce is done.
Spaghetti alla Puttanesca
A store-cupboard sauce of anchovies, olives, capers and chilli melted into tomato, salty enough that it needs no cheese and barely any salt.
Spaghetti Carbonara
Guanciale, egg yolk and pecorino brought together off the heat into a glossy sauce, with no cream anywhere near the pan.
Cacio e Pepe
Spaghetti in a sauce of nothing but pecorino, black pepper and starchy pasta water, emulsified off the heat so it stays smooth.
Minestrone
A chunky vegetable soup built on a slow soffritto, with beans and small pasta simmered in the broth so it thickens as it stands.