Let’s learn today a traditional and authentic Naga style pork recipe. An easy and simple recipe which anyone can master it with the right ingredients in hand.

Pork is one of the intregal part in the life of the Nagas. No festival or occasion is complete without pork dishes. This is an authentic pork dish of Nagaland. It is zero oil dish.

Naga Cuisine uses very limited spices and mostly the dishes are boiled and zero oil dishes. This dish is also prepared using very few ingredients.

This is a delicious and exotic pork curry with amazing aroma and flavor cooked with simple ingredients and simple cooking technique. Enjoy it with piping hot steam rice along with chutneys and boiled vegetables and side dishes. That’s how the Nagas relish their meal. So simple, healthy eating and soulful.

Pork With Bamboo ShootandSmoked Pork Curryare very famous in naga…

Vitello Tonnato first began appearing in cook books in the 19th century because Piedmont was allied with Liguria where tuna was canned along the coast.

At this time, also, lemons and capers from Sicily and a variety of olive oils from the rest of Italy started to arrive in Piedmont and the tonnato sauce was born because the tuna was simply another ingredient in this sauce.

With the Piedmontese love of very young meat, like the veal, this dish was just waiting to happen. This is great for entertaining because the sauce can be made a day in advance and the meat can simply be popped in the oven when you get home.

Caponata is a Sicilian appetizer that is made from eggplant, and since eggplant season is almost over, I decided to share with you Nonna Sara’s recipe. Throughout Sicily, there are countless variations of Caponata, some with octopus, seafood or with pinenuts and raisins, but Nonna’s recipe adds potatoes and bell peppers, which is what I grew up on and is my standard for a delicious Caponata.

My favorite way to eat it is by toasting some ciabatta bread slices and piling some room temperature Caponata on top of each slice.

Let?s dive into the history of this delicious Sicilian Appetizer.

What is Caponata?

Greeks, Normans, Carthaginians, Arabs, Spaniards and the French have dominated Sicily over the centuries, influencing and gradually enriching the local cuisine.

If you add to this mix of cultures the products of the sea, you can easily guess the reason for its unique cuisine.

It is…

Pizza is a widespread food in cuisines across the world. However, in every country, every region and even in every town, what ?pizza? means may vary.

One area may prefer a ticker crust while other opts for thinner. Some places put cheese on before sauce, and others might skip sauce all together.

However, if you are looking for an authentic Sicilian Pizza, then you are looking for Sfincione. Let?s take a look at this delicious, specialty pizza.

History of Sfincione

Various kinds of rustic breads, loaded with topping and typically a tomato-based sauce, were common in Italy out of a need to prepare long-lasting foods that were easy to take from home.

Sicilian pizza was developed to fill the need (and the bellies) of workers for a meal that would fuel them throughout the day. Sfincione started in just such a way.

It was inexpensive, easy to make and…

Passata di pomodoro is an Italian staple. You have likely heard of it or used it without even knowing! Tomato passata is something any chef should be familiar with, and the history behind it is also worth knowing.

It is indeed part of Italian culture, not merely a kitchen necessity.

What is Tomato Passata?

At its core, tomato passata is simply a tomato puree. However, true passata di pomodoro is a little more complicated than just pureed tomatoes.

There are a few characteristics that define tomato passata and set it apart from basic tomato puree. At first, tomato passata is strained through a sieve to remove the seeds from the puree. This extra step isn?t always present when making a tomato puree.

Also, passata is never cooked but always bottled or used in its uncooked form. Tomato puree, on the other hand, is often cooked before canning or…

I’ve seen this on the menu at several restaurants, all slightly different – grilled shrimp, fried shrimp, broiled shrimp, for example – but, the one thing that seems to stay the same is the bang bang sauce.

I knew that the bang bang sauce had mayonnaise (I know that seems odd for pasta, but trust me, it’s good!), sweet chili sauce and sriarcha. I decided to add a little garlic, red pepper flakes and a little bit of lime juice to mine.

Another thing that I’ve seen varied is the type of pasta. I chose to add linguine. To me – spaghetti is too thin to really ‘hold’ the sauce and short pastas just don’t seem ‘right’ to me. So linguine it was!

Since I was cooking just for myself (probably for my lunch and my dinner), I decided to make this recipe a ‘for two’ (or 1 really hungry…

While I would much prefer to have fresh shrimp, living inland doesn’t really allow for that very much.

Luckily, you can buy deveined and already peeled shrimp in the freezer section of your grocery store. Not as good as fresh (but cheaper than the ‘just thawed out, because you don’t live at the beach’ shrimp they sell for twice as much at the meat counter, making people think they are getting ‘fresh’ shrimp – you’re really just getting previously frozen, conveniently defrosted, shrimp if you live inland. That said, I will buy the frozen version and thaw it myself – saving at least 50% of the cost of the shrimp!

I try to keep some shrimp in the freezer for nights just like tonight – when I don’t have any other protein already thawed for dinner. Shrimp is easy to defrost at home. I put mine in a colander and…

Go on, if you have a moment, click on the link below, featuring Fred Astaire and Ginger Astaire singing a famous Gershwin song — but let’s not do as its title suggests … which is : Let’s call it off.

Speaking for myself, I would never ever ‘call off’ the humble potato so I am always amazed at the amount of people who just don’t see the point of a potato, denigrating this marvellous tuber as a ‘senseless’ vegetable.  Life without potatoes would be very sad for me, I even like them plain, just boiled with a bit of olive oil or butter over them.  I reckon Ernest Heminway had a lot to do with people (especially women) fearing potatoes as the most calory-laden food out there.  His heroine Maria in “For Whom the Bell Tolls” speaks out against the fattening danger of potatoes.  Heminway’s novel was a best seller…