I wore out a couple vinyl copies of that album way back when.
Posted on 03/01/2013 7:11:20 AM PST by US Navy Vet
Rules for Pasta:
Fettucine and Linguini are easy to cook to the point of having toothiness rather than simply being limp and they resemble home made pasta that is rolled out on the table and cut with a knife or round cutter. Spaghetti rarely is served at my domicile and Angel Hair is banned in my house as it is the “Pop Tarts” of pasta. Yuck.
Sauce:
Get Marinara, heat up.
Go through your fridge and pantry and chop up those veggies you think would be good.
Critical move: Do not chop the veggies fine as you find in many commercial applications. If you chop them in different sizes (small to large) each bite you take will be a different taste. I can’t tell you how critical this is. It will make the meal.
Fresh garlic works. Garlic salt works too in a pinch.
Throw in a good deal of red wine after the veggies and let it simmer until the sauce is back to sauce. The best Italian cooks I know use lots of wine. I use lots and I simmer for a good long time to get the taste just so.
Serve and eat.
This is what real Italian tastes and looks like. Throw away the cook books and create something new.
LOL, that’s what my Italian chef father says. To him, eating at OG is unforgivable.
Olive Garden used to be good. Pretty darn good for a chain. The only way I can describe what they did is, the sauces became heavy glop.
Agreed Carrabas is very good, Sicilian too. About as good as you can find other than a great family restaurant.
“This is what real Italian tastes and looks like. Throw away the cook books and create something new.”
We have a few Italian cookbooks in the house, but these days I never look at them. After making a handful of dishes by the book, I gained enough confidence to wing it.
One of the beauties of Italian cuisine, IMO, is that it doesn’t rely heavily on technique. If your ingredients are good, your food will be as well.
As far as technique-dependent food, last Sunday I took my first crack at French food (coq au vin, to be specific). Now I remember why I shied away from French cuisine for so long! It turned out quite delicious, especially the sauce, but I spent over two hours making it.
“Hey, what do I know? I’m only part Italian.”
I’m German-Slavic but am an honorary Italian due to my love and respect for Northern Italian cooking. I was taught by the grand daughter of a well known five start cook who was from Italy. So I have some of the old country’s knowledge.
Ok, here’s your card back. Your are on Double Secret Probation until I say otherwise.
About your inability to be a made man, Hollywood is apparently convinced that you can be Swedish and be a made man. I guess they could smuggle black market meatballs or ball bearings or sumthin’.
This^^
““toothiness” WHAT IS THAT?”
Toothiness can be described as pasta cooked to the point that it resists your teeth a bit. You can bite down on it and it will be a bit chewy. The best level of toothiness is when your teeth bounce off the pasta.
After you put the pasta in the boiling water (salt doesn’t matter at all) check it about five and a half minutes later by biting down on the pasta after having lifted a piece from the boiling water. Do this until you get the right toothiness and then remove it immediately to the collander or drain it. Put a pat of butter in and stir the pasta a bit and it should be ready.
“Now I remember why I shied away from French cuisine for so long!”
The Northern Italians taught the French how to cook and the French still can’t get it right. Northern Italian rules!
You’re there. Just create and delight your mouth.
Good fresh ingredients are great. We tend to keep a lot of fresh veggies in the fridge for just that reason.
Correct. Back in 2000 they changed the way the majority of their dishes were made. They used to have an outstanding Alfredo sauce but after the 2000 change it was just not even close to being the same, and I noticed other dishes were of much lower quality than before the change.
I think I’ve visited OG maybe twice since the menu change in 2000 and I have no desire to return. I’m still looking for a very good Alfredo sauce that rivals the one OG had before 2000.
Exactly. In any urban/suburban location where there's an Olive Garden, you will also find several mom & pop Italian restaurants that serve authentic Italian cuisine that is made from family recipes that have been handed down through the generations, for the same price if not less expensive than Olive Garden. I can't understand why anyone would choose a chain restaurant, where the menu and recipes are created by corporate chefs and bean-counters a thousand miles away and then assembled by local cooks from processed, pre-measured, pre-packaged ingredients, when you can go to local place that uses fresh ingredients to make recipes that originate from the chef's ancestors in Italy.
My entrée portion was small enough as it is. No thanks.
Carrabbas is good, but I’ve just had the best lunch I’ve had in a long time at Romano’s Macaroni Grill. Mushroom Ravioli: porcini-stuffed, caramelized onions, marsala cream sauce. Yum.
I wore out a couple vinyl copies of that album way back when.
Cassettes with me........
great sauce is fine, you want it even better, also add extra virgin olive oil, and a couple bay leaves while the alcohol cooks out and the sauce boils down.
a fantastic sauce does away with jar sauce and starts with ingredients you can easily get in season or from can and add your own spices and herbs to.
Nah, but my grandma cooked with lard, butter, salt, sugar, etc, in pretty much everything she made. Heck, one of her recipes that she made all the time was “poor man’s cake”, which was just basically flour and bacon grease. So, if the greedy food companies are manipulating us with these “addictive” ingredients, then my grandmother, and my mother, were doing it first, and God did it even earlier by inventing such substances and making it impossible for us to live without consuming them.
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