Italian recipes

A simple Italian desert, panna cotta is cooked cream with vanilla, topped with a coulis, compote or fresh fruit. This recipe uses a compote made with an assortment of berries, sugar and muscat (or moscato) wine.
 

A recipe for the classic Italian bread, ciabatta. Ciabatta literally meaning slipper, got its name because of its slipper like shape. The bread is made in two steps. In the first one, the 'sponge' is prepared and in the second one, the bread is made using the sponge. The sponge will need to rest for a day so to make ciabatta, you have to start a day ahead.
 

A tasty, low fat salad recipe that is great as a starter or a light main dish. This salad uses cannellini beans, dried or canned, black olives, fresh basil leaves, lemon rind and a simple olive oil based dressing. If you use dried beans, you will have to soak them overnight, and cook them afterwords. Using canned beans will save you the preparation time.
 

A famous Italian salad recipe that uses tomatoes, cucumbers, celery and red onion together with leftover ciabatta bread. Easy to make and healthy, this salad can be served alone, as a light meal or as a starter.
 

A delicious pasta dish using fresh mussels, steamed in white wine and herbs and then cooked with olive oil, garlic, capers and black olives. This dish is extremely easy and fast to prepare, provided you have prepared the mussels.
 

A recipe for a typical Italian pasta salad. This salad can be refrigerated and eaten the next day. Main ingredients are the fussili or farfalle, capers, black olives, tomatoes and basil. The secret in making pasta salads is using fresh, good quality ingredients, a nice dressing and refrigerating the salad for at least 2 hours before serving, so that the flavors develop. A salad dressing for this recipe is included but you can use a ready made Italian dressing if you like
 

An easy spaghetti and garlic shrimp recipe. Use fresh, medium or large sized shrimps for best results.
 

A simple pasta dish using a creamy sauce made with gorgonzola and sweet onions.
 

Chicken cacciatore is a another famous Italian chicken dish with many variations or different versions available worldwide. The basic method is to slow cook chicken pieces in red wine together with vegetables and herbs. This recipe uses, among other ingredients, black olives, capers and fresh basil leaves. The chicken pieces should be cooked slowly, over low heat for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. This might seem a lot, but it is what makes this dish so delicious.
 

Another recipe for Osso buco, an Italian classic veal recipe. Veal shanks are first browned and then slowly cooked in a stock made of vegetables, herbs (oregano, thyme and rosemary) and white wine.