Historically speaking, an osteria was a spartan, no-frills establishment where people would go to have a drink. The original osterias date all the way back to the Roman Empire. If you go to Ostia Antica or Pompeii, you find the osterias of the era. They were like bed-and-breakfasts, with rooms for rent above the dining room where people could listen to music.
Italian food products and cuisine have infiltrated just about every corner of the globe, but nothing compares to trying classic Italian dishes at their source-and there's so much more than pizza, pasta, and gelato. Don't expect to find the same dishes on menus all over the country. From carbonara in Rome to the best street food in Palermo, each Italian region has its own recipes.
Pasta and peas was one of the staple meals my mom made for us growing up. We probably had it at least once a week. She learned the recipe from my grandma Tina, and it was a simple, inexpensive dish to throw together-just pasta and frozen peas cooked with a bit of chicken broth and aromatics topped with grated parm.
Northern Italian cooking is built for long meals, cold weather, and patience, which is exactly the sort of food you want when settling in for hours of competition. From Lombardy and Piedmont to Emilia-Romagna and Liguria, these regions favor slow braises, creamy risottos, rich broths, and breads meant to be torn and shared. Whether you're feeding a crowd or committing to a cozy afternoon
Who doesn't love pasta? When I need a hug-in-a-bowl type of dinner, something cheesy and saucy is always what comes to mind first. Even when I'm thinking about making a special dinner, maybe for a date-night in or a friend coming over, comforting pasta recipes are always top of mind. If you find yourself needing a little something to look forward to at the end of the day, consider making one of these comforting pasta dinners this week. They all pair perfectly with a good
The ravioli-type dish, also known as casunziei all'Ampezzana, consists of homemade half-moon shaped pasta filled with boiled beets, topped with a sauce of melted butter, Parmesan cheese and poppy seeds. It's a simple dish that harks back to the Alpine region's poorer past - long before Cortina transformed into a winter playground for the international jet set. Even in the coldest days of winter, local families had the ingredients in their cupboards.
Start with our cover star, food director Chris Morocco's one-hour bolognese that uses a pantry shortcut, Chinese black bean sauce, to kick up the umami. Then make his Green Chile Puttanesca Pork Chops where jarred jalapenos and guindillos offer buzzy heat and brightness to counterweight the rich meat. Senior Test Kitchen editor Shilpa Uskokovic also shared wintry vegetable dishes that can stand on their own.
Making it onto this list of our best pasta recipes is kind of a big deal. We tried to count how many pasta dishes we've developed over the course of this publication's history-modern mathematics cannot accommodate such a figure. You can imagine how painstaking it was to whittle down this list to just 31 recipes. But, fueled by a second helping of rigatoni alla vodka, we did it.