Coratella alla Marchigiana is a lamb offal dish with white wine and herbs from the Marche region of central Italy and then finished with beaten egg and grated pecorino (a hard, salty sheep’s milk cheese). The offal used is the full pluck of a young lamb – heart, lungs, liver,…

Orata alla ligure is a dish of pan-fried sea bream fillets with Taggiasca olives and toasted pine nuts, served with potatoes. It is one of the characteristic fish preparations of the Liguria coast. The dish is built on two ingredients that define the region’s cooking: olive taggiasche (Taggiasca olives, small…

Spaghetti mare e monti is a pasta dish of squid and wild mushrooms – two ingredients that come from opposite ends of the Marche landscape. Marche’s Adriatic coastline and the Apennine hills sit within an hour and a half of each. And this dish is a great example of…

Ciambotto is the fish stew of Puglia’s Gargano coast — the one that’s been on the tables of Vieste, Manfredonia, and Peschici for as long as the fishing boats have gone out. Twenty-two kilometres offshore, the same dish turns up on almost every restaurant menu across the Tremiti Islands.…

Ragu alla marchigiana (Marche-style meat ragù) is a slow-cooked sauce. You make it by combining three meats – minced beef, minced pork, and chicken giblets. Then you cook it in a tomato base with white wine and a small bunch of herbs. And as the name suggests, it comes…

Orate all’Anconetana (Ancona style sea bream) is whole sea bream, marinated in white wine and herbs, then grilled over charcoal and served with a cold sauce made from anchovies, hard-boiled egg, bread soaked in vinegar, garlic, and olive oil. It’s a lovely summer dish and perfect for the BBQ.…

Calamari in zimino is a calamari and chard stew from the Ligurian coast. Squid rings cook slowly with chard, white wine and tomato. The base is a soffritto of onion, celery, garlic and parsley. As it cooks, the chard breaks down and the sauce thickens. You finish with maggiorana (marjoram) and serve with…

Guanciale Central Italy’s Cured Pork Cheek Guanciale is Italian cured pork cheek. It’s salt-cured with black pepper and spices, then hung to age for at least 30 days. The result is a rough triangle of dense fat with a seam of deep red-pink meat running through it, roughly…

Abbacchio alla cacciatora is a Roman lamb stew from Lazio, cooked on the stovetop with garlic, rosemary, sage, white wine, and white wine vinegar. What makes it distinctively Roman is the anchovy paste which you stirr into the pan juices near the end. The anchovies dissolve completely. There is…

Trippa alla fiorentina (Florentine tripe) is beef tripe slow-cooked in tomato sauce and finished with Parmigiano Reggiano.. Soffritto, tripe, tomatoes, Parmigiano. The sauce should be thick and sticky, and not watery. And the cheese is stirred in stirred in off the heat to stop it going stringy. Florence takes…