Fast and Fresh: Recipes from Northern Italy

By Giovanni Gaudio

Learn to make recipes from Northern Italy with Chef Giovanni Gaudio’s easy-to-use cookbook. Recipes include bruschetta, antipasti, salads, pasta, meats and desserts with simple instructions. Pick and choose recipes throughout the cookbook to create a simple meal for two, a multi-course dinner party or a delicious salad after work. Chef Giovanni guides you through easy instructions to help you make meals with quality ingredients. This is a great cookbook for beginners who want to learn about the basics for making simple Italian recipes, but also great for more seasoned home cooks who are interested in recipes from Northern Italy and creative cuisine using fresh ingredients.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outfox Digital Publishing
• Release date: Jul 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781498920117

Book preview

This book is dedicated to my mother, Diana, who inspired me to study, learn and travel to the source; and to my father, John, for believing in me through all of my endeavors. To Noni Boninni, who taught me to make my first ravioli and other Tuscan dishes. To my Noni Gaudio who introduced me to the cuisine of Piedmont. And to my wife and son, who have been by my side in this culinary adventure.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Kitchen Essentials

How this Cookbook is Organzied

Bruschetta

Antipasti

Insalate

Primi

Secondi

Dolci

About the Author

Introduction

I grew up in an Italian home in Northern California. My grandparents came from the regions of Tuscany and Piedmont, offering me two prolific food cultures from which to develop my own culinary philosophy and interpretation of good Italian food. From Tuscany, the rustic element: beans, soups, and homemade salami. From Piedmont, the refined element: pasta with white truffles, roasted veal in tuna sauce,and fennel sformati finished with a delicate gorgonzola cream. Experiencing both of these regional cuisines helped me to develop a simple, yet refined approach to cooking.

But it wasn’t just a genetic disposition that led me down my culinary path;it was a part of my immediate family culture. My father’s parents were bootleggers in California during prohibition. They took their money and headed to San Francisco where they bought a house on Bay Street and opened a deli and bakery. At some point, my parents settled in Sacramento, where I spent my early childhood in the Italian section of town. And like most Italian-American families, we spent Sunday dinners at my grandmother’s home (Noni Boninni as we affectionately called her). It was here I was surrounded by lush gardens, small wildlife who knew where to find a good snack and an abundance of family, food and wine. The basis for the cuisine was the use of fresh and seasonal ingredients.And keeping recipes simple. Italians wouldn’t have it any other way. This upbringing became an integral part of who I was, but I just wasn’t yet sure how it would express itself through me.

I managed to incorporate my culinary roots in interesting ways in the early part of my adulthood. First, by exploring the Alaskan wilderness for six years, living completely off the land and hunting for my food in isolation in the back country. I became a skilled hunter, butcher and ‘wildlife’ chef during my time there, developing a sixth sense for the world around me, connecting to the natural world and the changing seasons. I eventually left the wilderness and carved out a career as a doctor of Oriental medicine, setting up a successful acupuncture practice in New Mexico. This experience again solidified my developing expertise in understanding the relationship between quality food and overall well-being. It was during my time as a doctor that I began studying with well-known chefs and indigenous people from other places and cultures around the world, so it was only natural that I would eventually return to cooking full-time.

For the past ten years I have been traveling to Italy for extensive research on the cuisine of the northern regions; spending time in Italian restaurant kitchens, cooking with food historians, grandmas and food artisans. I started an epicurean tour company devoted to educating serious foodies, bringing them to tour the food and wine regions of Northern Italy. I then opened Bocconato Trattoria, a restaurant in Northern California dedicated to celebrating the dishes of these same regions of Italy. It was here, in the foothills of the Sierra-Nevada, that I had access to local farmers and their bountiful crops. I was truly inspired.Whatever was in season and in abundance that day or week was incorporated into my ever-changing menu.

I spent nearly four years feeding customers at my restaurant, but I really missed the opportunity to teach people what I knew about food. Outside of conducting my epicurean tours to Italy, I felt I needed to create a culinary classroom-In a physical sense, in my home teaching-kitchen and in a virtual sense, through digital cookbooks and video instruction. What became immediately clear to me, in all my years of teaching, is how important it is to offer very simple