Lesson Transcript

Hello everyone, welcome back to ItalianPod101.com.
My name is Desy.
Mi chiamo Desy.
And in this video we're going to talk about three easy Italian recipes.
Tre facili ricette italiane.
Now, ricetta is the word for recipe, but be careful because this is also the word that you use
for the prescription of medicines and drugs.
So, ricetta can either be given by your doctor so that you can bring it to the pharmacy
to get your medicines or it is about food.
Ricetta di cucina.
Kitchen recipe.
First one, caprese.
Of course, it comes from Capri, the island, and with this word there's also a recipe of a cake,
chocolate cake, which is really good, but it's not that easy and it's not the one that we're talking about.
I'm talking about insalata caprese.
So, caprese salad or mozzarella caprese.
There are many ways to call it, but anyway, it is mozzarella,
pomodoro, tomato, and basilico, basilico, basil.
And then of course, olio, oil, origano, sale, all the seasoning that you want.
Apparently, this recipe was born in Capri in 1920 when the poet Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti,
who was of the movement Futurism, made a critic to Naples' Cuisine saying that it was too fat
and always fried, so the chef just used these elements raw and made a delicious plate.
Today, you can also find these on sticks, so mozzarella, tomato, and so on,
but the thing is you should take a mozzarella.
Sgocciolare la mozzarella.
Sgocciolare or scolare, which is also what you use with pasta when you basically remove the water,
so you drain it.
Sgocciolare la mozzarella or actually you can even dab it with a cloth, so tamponare,
so that it gets drier, but not too much, because you still want it to be really juicy, right?
You just don't want to be watery.
So you take the mozzarella, you do this thing, and then you cut it in slices, actually really thin,
and you do the same with the tomatoes, and then you just put them layered on the plate,
not on top of each other, one next to the other, and in between you put some basil,
so you will find actually the Italian flag, because it's going to be white, red, and green, right?
And then you season it, and you eat everything raw, it's really fresh,
and it's really popular in summer.
One of my favorites as well, here the secret is to use fresh ingredients,
and I would say, if possible, Italian ones.
Number two, carbonara.
Everyone knows pasta carbonara.
It seems that carbonara was born in 1944, when an American soldier used ingredients that he had,
and a lot of fantasy.
In fact, he used eggs, cheese, and bacon, which nowadays is guanciale.
Guanciale.
So in the beginning it was bacon, but then we just had guanciale,
I mean we didn't have guanciale and pancetta, but anyway, be careful here,
what we use is guanciale.
There are several versions, but the traditional one wants the guanciale in it.
What's guanciale?
It's the cheek of the pig, basically.
In fact, guancia means cheek.
Pay attention though, because guanciale may also mean pillow,
and it also comes from the fact that it's really soft anyway.
So as I was saying, there are many versions, even with different cheese,
like for example cream, panna, or parmigiano, parmesan,
but the traditional one wants pecorino cheese, pecorino.
So you have to dice the guanciale, tagliare a cubetti,
where cubo is dice, or dado even, and cubetti are small ones.
After you have it on your fry pan, you want to keep it there,
and just add it at the very last, so that it keeps the crunchiness that you want.
In fact, you have to take the yolk, so just the tuorlo dell'uovo,
the yellow part, mix it together with pecorino cheese,
and then put it on the strained pasta, and only at that point you can add the guanciale.
Actually, you're supposed to mix the pasta in the pan where you fried the guanciale.
Don't forget black pepper, pepe nero,
and yes, you can use spaghetti, which is the most common one, spaghetti,
but actually in Rome you will find it with short pasta as well.
For example, rigatoni, so try many versions and let me know which one is your favorite.
Number three, polpette, meatballs.
This is not actually Italian, like 100%, because meatballs are everywhere,
and each country has its own recipe,
but I feel like meatballs have a big place in the Italian cuisine.
Just don't put it necessarily with spaghetti, because we don't actually do that.
You may find some pasta and it's cooked in the oven with really small meatballs,
but it's not the big ones, okay?
Anyway, in order to make polpette, you want to find some minced meat,
and put it together with mollica di pane,
or pane raffermo, so either breadcrumbs, the inside of the bread,
or stale bread, old one, let's say.
So you put that in milk so that it softens.
Then you squeeze it, lo strizzi, strizzare is to squeeze,
strizzi la mollica dal latte, so you squeeze it and take the milk latte,
away, then you put it together with meat and eggs.
Some people use it inside, some people use it just on the outside,
but anyway then you season it, for example you use parsley, prezzemolo,
pepe, sale, black pepper and salt, but also noce moscata, not mad.
Some people also put mortadella and salsiccia,
sausages, or anyway leftovers in general, avanzi, leftovers.
Then you put some more bread on the outside, but this one is a grated bread,
we call it pane grattugiato, so that it's not super sticky, right?
And then you can either fry them in the pan or cook them in the oven,
so bake them, which would be less fat, I'd say,
and then either you eat it like that or you add the sugo, the sauce,
sugo al pomodoro, tomato sauce, and some people also make the vegetarian version,
so for example with eggplant, melanzane, melanzane or zucchine.
So yeah, those were three easy Italian recipes that I hope you'll try
and let me know in the comments how it went and what you liked the most.
Also, if you haven't done it yet, you can sign up for your free lifetime account
on italianpod101.com in order to learn Italian in the fastest,
easiest and most fun way possible.
Thank you for watching, I'll see you soon. Ciao ciao, bye bye!

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