If you were to have just one Italian cookbook in your kitchen, then this one by Anna del Conte would be a great choice. Amaretto, Apple Cake and Artichokes (published by Vintage, RRP £12) is one of those books that you turn to again and again. It's crammed with information about Italian food, and the recipes aren't just inspiring - they're also easy to follow and un-intimidating.
Ingredients
Different chapters in the book are devoted to different ingredients: pasta, rice, meat and poultry, vegetables, fish, fruit, and cheese. And as well as tips on how to prepare these ingredients, Anna del Conte enlivens the recipes with anecdotes, reminiscences and historical details. She tells you, for example, that Gorgonzola is thought to date from Roman times; that the emperor Nero loved truffles and used to call them the ‘food of the gods’; and that poor people in northern Italy used to use walnut oil, rather than olive oil, as it was cheaper. Anna del Conte also contradicts a lot of other cookery writers by saying that pasta should not be well drained - instead you should just tip the cooked (al dente) pasta into a large colander, shake the colander a couple of times, then turn it out while the pasta is still wet and slippery.
Using seasonal produce
Anna del Conte comes from Milan and learned her craft in the kitchen of the family home. She stresses the importance of fresh ingredients and also the use of seasonal foods. A glut of plums in late summer can be used up by making ‘plums in wine syrup with rosemary and spices’; early spring dandelion leaves make a lovely fresh salad, and a summertime abundance of rocket (rucola/arugula) can be whizzed up into an easy pesto sauce. Recipes in the book range from traditional dishes such as Milanese ossobuco, creamy saffron risotto and maiale al latte (loin of pork braised in milk) – to more unusual dishes like pasta with butter bean puree, apple cake made with olive oil, and mascarpone ice-cream (good with the plums in red wine, she says).
Historical menus
The last part of Amaretto, Apple Cake and Artichokes contains some regional menus (including a Venetian lunch for 4, a Sicilian dinner for 6 and a hearty Tuscan lunch for 12), followed by some fascinating historical dishes. Anna del Conte has put together several historical menus (like an ‘ancient Roman dinner for 8’) by adapting recipes taken from early cookery books. These included De Re Coquinaria (a Roman cookery book by Apicius), and La Scienza in Cucina e l’Arte di Mangiar Bene (written in the 19th-century by Pellegrino Artusi). Recipes range from Roman roast pork with coriander, to an adaptation of an 18th-century recipe for Italian style mussels.
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