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The typical dish of Neapolitan cuisine! In Naples in the seventeenth century few products were found cheap and in large quantities such as pasta and potatoes. Pasta and potatoes with the combination of its two carbohydrates was a substantial and energetic dish, perfect for feeding and satipping after a day of work. The pasta used for the preparation of this dish is, as Napoletana tradition wants, mixed pasta. Mixed pasta is a set of different formats of pasta that in Naples is called ‘munnezzaglia’, or pantry leftovers that would otherwise have been wasted. The perfect pasta and potatoes must be ‘azzeccosa’. This term is used to describe the consistency of the dish, which should not be brothy at all but dense and well blended. Guessing the right consistency for a plate of pasta and potatoes is not a small matter in Naples.
In Naples, ‘Genovese’ means ‘the genovese sauce’, that is, the dense sauce that is obtained by cooking with patience and over very slow heat onions and meat. The meat sauce is a particular food, a nourishment of the soul prepared following not so much a recipe but a ritual. In every meat sauce worthy of the name, the true ingredient is time. The meat sauce must simmer for many hours on a very sweet fire. Along with Ragù, Genovese is the pride of Neapolitan cuisine. An early version of the history of the dish states that it would appear to be born in the port of Naples from Genoese sailors. According to other sources, however, the dish was invented by a Neapolitan cook called ‘the Genoese’ in a historic trattoria in Genoa.
The gnocchi alla Sorrento represent one of the most well-known bell dishes in Italy and abroad. This is a very old dish. For those of potatoes, we must go back to the sixteenth century, when the import of potatoes into Europe from America began. The Sorrento version is born with very simple ingredients, those of pizza, tomato and mozzarella. It is said that the real potato dumplings were born in Campania, so much so that there is a legend about it: one day a country abbot, very greedy for gnocchi, made it indigestion, even choking. From here would come the nickname of the dumplings, ‘strangulaprievite’ (strangles -priest ).
Until the nineteenth century in Naples, thanks to the great fantasy that characterises the Neapolitan language, they were called “Madames quattro soldi” precisely because of their low price. The caccopping of pasta and beans, a Neapolitan dish par excellence, with mussels might seem risky, in reality it comes from an ancient tradition. And, as is often the case in Naples for many unusual facts, even this dish retains an aura of legend. The protagonist is Bella ‘Mbriana, one of the many benevolent spirits of the Neapolitan house, with the appearance of a woman as beautiful as she is spiteful. According to tradition, to ingratiate her, it was always necessary to reserve a place for her table, so did Marina, a superstitious and somewhat arrogant popular especially in the kitchen. One day Gennaro, her husband, taking advantage of his faith and tired of always eating the usual pasta and beans, pointed out to Marina that Bella 'Mbriana' dish always remained intact because she hated beans. Scary Marina immediately provided to enrich the usual soup with some ingredients available in its small pantry: a handful of mussels that she opened and, with their water, added to the pasta and beans. The result was a dish so tasty that it was devoured by all the diners, including the beautiful ghost.
The curious name would derive from ‘zita/o’, that is, girlfriend/or in the southern dialect. In fact, this pasta format was traditionally prepared for wedding lunches. Zites are a type of durum wheat paste, elongated (about 25 cm long), tubular and hollow. The surface is as smooth as the bucatini, but of a larger diameter. They are born as long pasta, but the culinary tradition of southern Italy wants you to break them by hand before cooking them for better cooking. According to popular tales, in fact, on Sunday morning, in the alleys of Naples, you can hear in the background the noise of the zitis broken with your hands. The secret of Neapolitan meat sauce lies in slow cooking and over low heat: we begin, in fact, to prepare from the morning, or even from the day before, in such a way that the sauce absorbs all the moods of the meat and it becomes tender and very soft, until it melts in the mouth.
A recipe that binds Naples, France and even Poland, because it was invented by the Polish king Stanislao Leszczyński, in exile in the French region, who decided to add a syrup to the rum to the kugelhopf, a typical dessert he considered too dry. It is a long journey, the one that leads from France to Naples, which again involves the nobles of the time. Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI and sister of Maria Carolina of Austria, married to the king of Naples Ferdinand IV of Bourbon: she was the queen to bring to Naples, at the end of the eighteenth century, specialties such as béchamel, gratin and even babà. If you ask Naples, what is the babà, do you know how they respond to you? “O’ babbà è una cosa seria. Co’ babbà non si scherza.” What translated would be “the baba is a serious thing, never take it as a game”.
In a craft workshop on the island of Capri, a cook named Carmine di Fiore unintentionally “created” the delicious masterpiece of the Neapolitan confectionery: the Caprese cake. It is said that the cook was alone in his little culinary “kingdom”, surrounded by his utensils, ingredients and being very carefully engaged in preparing an almond cake for three criminals who arrived in Capri to buy a game of Al Capone gaiters. Everything was going well but perhaps out of distraction, maybe because of the rush to finish, maybe for other things, he made a mistake that would certainly have cost him his reputation as a renowned chef (he should have come to terms with the criminals ): he forgot to add the dose of flour necessary to complete the cake dough. He baked it without realising it and at the end of cooking, with great amazement, the cake turned out to be a real delicacy: soft in the centre and crispy outside. Unexpected recipe, made by chance? He had borne fruit! And what a fruit! The three Americans were 100% satisfied, even to ask for the recipe.
According to legend, the mermaid Partenope had chosen the Gulf of Naples as his abode, from where his melodious and sweet voice spread. To thank her, a mysterious cult was celebrated, during which the population brought seven gifts to the mermaid: flour, a symbol of wealth; cottage cheese, a symbol of abundance; eggs, which recall fertility; wheat cooked in milk, to symbolise the fusion of animal and vegetable kingdom; orange blossoms scent of the Campania land; spices, a tribute to all peoples; and sugar, to Parthenope liked the gifts, but mixed them up creating this unique dessert.
The typical dish of Neapolitan cuisine! In Naples in the seventeenth century few products were found cheap and in large quantities such as pasta and potatoes. Pasta and potatoes with the combination of its two carbohydrates was a substantial and energetic dish, perfect for feeding and satipping after a day of work. The pasta used for the preparation of this dish is, as Napoletana tradition wants, mixed pasta. Mixed pasta is a set of different formats of pasta that in Naples is called ‘munnezzaglia’, or pantry leftovers that would otherwise have been wasted. The perfect pasta and potatoes must be ‘azzeccosa’. This term is used to describe the consistency of the dish, which should not be brothy at all but dense and well blended. Guessing the right consistency for a plate of pasta and potatoes is not a small matter in Naples.
In Naples, ‘Genovese’ means ‘the genovese sauce’, that is, the dense sauce that is obtained by cooking with patience and over very slow heat onions and meat. The meat sauce is a particular food, a nourishment of the soul prepared following not so much a recipe but a ritual. In every meat sauce worthy of the name, the true ingredient is time. The meat sauce must simmer for many hours on a very sweet fire. Along with Ragù, Genovese is the pride of Neapolitan cuisine. An early version of the history of the dish states that it would appear to be born in the port of Naples from Genoese sailors. According to other sources, however, the dish was invented by a Neapolitan cook called ‘the Genoese’ in a historic trattoria in Genoa.
The gnocchi alla Sorrento represent one of the most well-known bell dishes in Italy and abroad. This is a very old dish. For those of potatoes, we must go back to the sixteenth century, when the import of potatoes into Europe from America began. The Sorrento version is born with very simple ingredients, those of pizza, tomato and mozzarella. It is said that the real potato dumplings were born in Campania, so much so that there is a legend about it: one day a country abbot, very greedy for gnocchi, made it indigestion, even choking. From here would come the nickname of the dumplings, ‘strangulaprievite’ (strangles -priest ).
Until the nineteenth century in Naples, thanks to the great fantasy that characterises the Neapolitan language, they were called “Madames quattro soldi” precisely because of their low price. The caccopping of pasta and beans, a Neapolitan dish par excellence, with mussels might seem risky, in reality it comes from an ancient tradition. And, as is often the case in Naples for many unusual facts, even this dish retains an aura of legend. The protagonist is Bella ‘Mbriana, one of the many benevolent spirits of the Neapolitan house, with the appearance of a woman as beautiful as she is spiteful. According to tradition, to ingratiate her, it was always necessary to reserve a place for her table, so did Marina, a superstitious and somewhat arrogant popular especially in the kitchen. One day Gennaro, her husband, taking advantage of his faith and tired of always eating the usual pasta and beans, pointed out to Marina that Bella 'Mbriana' dish always remained intact because she hated beans. Scary Marina immediately provided to enrich the usual soup with some ingredients available in its small pantry: a handful of mussels that she opened and, with their water, added to the pasta and beans. The result was a dish so tasty that it was devoured by all the diners, including the beautiful ghost.
The curious name would derive from ‘zita/o’, that is, girlfriend/or in the southern dialect. In fact, this pasta format was traditionally prepared for wedding lunches. Zites are a type of durum wheat paste, elongated (about 25 cm long), tubular and hollow. The surface is as smooth as the bucatini, but of a larger diameter. They are born as long pasta, but the culinary tradition of southern Italy wants you to break them by hand before cooking them for better cooking. According to popular tales, in fact, on Sunday morning, in the alleys of Naples, you can hear in the background the noise of the zitis broken with your hands. The secret of Neapolitan meat sauce lies in slow cooking and over low heat: we begin, in fact, to prepare from the morning, or even from the day before, in such a way that the sauce absorbs all the moods of the meat and it becomes tender and very soft, until it melts in the mouth.
A recipe that binds Naples, France and even Poland, because it was invented by the Polish king Stanislao Leszczyński, in exile in the French region, who decided to add a syrup to the rum to the kugelhopf, a typical dessert he considered too dry. It is a long journey, the one that leads from France to Naples, which again involves the nobles of the time. Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI and sister of Maria Carolina of Austria, married to the king of Naples Ferdinand IV of Bourbon: she was the queen to bring to Naples, at the end of the eighteenth century, specialties such as béchamel, gratin and even babà. If you ask Naples, what is the babà, do you know how they respond to you? “O’ babbà è una cosa seria. Co’ babbà non si scherza.” What translated would be “the baba is a serious thing, never take it as a game”.
In a craft workshop on the island of Capri, a cook named Carmine di Fiore unintentionally “created” the delicious masterpiece of the Neapolitan confectionery: the Caprese cake. It is said that the cook was alone in his little culinary “kingdom”, surrounded by his utensils, ingredients and being very carefully engaged in preparing an almond cake for three criminals who arrived in Capri to buy a game of Al Capone gaiters. Everything was going well but perhaps out of distraction, maybe because of the rush to finish, maybe for other things, he made a mistake that would certainly have cost him his reputation as a renowned chef (he should have come to terms with the criminals ): he forgot to add the dose of flour necessary to complete the cake dough. He baked it without realising it and at the end of cooking, with great amazement, the cake turned out to be a real delicacy: soft in the centre and crispy outside. Unexpected recipe, made by chance? He had borne fruit! And what a fruit! The three Americans were 100% satisfied, even to ask for the recipe.
According to legend, the mermaid Partenope had chosen the Gulf of Naples as his abode, from where his melodious and sweet voice spread. To thank her, a mysterious cult was celebrated, during which the population brought seven gifts to the mermaid: flour, a symbol of wealth; cottage cheese, a symbol of abundance; eggs, which recall fertility; wheat cooked in milk, to symbolise the fusion of animal and vegetable kingdom; orange blossoms scent of the Campania land; spices, a tribute to all peoples; and sugar, to Parthenope liked the gifts, but mixed them up creating this unique dessert.
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bellanapoli.corralejo@gmail.com
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Wedn-Sun:
18-00:30 PM
bellanapoli.corralejo@gmail.com