Prosciutto

Most of us think of bread crumbs as a coating for frying. But in Italian cooking, bread crumbs are also used as a main ingredient, as in this pasta dish. This recipe probably came about as a way to use up leftover stale bread—a humble inspiration for a fantastic dish. I love this dressing with orecchiette (“little ears”), but any small shape will do.

This is one of my favorite combinations; the salty prosciutto and creamy melted fontina cheese make my mouth water. It’s amazing how grilling the sandwich brings all the ingredients together, turning an everyday sandwich into the embodiment of comfort food.

This is a new way to serve the classic combination of prosciutto with melon, one of Italians’ famously favorite ways to start a meal. You could pierce the prosciutto purses with toothpicks to make them easier to eat. And to make the preparation easier, be sure to place the block of Parmesan in the freezer for a few minutes, so that when you shave it, it won’t crumble.

I use only a few store-bought products. But this one, when wrapped in prosciutto or rolled in cheese, makes for a great-tasting and super-easy antipasto. And when you are making a large meal from scratch, a few shortcuts are always welcome. Your guests will thank you when the entrée is on time because you didn’t have a meltdown trying to bake your own bread.

This is one of those dishes that was born out of my years of catering and the necessity to come up with something new for cocktail parties. Roasting the asparagus is fast and easy and gives a lot more flavor than simply steaming.

It’s very European to use potatoes in omelets, tarts, and frittatas—even on pizzas. The key is to use small cubes of potato, as here, or very thin slices. You don’t want to be biting into a whole mouthful of starch, and you want your potatoes to cook through in a reasonable amount of time.

I usually make this in one big log because it is so impressive when it comes out of the oven and you cut it into slices, but if the kids are helping put this together, why not make it as four individual rolls? That way everyone can stuff and roll his or her own selections. Let an adult cut the hot rolls, because the yummy molten cheese retains a lot of heat.

Traditionally saltimbocca is made with veal cutlets, rather than chops, but a thicker cut of meat makes for a heartier dish. When you sauté the chops the prosciutto forms a great, salty crust on the outside and the lemon gets caramelized, making a yummy, savory package.

If you’ve cut back on burgers because you don’t want to eat the bun, here’s your solution. These well-seasoned patties get wrapped in a piece of prosciutto, making them extra juicy. Use your hands to combine the meat mixture; you are less likely to overmix this way.

Fennel is best served from fall to spring, when it’s in season, and there are a million different ways to take advantage of its crunchy sweetness. Here, the raw bulbs are sliced and dressed with a nutty pistachio pesto and salty bites of prosciutto. The flavors just pair so well together.

Here’s a fun way to use up leftover pasta. When I was young, my mother would throw leftovers of any kind of pasta—red-sauced, white-sauced, whatever—into her frittata mixture for a quick snack for us kids. She generally made one large frittata, but I like to make them in individual servings; that way you can keep them in the fridge and grab one for a quick, nutritious snack, hot or cold.

After tomato, basil, and mozzarella, prosciutto and melon just might be the most classic Italian flavor combination of all time. It gets a whole new lease on life, though, when served as a savory cold soup. The tomato contributes a bit of acidity that tones down the melon’s natural sweetness, and salty prosciutto makes the whole dish sing. If you can’t find canned San Marzano tomatoes, which are a bit sweeter than regular canned plum tomatoes, go for an organic brand such as Muir Glen.

This is the side dish to make when you find yourself with leftover mashed potatoes. (If you are using leftover mashed potatoes, use your judgment about the ingredients you want to add, since the mashed potatoes may be flavored already.) It also makes a wonderful dish for entertaining—everyone loves them, and you can keep them warm in an oven up to 30 minutes after you make them.

The title of this dish, alla sorrentina, means it comes from Sorrento, across the bay from Naples. You may have had this dish prepared with mozzarella cheese, which is the cheese of the area, but I am showing you an alternative way here, using Fontina. Use whichever you like, and whichever you can get. By the way, alla sorrentina is a good indicator that the dish you order will contain eggplant in some form or another. If you prepare this dish without the eggplant, you’ll have scallopine alla bolognese. You can add a little elegance to the dish by straining the sauce as you spoon it onto plates. That is something I do in my restaurants. But in my home—and most likely in yours—the sauce is just fine the way it comes out of the baking dish.