Latest news with #MarcellaHazan
The Age
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
Newtown's new grown-up candlelit Italian restaurant just scored a hat
Ramp up the acid and it'd be a match for the hand-rolled pappardelle turned through buttery chicken-liver ragu, a gorgeous spin on a Marcella Hazan recipe made even better with some pepper from the metre-long grinder. But it's the gnudi that best shows off Allende's handiwork: house ricotta and semolina is kneaded into dumplings that are full of bounce, each topped with fried sage and lemon zest and slick with brown butter. MUST. Pastry chef Lauren Eldridge's cassata is in all caps, too. Spoon into the decorative Sicilian cake and a shell of pistachio marzipan and candied fruits gives way to herbal, Liquore Strega-soaked sponge and chocolate-flecked ricotta, all finished with fondant lacework worthy of North Carolina's annual National Gingerbread House Competition. One for the ages. Meanwhile, the room is a pleasure to be in. The quarters are close, candles flicker. Behind the bar, staff can stir down a Martinez as well as section waiters can speak to a wine list that goes all-in on Italy, with a reserve section dedicated to terroir-driven makers including Arianna Occhipinti and Elisabetta Foradori. It's slim pickings under $90 but you can't accuse the list of lacking a point of view. And that's what makes this strip so compelling. Each venue is its own thing, uncompromising and fully realised. Coupled with boutique rooms upstairs, the Continental hub is primed to capitalise on Newtown's transformation from student haunt to a suburb where hatted restaurants are as common as the crystal shops and Thai takeaways. Somewhere, you might just take your mum for pig's-head charcuterie.
Sydney Morning Herald
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Newtown's new grown-up candlelit Italian restaurant just scored a hat
Ramp up the acid and it'd be a match for the hand-rolled pappardelle turned through buttery chicken-liver ragu, a gorgeous spin on a Marcella Hazan recipe made even better with some pepper from the metre-long grinder. But it's the gnudi that best shows off Allende's handiwork: house ricotta and semolina is kneaded into dumplings that are full of bounce, each topped with fried sage and lemon zest and slick with brown butter. MUST. Pastry chef Lauren Eldridge's cassata is in all caps, too. Spoon into the decorative Sicilian cake and a shell of pistachio marzipan and candied fruits gives way to herbal, Liquore Strega-soaked sponge and chocolate-flecked ricotta, all finished with fondant lacework worthy of North Carolina's annual National Gingerbread House Competition. One for the ages. Meanwhile, the room is a pleasure to be in. The quarters are close, candles flicker. Behind the bar, staff can stir down a Martinez as well as section waiters can speak to a wine list that goes all-in on Italy, with a reserve section dedicated to terroir-driven makers including Arianna Occhipinti and Elisabetta Foradori. It's slim pickings under $90 but you can't accuse the list of lacking a point of view. And that's what makes this strip so compelling. Each venue is its own thing, uncompromising and fully realised. Coupled with boutique rooms upstairs, the Continental hub is primed to capitalise on Newtown's transformation from student haunt to a suburb where hatted restaurants are as common as the crystal shops and Thai takeaways. Somewhere, you might just take your mum for pig's-head charcuterie.
New York Times
28-05-2025
- Health
- New York Times
How Italian Home Cooks Make Their Pasta Taste So Good
TL;DR: It's not necessarily the pasta water. It's the marriage of starch, cheese and water, Eric Kim writes. This spoonable pasta is a dance of sorts between two pots: one with fresh green beans and orecchiette, the other with sausage ragù. David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Published May 28, 2025 Updated May 28, 2025 When the chef Carla Lalli Music recently made pasta with sausage and broccoli rabe for dinner, it came out too salty. Her error? She used oversalted pasta water to finish her sauce. 'Sometimes it's better not to use it,' she said, claiming that a splash of 'regular old water' does the same trick. Many a recipe writer and Italian cook has espoused the virtues of saving some starchy water before draining pasta to then toss with the noodles and sauce. That starch is said to help thicken a sauce so it can better coat pasta. But does it really make that much of a difference? Even the renowned cookbook author Marcella Hazan, in 'Marcella Cucina,' writes that cooking with pasta water 'imparts the same tedious, faintly gelatinous texture to what otherwise have been fresh and lively sauces.' Use it 'occasionally,' she advises. Daniel M. Busiello, a physicist and researcher at the University of Padova, said over a teleconference call that the keys to a silky sauce are the relationships among starch, cheese and water. In April, Mr. Busiello, along with seven other Italian scientists, published the latest version of a paper on cacio e pepe, finding — after months of tests — that the concentration of starch relative to the amount of cheese and water is what directly affects the dish's creaminess. Here's why: Starch prevents what the scientists coined as the 'Mozzarella Phase,' or what happens when heat causes the proteins in cheese (casein and whey) to clump, creating a sauce that is wet and stringy like mozzarella, rather than smooth, creamy and emulsified. 'The starch screens the interaction between proteins by basically putting itself in the middle,' to prevent that sticking, he said. Stirring in plain water achieves the same saucy, glossy result as pasta water, so long as there is enough cheese and starch released from stirring the pasta. But you're boiling pasta and already have that water, so why not use it? In this recipe, pasta water is made more useful as fresh green beans boiled with the pasta season the water with their gentle vegetal umami, while the quick sausage ragù simmers in another. In a dance of sorts between the two pans, the cooked beans and pasta are drained and added to the ragù. As a final step, a spritz of lemon juice and a generous splash of that savory green bean broth are stirred vigorously into the sauced pasta, along with Parmesan, helping to draw out the pasta's starch while letting the cheese melt into the sauce without splitting. A short pasta shape, such as orecchiette, macaroni or wagon wheels, is the easiest to stir into a silky sauce here — and means that you can eat the dish with a spoon in front of the television. Just be sure not to oversalt your water — you're going to need it. Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram , Facebook , YouTube , TikTok and Pinterest . Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice .
Forbes
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Marcella Hazan Spread The Gospel Of Italian Food But Was Far From Alone in Doing So
In writing about cookbook author Marcella Hazan, the subject of a new documentary film, New York Times food writer Pete Wells contends, 'She changed thoroughly and irreversibly the way Italian food is cooked, eaten and talked about in the United States' after her first book, The Classic Italian Cookbook came out in 1973, supposedly eschewing the cuisines of Southern Italy that had been carried and altered by immigrants from Campania, Calabria and Sicily to the U.S. in the late 19th century. Hazan, from Emilia Romagna, herself never criticized that Italian-American strain as did others who held her more northern cookery in higher esteem. And while it is true that Hazan's first and subsequent books were best sellers––she was not a professional chef––she had nothing like the influence on Italian food that Julia Child had on French. Yet Hazan, was vigorously promoted by in the 1970s promoted by Times food editor Craig Claiborne, saying, 'No one has ever done more to spread the gospel of pure Italian cookery in America.' But Hazan already had strong shoulders to stand on: Long before she came on the scene one of the most popular cookbooks in America was The Talisman Italian American Cookbook––1,054 pages, written by Ada Boni and published in Italy in 1929, to be followed by a British and best-selling American edition in 1950 (including a few Italian-American recipes), which was compared to canonical The Joy of Cooking and Fannie Farmer for its comprehensive authority. Just as successful was Italian Food by British writer Elizabeth David, which appeared in its U.S, edition in 1958, which went to a series of updates and revisions through three successive decades. As early as 1954 the Culinary Arts Institute of Chicago published The Italian Cookbook: 160 Masterpieces of Italian Cookery that went far beyond the clichés of spaghetti-and-meatballs and chicken parmigiana, with recipes for five pizzas, Milanese risotto, polenta, pasta con piselli, spinaci alla fiorentina, panettone, agnello al forno, baccalà alla marinara and more. Journalist Waverly Root's two scholarly books, The Cooking of Italy (1968) and The Food of Italy (1971) had great impact on the way people thought of regional Italian food. Tuscan food authority Giuliano Bugialli published The Fine Art of Italian Cooking based on enormous historical research, and it, too, became a best seller and had tremendous influence on Italian cooking in the U.S. Hazan, then, was not the first or the most authoritative voice on the subject. She was, however, the most promoted, as much for her brusque, chain-smoking demeanor as for her expertise in the kitchen. By the pub date of Hazan's cookbook, Italian food was already mutating in the U.S., led by New York chef-restaurateur Romeo Salta, whose own cookbook, The Pleasures of Italian Cooking appeared in 1962, was largely devoted to northern Italian food of a kind also being served back then at chic midtown places like San Marino, Giambelli and Orsini's, which were among the most important and fashionable restaurants of their day. A 1949 guidebook named Knife and Fork in New York devoted 13 pages to the city's Italian restaurants that showed regional variety was available back then, including the exquisite Piemontese cuisine served at Barbetta (still going strong) upon opening in 1906. Enrico & Paglieri (1908) offered spinach pastas, stracciatella, risotto alla piemontese with squash and truffles; Adano (named after John Hershey's novel) had osso buco and rollatine di vitello; Amalfi's menu listed zuppa di pesce, linguine with artichoke sauce and pollo alla Toscana; and Sorrento featured the cooking of that southern Italian region. I do not wish to deny Hazan's importance as a spreader of the true Italian gospel, but those who again and again scorned Italian-American as little more than overcooked red sauce with an overdose of garlic might have been surprised not only by the variety of Italian-American food and the canny way it was an adaption of southern Italian food, but that scores of the recipes in Hazan's own cookbooks could easily be found on the menus of post-war Italian-American restaurants, including her versions of fried zucchini and calamari, braised beef in red wine, garlic bread, chickpea minestrone, chicken alla scarpariello, veal cutlet alla milanese, scaloppine of veal with Marsala, potato croquettes, shrimp scampi, tortellini in brodo, spaghetti with clam sauce, cannelloni, pasta aglio e olio, penne al pesto, meatballs, escarole soup, stracciatella soup, eggplant alla parmigiana, pastry fritters and zabaione. For our Italian-American Cookbook (2000), my wife Galina and I compiled 250 recipes that we believed should be part of the culinary culture brought by immigrants who enriched it. Our recipes did not stop with dishes made before World War II, for it was in the post-war period and on into the 1960s and 1970s that Italian food both in Italy and the U.S. was utterly changed by the availability of true Italian products, cheeses, pastas, extra virgin olive oil, Prosciutto di Parma, white truffles and, not least, hundreds of superb Italian wines. By the time Hazan's book came out in 1973 she was able to capitalize on this new bounty and to add dimension to Italian food, yet even though she spoke about the regionality of dishes in Italy, it took successive cookbooks for her to include them, while still keeping those dishes Italian-Americans had been enjoying for decades. And lest we forget, Italians had never laid eyes on tomatoes, potatoes, chile peppers, corn, turkey, strawberries and much more until imported from the Americas after Columbus reached the New World, so that it would have been impossible for Italian food culture to develop as it did until such foods arrived, starting in the 16th century. So that when Italian immigrants came to American shores they were already very familiar with what they found in the markets here that they could turn into their own Italian-America cuisine. Marcella Hazan was an important figure in her day, her recipes always worked and many Americans learned much from her. But she did not and could not do it alone without the influx of Italian products entering the U.S, around the time she wrote her first cookbook. True credit should always be spread around.
Forbes
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
New Documentary Features Marcella Hazan, Godmother Of Italian Cooking
The main reason to watch Marcella, a new documentary about Marcella Hazan, the late Italian cook and teacher Julia Child once described as 'my mentor in all things Italian,' may well be because we're all craving the kind of lifestyle that still oozes from her beloved, bestselling cookbooks. Italian cook Marcella Hazan in her Venice kitchen. She never needed to taste, sniffing was enough. Courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment In the introduction to The Classic Italian Cookbook, first published in 1973, she describes the Italian art of eating as the way to make 'art out of life,' and then goes on to clarify that for millions of hungry Italians, the best possible food is cooked at home, not in restaurants. Marcella grew up in a fishing town on the Italian Adriatic Coast, 65 miles or so from Bologna, and when she moved to New York City in the 1950s with her new Italian-American husband, Victor Hazan, she had never really cooked. A scientist at heart, she'd gotten two PhDs, one in biology, the other in natural sciences and had become a teacher. In New York, Victor worked with his father but when he came home at lunchtime, he was hungry. Marcella Hazan and Victor Hazan who would end up transcribing and writing her cookbooks. Courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment Even though Marcella had limited use of her right arm, the result of an injury sustained on a beach when she was six, she taught herself how to cook with what she found in their Queens neighborhood. Soon, she travelled to Manhattan's Ninth Avenue seeking fresh mozzarella, Italian ham and eggplants. Suddenly, she was experimenting in the kitchen and the rest is history. The film, written and directed by Emmy and Peabody Award-winner Peter Miller and released by Greenwich Entertainment, features interviews of Victor Hazan, who would become Marcella's writing partner, and their son, Giuliano Hazan, a chef, teacher and author in his own right. Other celebrity friends recount the impact she had on their lives and include restaurateur Danny Meyer, former Town & Country editor Pamela Fiori, and Saveur co-founder and editor Dorothy Kalins. 'My wife and I had been cooking from her books since the 1980s,' said Miller. 'And one night we wondered, 'Has anybody made a documentary on Marcella?'' Without resources, it would take six years and 371 people through a crowd-funding campaign to get the film made. Through clips drawn from home movies, we follow Marcella as she teaches a class, fries a fish, or shows off the cornucopia of produce at the Rialto market in Venice. Here and there, her raspy voice (she started smoking at 14 and never quit) paired with her killer smile, and the sharp intelligence that sparkles in her eyes, all create the illusion that she's still with us, sniffing the pot ⸺ she never needed to taste, smelling was enough ⸺ and guiding us towards deliciousness. Marcella Hazan at the supermarket Marcella Hazan and Victor Hazan who would end up transcribing and writing her cookbooks. Watching Marcella, we crave to spend some time (a year, perhaps?) living in Venice and shopping at the Rialto. We would happily follow her at the market in Milan or Rome, where the couple lived for a while. The sentence she used often, 'Italian food is simple but it is not easy,' resonates. Perhaps most vividly, we watch Chef April Bloomfield, who now cooks at Sailor in Brooklyn, brown a sizzling veal shank with Marcella. It involves anchovies, onions, garlic, and white wine. 'How much white wine, Marcella?' 'Keep going,' she answers. She was 90 at that point, but keep going, she did, until 2013. Today, food lovers throughout the country may remember her for her 'greatest hits,' her fabulous pared-down tomato sauce, the chicken with two lemons so simple and good Glamour magazine called it 'engagement chicken,' because it often preceded a marriage proposal, her braised artichoke with mortadella stuffing. How timely it is, when so many of us are craving authenticity and comfort, that this film can now be screened in cinemas around the country and on your favorite platforms. Thank you Peter, and thank you Marcella!
