Culinary Blog
Italian Cuisine
Italian food has long been appreciated as some of the best in the world, and we really understand that. The main concept of Italian cuisine is simple - use a few, high-quality ingredients to enhance one another. At the end of the day, you’ll have a meal that’s utterly divine, while also being blessedly simple. The best example of this is tomato, mozzarella, and basil. Separately, they are often basic ingredients that, while enjoyed, aren’t anything too special. When combined in the style of a traditional Caprese salad, though, well-grown and well-made ingredients all boost one another to create a transcendent dish. With the core tenet of Italian cooking being to cook with simple, high-quality ingredients, we truly believe in the ability of Seven Shelves ingredients to create simple, high-quality meals. In this article, we’ve picked out three dishes that are all enhanced by using our high-quality ingredients to make them. Without further ado, let’s talk about Italian food!
BRUSCHETTA
Bruschetta is one of the most classic Italian dishes we can think of - it combines simple, brilliant ingredients in a small combination to create a mouth-watering starter for your meal. Basic bruschetta originated all over Italy in a very basic way - people would often moisten their bread with olive oil, either to sample the oil or to make a simple meal. Tomato bruschetta was likely a simple evolution of the basic bread and oil mixture - some regions of Italy had the perfect growing traditions for assorted tomatoes and were happy to combine their high-quality produce with their bread and oil to make a wonderful snack. Nowadays, we can create a wonderful bruschetta herb mix that makes it easy to capture a small piece of Italian cuisine in your kitchen. You no longer have to track down artisanal olive oil and premium tomatoes to ensure that you make authentic bruschetta, you can simply combine our top-quality mix with olive oil, and brush it over some great bread to make a wonderful lunch. We’re very proud of the organic herbs that are in that herb mixture. While it wasn’t difficult to truly track down the ideal blend of herbs and spices, we managed to ensure that not only did we pick a wonderful taste combination, but that the herbs are all organic, and lovingly grown. To make spectacular bruschetta, try making your own simple bread, and spreading a little of the olive oil bruschetta mix over a slice when you cut it - it’s a taste sensation!
PESTO RISOTTO
Pesto risotto is a simple and utterly wonderful Italian classic. It combines two great Italian inventions - risotto and pesto! Pesto originated in Genoa, which is a specific place within Italy, where pine nuts, basil, olive oil, and parmesan cheese can be found growing together. Risotto, on the other hand, originated in Milan, where the historical influences of Spanish paella were able to have some influence on the way the rice was cooked. At the most basic level, risotto relies on the process of rice being cooked through the evaporation and absorption of stock, and other liquids in the recipe. The base broth that’s used varies from recipe to recipe, but in a pea and pesto risotto, a vegetable broth is best to be used - the clean, bright flavors of a great veggie stock will allow you to enhance the flavors of the pea and pesto within the risotto. On top of that, finely diced onions, carrots, and celery (the traditional base veggies of a risotto) will only enhance a well-made vegetable broth. Our vegetable bouillon mix is a wonderful way to ensure that your vegetable stock is as high-quality as possible. Traditional Italian food is cooked using ingredients from the wild, or from the garden. Our stock mix is made using traditionally organic ingredients that are just as ideal and well-flavored as wild veggies and herbs - we’re certain it will enhance any risotto.
TIRAMISU
Tiramisu is something that is spectacularly well known the world over - it’s rich, bitter, sweet, and tremendously moreish. It’s a staple of Italian restaurants the world over and, as such, it does originate from Italy. Interestingly, though, it’s exceptionally hard to pin down an exact origin for Tiramisu. It’s not found in any cookbook-style literature from before the 1960s, and it is first mentioned in an Italian cookbook in 1980, followed by an English language cookbook in 1982. This suggests that it’s a fairly modern invention, though it’s hard to be sure, exactly. While not truly backed up by secondary sources, a number of obituaries for the late restauranteur Ado Campeol state that tiramisu was invented in one of his restaurants by his wife, and a pastry chef named Roberto Linguanotto. The dish was supposedly invented on the 24th of December, 1969, before being added to the menu in 1972. While that’s the likely origin of the dessert, it’s very tricky to be sure!The best way to ensure that your tiramisu is the best it can be is to use the best coffee you can get your hands on. So much of the flavor in the sponge of the dessert comes from that coffee that it’s vital for the coffee to be good. We’d suggest using dark, fruity coffee such as Ana Sora Ethiopian coffee for your tiramisu. This combination of classic bitterness and interesting fruitness leads to a complex dessert and is truly something to be savored. To brew this coffee for your tiramisu, we’d suggest using an espresso machine or a Moka pot - this is the most authentically Italian way to brew the coffee, and it will likely result in the most classic flavors for your dessert.
