Blog Posts by Chow Ciao

Fabio whips up a unique dish from his childhood that marries spinach and creamy ricotta for a super simple, gorgeous naked ravioli served with brown butter sage sauce.

Tips:

• Spinach 101: Chef's secret: Remember The Ratio -- one pound of raw spinach cooks down to one cup.
• Spinach can grow in almost any condition. Choose fresh if possible. Frozen spinach can be unreliable in quality and taste.
• Naked Ravioli means ravioli without its pasta blanket. In fewer than 5 ingredients and 20 minutes you can whip up a super easy, quick recipe that's a sneaky way to get your kids (or anyone) to eat spinach.

Naked Ravioli

Naked Ravioli

Recipe by Fabio Viviani

Yield: 24-28 ravioli

Ingredients:

2 lbs. chopped baby spinach, wilted (boiled for about a minute and drained thoroughly (about 4 lbs. raw)

2 lbs. ricotta cheese

1 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. fresh ground nutmeg

1 egg

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In tribute to the men in his life, Fabio makes a peasant meal fit for a king: spiced-up sausages, topped with his super simple marinara sauce.

Tips:

• Sausage 101: Fabio explains how to choose the best sausage for your needs, from the type of meat to casings. For Fabio, Pork is better because it has a higher fat content so the sausages stay crisp but juicy.
• Natural casings add flavor and crunch, but any casing's job is to keep the meat in shape and serve as a "juice jail."
• Cook low and slow to keep things juicy, with a fair amount of moisture.

Sausage and Peppers

Sausage and Peppers

Recipe by Fabio Viviani

Yield: 2-4 servings

Ingredients:

5 links Italian sausage

1 large white onion, cut in half and sliced

3-4 tbsp. light olive oil

2 large green bell peppers, cut into strips

2 sprigs of fresh oregano

salt and pepper to taste

2 cups Fabio's Marinara Sauce

lemon zest

Parmesan cheese

1 c water

Method:

Heat olive oil over medium heat

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Batch-cook an amazing comfort food for the whole family! Fabio's out-of-control comfort platter is an easy to make yet deeply flavored, multi-sauced baked ziti.

Tips:

• Pasta 101: Choose your dry pasta by shape based on what you're making. Use smaller pastas like ditalini for broths and soups, elbow pasta for mac and cheese, and penne rigati or fusilli with ridges to help hold your sauces. The bigger rigatoni is also good for holding sauce, since it's hollow and large. Ziti is the best pasta for baking because not only is it hollow and holds the sauce inside it, but it also doesn't have any ridges or groove to sog out your dish.
• When baking pasta make sure it is al dente! The trick is to finish cooking the pasta in the sauce the oven. So boil it halfway and let it have some crunch to it before baking.
• Ziti is comfort food made fast, but it helps to prepare. Having Fabio's béchamel and Bolognese (meat sauce) batch cooked and in your fridge makes preparing this ultimate comfort

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No need to wait for tomato season! Fabio shows chef's secrets on how to work with what you got and stuff any tomato into a perfect Italian masterpiece.

Tips:

• Working with What You've Got: Not every garden harvest is perfect, but that doesn't mean you can't eat your unripe or green tomatoes! Play to their strengths: firm texture and sour flavor are perfect for creamy cheeses, salty toppings and baking.
• It's easier to prepare this (almost idiot proof) if all your stuffing ingredients are cooked beforehand, baking in the oven warms and blends them together.
• Drain the tomato of water before stuffing it. Controlling the amount of moisture in the dish makes for a better texture.
• Stuffing texture matters, you don't want a soggy result! To help give your stuffing dimension and flavor, keep the stuffing chunky. Drizzling the top with olive oil before baking will help ensure a delicious crispy crust.
• Salty Meats 101: Marvelous Mortadella: get to know this delicious cured Italian

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Summer has arrived, light up the grill! Fabio talks grilling common sense to maximize flavor from the fire and shows how to pick the perfect rub for your protein of choice. This Memorial Day he's firing up a decadent rack of lamb. Read More »from Grilling 101: Rack of Lamb

Searing and braising take center stage when Fabio explores the basics of beef before he takes on the Italian classic beef braciole, thin slices of seared beef rolled up with cheese and prosciutto, and braised in marinara sauce to mouth-watering perfection.

Tips:

• Beef 101: Everyone knows expensive cuts of steak are delicious, but what to do with cheaper cuts? Pounding cheaper meats not only tenderizes them, it literally stretches your dollar.
• Adding cured meat and garlic to the meat deepens their flavors. Don't forget the olive oil!
• Two techniques, searing and braising, join forces to make this Italian masterpiece. Searing is a quick application of heat to lock flavors and juices into meat, while braising simmers the meat in liquid to infuse it with flavor as it cooks.

Beef Braciole

Recipe by Fabio Viviani

Yields: 4 servings

Ingredients:

2 cups Fabio's Marinara

4 3 oz. pieces of beef shoulder, cut thin

8 slices prosciutto

Extra virgin olive oil

¼-½

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Fabio and guest Niecy Nash celebrate Mother's Day with a sure-fire dessert muffin destined to please your whole family. His amazing 'chef's cupcake' blends two favorites, chocolate and bacon perfectly together and is super easy to bake.

Tips:

• Chocolate 101           

o   Buy unsweetened chocolate before you buy bittersweet or semi-sweet: while unsweetened can always get sweeter, you can never take the sugar out of the others.

o   Cocoa powder quickly becomes chocolate with the quick addition of butter and sugar.

o   Never substitute milk chocolate for melting recipes calling for something else: the milk solids will affect the recipe.

o   When melting chocolate, always chop it up first so that it melts evenly.  Also, when melting chocolate over direct heat, be sure to use a LOW temperature.

• Sweet and Salty: So Happy Together! A hint of salt makes sweet treats taste better: salt awakens our taste buds, making them that much more receptive to sweetness. The proper balance makes two

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As his own mother says, when it comes to spaghetti carbonara Fabio does it best. Pancetta, cream and eggs are frothed to perfection to make a masterpiece sauce for easy noodles in less than 10 minutes. He also shares other easy ways to dress up spaghetti on a dime.

Tips:

• Simple Sauces 101: Pasta is an easy way to feed yourself and your loved ones when your fridge or pantry is almost empty. Keep pasta, olive oil, garlic, butter and Parmesan on hand at all times, and you'll never go hungry again.
• Using eggs in sauces adds a velvety emulsion texture to sauces like hollandaise, and béarnaise, but Carbonara is much easier and less fragile. The trick is to add the eggs to the dish away from the heat and keep things moving.
• The easiest and most reliable way to test dry pasta for doneness is to simply taste it. Al dente literally means "to the tooth!"

Spaghetti carbonara

Spaghetti Carbonara

Recipe by Fabio Viviani

Yield: 2-4 servings

Ingredients:

½ lb. spaghetti

6

Read More »from Fast Spaghetti