Lidia's Italian Table

Lidia shares her technique for making a basic marinara, enthusiastically immersing herself in sauce making Lidia’s way. She then prepares two favorite pasta dishes: seafood vermicelli with fresh clams and scallops and parchment wrapped, baked ziti with mozzarella, marinara and fresh basil. Tutti a tavola! She commands, and we follow joyfully.

Lidia grew up playing hide-and-seek in the corn fields surrounding her home in Pula, Istria. Making polenta at her mother’s knee was almost a daily activity. Lidia teaches how to make the best basic polenta, country style. She then demonstrates a family favorite -- sauteed polenta with field mushrooms -- and follows it with the perfect dessert: polenta with honey and fresh strawberries.

Watching Lidia prepare her special dish of chicken with sausage, turning golden brown as the bite size pieces caramelize and nestle together in a hot skillet is a sensual experience. Even on television, you can smell the aroma of garlic, olive oil, vinegar, and honey wafting through her kitchen. Lidia’s second dish, country-style spring chicken with olives and potatoes, is perfect as a follow-up.

Gnocchi is a Lidia favorite. As a child, it was a Sunday dinner staple on the Matticchio table, which Lidia helped her mother cook. The secret to great gnocchi is making it light and fluffy, then shaping it. Lidia makes two gnocchi dishes: gnocchi in Lidia’s plain tomato sauce (a core recipe) and gnocchi rolled and filled with ricotta/spinach/leek stuffing, dressed with a savory sage butter sauce.

In Italy, a great risotto always brings a smile. Here, we all smile as Lidia prepares Risotto Milanese, a simple risotto with saffron broth, finished with butter and Parmigiano Reggiano, and Suppli di Telefono, risotto rolled into balls filled with prosciutto and mozzarella, then crisply fried. When split, the mozzarella pulls apart like telephone wires, thus the name.

Lidia prepares Frico, a specialty of her native Friuli. Frico is a pancake made by sauteing Montasio cheese in a skillet until golden brown. Lidia shows us the basic dish, and then a creative surprise. Next, it’s Chicken under brick: a split chicken seared (under the weight of a brick, or heavy skillet) on the stove top until crisp-skinned, golden brown, and served immediately.

Lidia Matticchio Bastianich cooks a universal favorite, marinated lamb chops, served with a memorable sauce, prepared with fresh mint leaves, wine, stock, citrus juices and herbs. The lamb is served with scaffata -- spring legumes simmered slowly – along with crispy, golden roasted potato wedges.

Lidia Matticchio Bastianich orchestrates a dramatic pair of aromatic herb-seasoned whole veal shanks. This is one of those long, slow cooked dishes that you don’t have to stand over to make, but rather visit as flavors and aromas of lamb, Barolo wine, tomatoes and onions, porcini mushrooms, bacon, oranges and cloves, all merge in perfect harmony. Lidia plays Toscanini of the cuccina.

Strozzapretti, literally, means “priest choker.” These ricotta dumpling are so good that in the vein of “I’ll bet you can’t eat just one,” the fabled priest, visiting for dinner, could not limit his intake of these little marvels. Here Lidia shares how it's made: ricotta gnocchi with radicchio trevisano sauce. To complete the ricotta meal, a zesty “Italian style”ricotta cheese cake. Hmmm!

Two very sensual dishes. For Chicken Valdostana, Lidia layers chicken breast with prosciutto, tomato, and herbs, sautéed in wine and butter, adds fontina cheese, and bakes until the cheese melts, becomes golden brown. Then, Seared Pork Cutlets and peppers in a fresh marinara served over rigatoni provides an equally appealing choice. Fortunately, we get both in this episode!

Italians are not big beef eaters. When they do indulge, it is rarely with steak…except in Florence, where Bistecca Fiorentina is a favorite. At 2” thick, grilled over coals, with a very special anchovy, rosemary and salt rub, it is served with braised cannellini beans. Caramelized tomatoes (yes!) over vanilla ice cream for dessert; it’s a rich and robust dessert after Bistecca!

Caesar Salad is a staple on the Italian-American table, even though it’s origin in Mexican. Lidia’s version is the best of both, and shows us why it is probably America’s most popular salad. And who doesn’t love Lasagna? Lidia’s is classic Italian-American Lassgna steeped in her special meat sauce.

Sunday Ragu – the aromas of Ragu simmering starting early Sunday mornings waft through the courtyards of Lidia’s home town, and remain firmly in her sensory memories. Paired with Rigatoni, Meatballs, Braciola di Manzo, and Broccoli Rabe with Oil and Garlic, Lidia’s recipes carry her (and you) back to Italy.

Lidia cooks her mother Erminia’s and daughter and daughter Tanya’s favorite“Italian-American” recipes: Bubbly hot, cheese-filled Manicotti and aromatic savory Spinach-Meat Cannelloni, served right from the oven in a sizzling old-style baking dish. On the side, Lidia’s Italian “tri-colore” salad: Arugula, Tomato, Mozzarella.

Forget about the tomato sauce in this episode. Milan is the hub of Northern Italian cooking: Classic Veal Milanese, Lidia’s Chicken Parmigiana, and a contemporary version of Veal Capricciosa, a bone-in veal chop, breaded and sauteed, and accompanied by two sides: an arugula-tomato-onion salad and a warm potato, caper and onion salad.

“Eat the beans, they taste great, and they are good for you!” This is food at the heart of the Mediterranean diet. Pasta fagioli is a meal sized main course soup. Sausages are cooked with beans, then sliced and served separately. It yields a first course by taking beans from the soup and adding them to an escarole salad. Dessert is roasted pears and grapes, served with vanilla ice cream.

Eggplants are not all the same. Lidia choose and preps different eggplants, then demonstrates how to cook them. For eggplant parmigiana, a most popular Italian-American meatless dish, fried eggplant is layered with cheese and tomato sauce, then baked bubbling hot. For ziti alla nona (grandma’s eggplant and pasta), a roasted eggplant, cubed, breaded then sautéed into the pasta. Whatever Nonawants.

How long did it take for the chicken to cross the road? Well, if it was coming to Lidia’s hous, even if it stopped for garlic mashed potatoes and spinach, it would still take less than 30 minutes to get to the table. Here Lidia teaches us how to cook three classic chicken scaloppina dishes, each in under 30 minutes…and it’s no riddle!

Filet mignon and chocolate – these don’t sound like ingredients to top off a list of Italian-American recipes – but in the kitchen of Lidia Bastianich, it’s “Tutti a tavola” to cook and savor two of our most sensual foods: Seared Filet Mignon with Italian style chunky braised vegetables, followed by a rich Hazelnut-Chocolate Ice Cream Truffle.

A popular dish in Lidia's first restaurant in Queens, New York and still a favorite in her home today, Lidia shares her recipe for Veal Rollatini -- slices of veal rolled and baked until the cheeses ooze out of it. Lidia begins the meal with a classic spinach and bacon salad...and finishes it with sweet crunchy almond cookies for dessert.

A popular dish in Lidia's first restaurant in Queens, New York, and still a favorite in her home today, Lidia shares her recipe for Veal Rollatini -- slices of veal rolled and baked until the cheeses ooze out of it. Lidia begins the meal with a classic spinach and bacon salad...and finishes it with sweet crunchy almond cookies for dessert.