Italian Chef

Stracciatella is the Italian version of egg drop soup. This tasty one from chef Hugh Acheson combines shredded chicken, spinach, basil, peas, grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, and eggs.

The foundation of this deeply savory bread and bean porridge from chef Adam Leonti includes grassy-green, peppery olive oil; earthy, rustic bread; small, thin-skinned white beans; and most importantly, sofrito, the finely chopped, slow-cooked mixture of carrots, onions, and celery that gives ribollita its extraordinary flavor.

Blogger Jonathan Melendez makes these twice-baked Italian cookies with sweetened browned butter, rum, and warm spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice to capture the flavors of the Buttered Rum cocktail.

Ice cream maker Fany Gerson uses two classic Italian ingredients – stracciatella and pistachio – for this denser treat with more intense flavor. She adds melted chocolate at the end of churning, which hardens into crunchy bits throughout.

Graziella Dionisi soaks ladyfingers in coffee or espresso then layers them with a rich concoction of mascarpone, sugar, and eggs for the popular rich and creamy treat.

Panna cotta means "cooked cream" in Italian, and this easy recipe for the silky, eggless custard is extra rich, calling for all cream rather than the usual mix of cream and milk.

A specialty already known by the Arabs during the domination of the island, although at the time it was more of a soft dough of flour and water cooked over the fire.

These are sandwiches stuffed with spleen, a recipe of humble origins born from the habit of butchers of Jewish origin, who kept the entrails of the veal for them as a reward.

Typical of the provinces of Lecce and Taranto, puccia is a round bread roll baked in a wood-fired oven, sliced open and stuffed with different ingredients.

Mozzarella and tomatoes; grilled vegetables and scamorza cheese; cured meats, anchovies, sardines, sausage and broccoli, provolone and mushrooms: there are many variations for the fillings, stuffed at the moment before quickly heating the sandwich in the oven.

A timeless classic, perfect for a packed lunch but also an ideal snack at any time of day: few recipes can satisfy the palate like a sandwich filled with mortadella.

The most famous, spicy and tasty porchetta is native to Ariccia, the historical epicentre of production of this pork butchery specialty.

In Livorno, farinata takes the name of chickpea "torta", aka 5 and 5. Five cents (of old lira) for the bread and five cents for the torta stuffed in the sandwich.

Like that of lampredotto, one of the four stomachs of the bovine (the abomasum), that is boiled and cut at the moment and eaten together with a bun soaked in the broth.

The name was invented by none other than poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, who was inspired by the partitions of the country house, in Italian "tramezzi" to indicate something to eat "in between meals," between breakfast and lunch.