Italian Cooking - Let's Begin

Is there an Italian Chef hiding in you? If Italian cooking is one of your favorites, why not learn how to cook Italian cuisine yourself at home.

Your can find Italian cooking recipes online 24/7. You should be able to find enough recipes to prepare a different Italian cooking recipe every day of the year for many years to come. Some will be great, some will be not so great.The good news is that once you have sampled enough authentic Italian food at your favorite restaurants, you will know what is good and what isn't.

Another great free source for Italian recipes is cooking shows on TV. There are some great programs featuring professional Chefs preparing Italian cooking recipes that you can watch that will show you tips and techniques that sometimes would be hard to translate from reading the recipe.

AS with all ethnic foods, Italian food uses its own group of spices. The most popular spices used in Italian cooking are garlic, oregano, basil and thyme. Fresh spices add a really special touch to any dish, but if you can't find fresh and must used the dried spice, buy in small quantities and keep them stored in a cool, dark place, not over your stove on a rack. Dried spices do have an extended shelf life if properly stored, but they do not last forever.

You can buy cookbooks from many sources on Italian cooking. Most of them have pictures of the completed dish so that you will know what it should look like. That can be helpful if you have never seen the dish anywhere. It is usually best to follow a recipe when you first start to learn a new cuisine, but don't be afraid to start experimenting once you have the basics down.

The heart of Italian cooking is the use of ingredients that are in season. Fresh, Fresh, Fresh are the three words to remember most. These ingredients are used to transform ordinary items into works of art in the form of sauces, pastas, breads, side dishes, main dishes, soups and deserts. The possibilities are endless and exciting.

The subject of pairing pasta shapes with types of sauces in the world of Italian cooking is a fascinating subject all by itself. When you were a child in school, did your teachers ever have you experiment with a layered sandwich? You know, peanut butter on one side and jelly on the other. Take a bite with the peanut butter side down and describe the taste, then flip it and take a bite with the jelly side down and make note of the differences. It truly is amazing. Try serving a slow simmered tomato-based sauce with a perfect blend of ground veal, pork and beef and spices, the right showering of freshly grated Parmesan cheese on macaroni instead of spaghetti. A revolting development to say the least. Entire books can be written on this topic alone. It is a very important aspect of Italian cooking.

Choose the method of learning Italian cooking that suits you best and that you are most comfortable with. Don't be afraid of failures, they will be some of your best teachers. Think about the time when everyone will be asking you for your recipes because you will be the "Italian cooking expert". Now go to your kitchen, pull out that recipe, pick up that saucepan and go to work!