Personalizing your Cooking Style

Growing up in a household where the primary cuisine was Italian, I quickly learned two important things about cooking:  always cook with the best possible and freshest ingredients and taste is everything.  My grandmother said that if you can’t get the best of ingredients, don’t make the dish. 

The importance of taste in Italian cooking is the most important part of the cuisine.  Each region of Italy produces its own flavors and unique ingredients:  for example, most folks equate pesto with Italy when there are literally hundreds of types of pesto made throughout Italy with the most famous (the one you know with basil and pine nuts) coming from Genoa.  The same principle gives us yet another example of great Italian staples such as Regianno Parmigianno, perhaps Italy’s most famous cheese.

When developing your own style of cooking, it is important to note that each item you add to your dish lends a layer of flavor.  The types of tomatoes you choose, the type of garlic or onion and even the type of salt all add a uniqueness.  When you consider sea salt, think of the fact that each ocean produces a different flavor of sea salt.  And the best sea salt for one particular dish is your personal choice.

 
Most of the great Italian cooks I know personally favor Cento San Marzano tomatoes (when using canned tomatoes) because they are the best.  If you can get local tomatoes fresh, that’s wonderful but in the Northeast, our choices are limited. 

Today’s recipe is a very simple take on a very rustic dish which is one of my favorites.  My little twist makes it my recipe.  I hope you like it.

Italian Sausage Bake

Ingredients:

2 lbs. of sweet Italian sausage

2 tbl. of butter mixed with 1 tbl. of extra virgin olive oil

1 lb. of fresh crimini mushrooms

2 lb. of Yukon gold baby potatoes

1 can of Durkee fried onion rings

1 cup of chicken stock

Garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350F.  Put butter and olive oil in a large baking dish and place in oven until butter melts.  Put sausages in and cover the baking dish.  Check after fifteen minutes and poke holes in the sausage skin to allow the juices to run.  Add the mushrooms and cover.  Check again in fifteen minutes.  When sausage looks cooked, cut the sausage links into bite sized pieces.  Add all ingredients except the onion rings and cover again.  Lower oven temperature to 300F.  Allow the mixture to slow cook in the oven and just about 30 minutes before serving time, add the onion rings and mix well. 

This dish serves about six people.  It’s very easy to prepare and is yummy.