Italian cuisine, mainly known for its pasta and pizza, is a kaleidoscope of its regional cooking. Rossopomodoro is a worldwide chain of restaurants serving traditional Neapolitan food and several outlets in Riyadh and Jeddah.
Whenever one thinks of Naples, the name itself conjures images of mouthwatering pizza glistening with melted cheese. Raffaele Esposito, the owner of Pizzeria di Pietro, invented the “Margherita,” one of the most popular pizzas. One day in 1889, an official of the Royal Court asked him if he would go at once to the Royal Palace of Capodimonte to show the sovereign, Umberto I what an excellent cook he was. He baked a pizza in honor of the queen whose colors mirrored those of the Italian flag: red (tomatoes), white (mozzarella), and green (basil leaves). The Queen said later that the pizza she liked the most was the one with mozzarella and tomato, which was then given the name of “Margherita.”
It is interesting to know that an authentic Neapolitan pizza has a crust made with highly refined Italian type 0 or 00 wheat flour and fresh brewer’s yeast, water, and salt. The dough must be kneaded by hand or a low-speed mixer and shaped by hand, without the help of a rolling pin. The pizza must not exceed 35 centimeters in diameter or be more than a third of a centimeter thick at the center. The dough is topped with raw, pureed San Marzano tomatoes (grown in volcanic soil surrounding Mount Vesuvius, they are less acidic and slightly sweeter than other tomatoes), “fior di latte,” which is mozzarella cheese made from cow’s milk, or mozzarella di Bufala, which is mozzarella cheese made from the milk of water buffalos, usually raised in Campania and Lazio marshlands in Italy; fresh basil, and extra virgin olive oil. The pizza is baked for 60-90 seconds in a stone oven with a wood fire.
If you like your food spicy then you might like to order a pizza Piccantella, as it comes loaded with buffalo mozzarella, spicy beef salami and fresh basil. I went for the “Chianese,” a pizza with cherry tomatoes, smoked Provola cheese, Caciocavalo flakes, and rucola dressed with homemade basil pesto.
Another typical Neapolitan specialty is the “Calzone,” a folded Italian pizza, which by the sheer nature of its shape is far easier to eat than a normal pizza and it looks somewhat like a Cornish pasty. The typical calzone is stuffed with tomato, and mozzarella.
The best calzone I ate was in Milan on a cold winter’s day. It was in fact the fried version filled with tomato and mozzarella known as “Panzerotti”. It was served piping hot rolled into a thin paper; a simple and delicious street food.
The menu features a “Calzone Ripieno” stuffed with smoked Provola cheese, smoked turkey, friarielli and fresh basil and a “Calzone Casandrinellina” with tomato, buffalo mozzarella, ricotta cheese, beef ham, parmesan cheese and fresh basil.
The selection of pastas includes an interesting linguine served with olive oil, garlic and a walnut sauce. Linguine, which originated in Genoa and the Liguria region of Italy, is a type of pasta which is flat, wider than spaghetti but not as wide as fettuccine. In Italian, linguine means, “little tongues”. Linguine are also called ‘trenette” and “Linguine alle Vongole” and “Trenette al Pesto” are typical Genoese specialty.
Ravioli stuffed with fresh salmon, ricotta cheese and served in a white sauce with shrimps are also included in the menu.
The earliest records of ravioli appear in the letters of Franceso di Marco, a 14th century merchant of Prato. The pasta is described as being stuffed with meat, eggs, cheese, parsley and sugar. There were both sweet and savory ravioli.
Nowadays, most ravioli dishes are savory, but there are a few regional recipes of sweet ravioli and a growing number of creative chefs are inventing original ravioli desserts. I have not forgotten a dessert of ravioli stuffed with prunes and served with an orange sauce.
I also noticed the presence of “gnocchi,” delicious potato dumplings. Easy to make, you just have to boil, peel and puree the potatoes. Then you mix the flour into the mashed potatoes until you obtain a dough. This dough is finally shaped into individual dumplings, which are boiled. Gnocchi should be light and fluffy and certainly not dense and chewy. At Rossopomodoro, the gnocchi are served in a tomato sauce topped with mozzarella and Parmesan cheese.
One of my favorite Italian dishes is the risotto so I ordered a risotto made with vegetables, mascarpone cheese and fresh basil pesto. Risotto is a simple dish, made of a short polished rice (arborio, carnoroli or vialone), butter, stock and cheese with bits and pieces of other ingredients added for variety.
The trick in cooking it is to keep it at the proper heat and bubbling gently; a risotto absorbs the liquid, which is added gradually. If made wrong, the risotto will be soggy or the middle of each grain of rice will be tough. It takes at least 20 minutes to make a risotto; cooks cannot stop stirring for long, otherwise the dish loses the proper texture. That is part of its charm. You are stirring and stirring and then at a certain point, something wonderful happens: the dots in the center of the rice grains have become transparent. That’s the sign that the starch is beginning to be released. It’s a magical moment! But there is an art in serving the perfect risotto. If the rice is overcooked, it will end soggy and if it is undercooked, it will be hard. In an ideal risotto dish, the rice must be “al dente”, each grain must be slightly undercooked, but it must surrender its starch to the liquid, so that the dish is creamy.
If you feel like tasting Neapolitan food you might like to try this Italian restaurant.
And finally….bon appétit!

Lisakaaki@arabnews.com