There couldn’t have been a better time to release CNN‘s new show with Stanley Tucci, Searching for Italy. Everyone is going through travel withdrawl and missing Italy so much.
I hear it daily in messages from friends and clients waiting to come back. I think trip planning is almost as much fun as the trip itself and this show is going to inspire many people. Naples and the Amalfi Coast, Rome, Bologna, Milan, Tuscany and Sicily. For years, I have been taking people to travel like this. Exploring the regional specialties and the artisans, cooks, chefs that keep traditions alive. To me, you have a different sort of insider experience when you sit at the table with someone that made your food or taught you to make it. Markets of course are a must on any trip, they are the heart and soul of a city to me.
I was tipped off to the show as friends I follow on FB, were showing Stanley traveling around filming during Covid, finishing the show. This series features 6 regions of Italy and I know everyone would love for him to do the entire country. I was thrilled to learn that he spent a year in Florence when he was 12 years old with his family. What a gift! I didn’t arrive in Florence until I was 30.
The first show featured Naples as his home base and he traveled to the Amalfi Coast and also to Ischia. Needless to say, I was thrilled to see many of my friends featured. Enzo Coccia for pizza and the San Marzano Tomatoes from Sarno and Gustorosso. You can get the tomatoes from the farm which is a cooperative from Gustiamo in NY.
I think the recipe which many people immediately tried to make was the Spaghetti alla Nerano. A simple delicious dish which is made with so few ingredients, the secret is really in the quality of the ingredients and the technique. The original trattoria in Nerano which created this dish is called Maria Grazia. Nerano was a fishing village and a hang out for pirates originally. The dish is now 18 euro at the restaurant, one of my Italian food critic friends said to simply order an extra large portion and make that your meal, for an Italian that is totally overpriced as Italians start with a pasta dish. I find that in Italy, when I first arrived in the early 80’s, it was not possible to simply eat a plate of pasta. ” We only serve full meals” was normal. When they realized that Americans only wanted a pasta dish, they complied and simply doubled the price.
I first had it 37 years ago, at a neighbors apartment in Florence. She was from Naples. She diligently cooked each slice of zucchini until it was golden, turning the slices with a fork, making it quite an ordeal. Over the years I have had it on many trips down to the Amallfi Coast. So many recipes never really leave a region and there is a reason, often the ingredients are not available or just different.
I visted a cheese maker years ago in Agerola that produced the Provola del Monaco. It is a cow’s milk cheese only produced in a few towns in the mountains above Sorrento. It has been declared a DOP product, which means it can only be produced in this area. Of course, as with almost any Italian recipe, people personalize their versions of the pasta sauce. The Provola is aged so it grates differently than a normal provolone, and melts to a creaminess.
If you have this cheese, you don’t use butter.
Slice the zucchini as thin as possible. I use an inexpensive mandolin.
This sauce is very simple and there are a few variations.
Garlic-You can add a clove of garlic when you heat the oil and then remove it.
Butter– I say never, but, if you want it richer, go ahead, as I said, the provola does give a creaminess when it melts. Some put the cooked zucchini in a bowl with softened butter and then add back into the sauce.
Cheeses– Most chefs and cooks use a blend of cheeses, even my friend Peppe Guida, a michelin starred chef and advisor for one of the Pasta Companies from Gragnano. We went to a cooking class at his villa above Vico Equense and learned some great restaurant tricks from him. Mostly the importance of the pasta water in sauces. This recipe is the same. One of his secrets is to under cook the pasta and finish is the sauce adding water as needed until it is al dente. That is called “risottata”, some of the starch in the pasta is released in the sauce as well, also adding to the creaminess. He uses a blend of Parmigiano, Pecorino Romano and 2 local cheeses to Sorrento area. It is a simple technique as for making cacio e pepe. Try using parmigiano and romano and some grated provolone with the hot water off the heat, to be the closest to the original. OR like on the show, a dab of butter will add creaminess.
Zucchini– they are usually the smaller zucchini with ridges, which are really flavorful. After cooking, some chefs add creaminess by pureeing half of the zucchini with a little pasta water, then mixing in and adding the rest of the zucchini slices.
Oil- I always use extra virgin olive oil as I then use it in my sauce, nothing is wasted.
Ingredients
- 2 zucchine ( if you get the tiny ridged Italian zucchini use 4)
- 160 g. di spaghetti from gragnano (You can use 80 to 100 grams per person) I use spaghettini
- 70 g grated cheeses (parmigiano, pecorino romano, provolone del monaco)
- fresh basil
- extra virgin olive oil
- Salt
Instructions
- Slice the zucchini thinly then fry in olive oil until just golden.
- Remove from oil and put on paper towel.
- ( restaurants make it ahead of time and let it sit in fridge and it gets soft)
- You can add the basil to the zucchini right away.
- Put your pasta on to cook in salted water.
- I use the trick I learned in Naples, I use less water and a flat pan.
- Put the zucchini back in the pan where you cooked it.
- Add the basil.
- Add a ladle of the pasta water and create a sauce.
- Undercook the pasta a couple of minutes and then removed from the water and put in the pan with the zucchini.
- When you pick up the pasta don't worry about the water on the pasta, you need it.
- Stir together until the pasta is cooked.
- Turn off the heat and add the grated cheese.
- Stir and add water to create a creamy sauce.
- This is like making cacio e pepe.
Click here to see the list of the places he visited. The only place not listed was the Napolitano coffee stand which moves around in the city of Naples. Giuseppe Schisano has a little street card making coffe using the traditional Cuccamela. You can find him on FB. One of the wonderful items to bring home from Naples is the Cuccamela, a special stovetop coffee maker used in Naples. Also get some local roasted coffee. Both Passalacqua and Kimbo are from Naples.
The next dish I want to make is the rabbit dish from the Island of Ischia, Coniglio alla Ischitano Most people would think that the local specialty would be fish, but the actual story behind the rabbits is that when the Phoenicians traveled through the Mediterranean, where they stopped, they left rabbits so they could populate and they would always have something to eat on the Island! The rabbits are part of the Slow Food movement. The way they raise them and what they eat make their meat delicious. Rabbits are actually easier to raise than chickens for food. The recipe is similar to Chicken Cacciatore. Simply cooked in a tomato sauce with white wine and herbs.
Let me know which are your favorite programs and places to visit! I know many of my friends are involved in the show.
I love Tucci’s mild manner and respect for everything Italian!
Thank you so much – Great article!
Do you know the name of the restaurant run by Italia Tagliacozzo, in the Jewish Ghetto in Rome that was featured? Please let me know. Thank you.
CNN has a running post updating where they have filmed. https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/stanley-tucci-searching-for-italy-restaurants/index.html
https://www.facebook.com/lareginellaroma
I’m definitely going to try this dish – it sounds delicious!! And I have had.a massive crush on Stanley Tucci for years — so handsome!! And, like wine, he just gets better with age! ❤️❤️
Hi, I saw this because a friend, Ann Young, posted it on her FB page. I love Tucci (from his films), and will try to take a look at his travel report. Never made Spaghetti alla Nerano, mainly because I usually use short pasta, penne or fusilli, partly out of laziness. I also usually do not undercook and finish the pasta in the sauce, with a touch of water added. Lazy. But I may try this. Sounds good, and it’s February: cold frames here are producing what you call tiny ridged zucchini, tiny mainly because their growth is slowed down by the weather. The ridged pale zucchini are typically Tuscan, and when I find them I always buy them. Zucchini are a mainstay in my house. I guess frying crisps the zucchini, but am not sure I’ll do it, too fattening! So they will be soft as in a sauté.
Thanks for the recipe and the story.
Guess we never met in Florence. Take care, stay well, keep up the divina cucina! I haven’t got a website. Am just a plain old person living on a podere about 25 km from Florence. Have always had a vegetable garden, but aging makes things a bit difficult.
I’d enjoy blog updates, but not too often. My inbox is generally overloaded
I am out in Certaldo hills now, was in Florence for 20 years, just down the street from Ann!
It is sacrilege to worry about “fattening” when eating just 1 portion of an authentic dish!
I love Stanley Tucci !! I love you and Divina Cucina even more!!
But, sadly, I’m sorry that CNN is the site for “Searching for Italy.”
I refuse to watch CNN (Communist News Network). I’m so sad America is becoming a Socialist country, I am determined to resist at every opportunity!
We’ve visited Italy seven times, and hopefully next time we feel comfortable enough to travel there, we will book a tour with you Judy!
Well bless your heart, aren’t you just a wreck now. I do hope the commies let you return to Italy. Of course they don’t have any of them there.
Hear, Hear! ” What a world, what a world” Lol, glad it’s on CNN, or otherwise would have missed it, especially if it was aired on FAUX News station (FOX).
I loved that this episode was set in and around Naples. My family is from Foggia, Alberona, and I visited that area in 2013 and loved seeing many of the places we had visited, especially, Minori, where we plan to stay in the same apt. in Minori, “La Loggia” overlooking the sea. It was brought back such good memories of being there, especially when I got to see our apartment in the distance in one of the vido shots in Minori.
I Love the show. I cannot believe that I have never heard of this recipe, and I was on the Amalfi coast. I am going to try the recipe as is and again with the aviation presented in the show.
It is a very specific locatation. like Fettucine Alfredo which is only made at Alfredo’s in ROme. Nerano is a tiny fishing village.
This has it all! First, you spoke from my heart about travel. Planning my trip to Italy gives me joy. The extra year of planning has helped me discover more of what I want to experience.
Then, your reminiscence of watching your neighbor cook let me feel the experience with you and will remind me to slow down and appreciate the ingredients and the process. The video lesson and the recipe for Spaghetti alla Nerano whetted my appetite for a delicious combination of my favorite cheese and a vegetable I don’t often serve.
Highlighted by the hope of finding on television the adorable Stanly Tucci validating and adding to my travel dreams makes this una newsletter cinque stelle da Divina Cucina.
Molte Grazie,
Terri
We’ve watched the first two so far and absolutely love it! SO going to make this zucchini pasta!! We are big foodies and cooks (especially Italian food). My husband is Italian and get ready for a cliche, his mother was a great cook! We made a cookbook of her recipes when she passed over 10 years ago and just last year made a documentary about it with all the siblings. I think you’d like it. It’s streaming on Amazon Prime Video. It’s called “A Taste Like Memory.” Here’s the link: https://amzn.to/3qV3eWh If you do watch, email me your feedback. Thanks! Cindy
Can’t wait to try this zucchini dish my brother in law told me about it I had to look on website sounded soo good. Thank you shout out to Fred for turning me on to this web page
A simply fabulous pasta! I can hardly wait for the zucchini Romanesco to begin showing up in June! When I made this a couple of times last summer I used Parmigiano and Caciocavallo. For such a few ingredients, this is a very special “sauce” IMHO! I was completely surprised at how good it was! And yes, Tucci’s programme really does tug at our heartstrings! Last night it was Roma…we both were delighted to see where he was taking us along with being sad that we are unable to return just yet! So, I totally agree with what you are saying Judy…the waiting game is molto difficile! Stanley’s show is helping us through!
So agree, once again it brought back memories, both culinary and otherwise of our Italy trip in 2013. We stayed in a nice apartment in Trastevere . From there we took daily trips across the Tiber river to see the many beautiful and historic sites, as well as culinary delights. Many viewed on this nights program. Bellisimo!
So they specifically said several times they don’t use olive oil Also to refrigerate the zucchini overnight. And several other gems which you left out. This is your recipe not the one detailed on the show. Yours is fabulous, how could it not be with those ingredients, however your article headline implies it’s the recipe from the Tucci show when it isn’t. Ugh!
no, it’s not the one from the show. The recipe I published is the one from the restaurant which created there recipe, Maria Grazie in Nerano. Stanley took people to a fancy restaurant he had been to before and they made their version. You can see the recipe from the show by watching the show! I thought it would be interesting to know how how it is supposed to be made. Obviously a restaurant has short cuts. They didn’t use the traditional local cheese provolone del monaco which is why they added butter.
I just returned from the grocery and the sunflower oil available was $14. Happy to see that this recipe calls for olive oil, which hopefully won’t ruin the dish.
Thank you for posting the recipes from Searching For Italy, I made the pasta with zhuccini and although it may not taste as the show discussed since I am in the USA… it was delicious.
What a great resource you’ve created – thank you!!
Interesting info
I love your blog. What a dream to live in Florence! I can’t wait to visit again.
Thanks for the note! Enjoy the recipes!
Hello,
My wife was very interested in the zucchini recipe and attempted to reproduce it according to the instructions on the program. Sadly, the result was unsatisfactory: The zuccini were saturatedwiththe oil and were anything but tasty, and cerainly not gourmet! It makes one wary of his reccomendations. Stewart McIntyre
That is why I felt it necessary to write up the real recipe. We can only get so close.. as it is impossible to get the special cheese, Provolone del Monaco outside of the area. Tucci went back to the place where he had eaten the pasta dish and loved it,instead of going to the place that invented it. How a restaurant cooks is not how we cook at home. There is no need to precook the zucchini and let them sit overnight. Yes, there is a lot of oil in the recipe, but if you use good oil ( unlike in the TV show) it makes it delicious! Even on the CNN site, they link to a recipe that is older and again, not original but probably closer to the original. Do try mine and let me know! So far only GREAT results from people.
Thank you, I have been wanting to try this recipe since I saw the show. Yes, I have made my own “primavera” type recipes, with zucchini included, but wanted to try this one and will now try it using your recipe. I had wondered about cooking the zucchini first, I would have thought to just slice it thin and sauteed in good olive oil, and now I will. I don’t have access to Provolone del Monaco, but I will use what I have on hand, grated pecorino.
just using parmesan and some pecorino romano with the pasta water gives you that wonderful “cacio e pepe” cream on the pasta.
Thank you for this blog. I am following it, and the recipes you post along with watching Stanley Tucci’s show. MY grandfather was born in Alberona, Foggia, It. He and my grandparents emigrated in 1892, to Orange, NJ when my Gramps was 2 years old. The home my Great Grandparents purchased was in the family for 5 generations, if I include my in-laws who rented it when my husband and family moved in 1986. . We’d probably still own it as a rental if the NJ State Schools didn’t take it and the homes surrounding it under Eminent Domain in 2006. Orange was a melting-pot town of Italian, Irish and German immigrants back then. What I found on my bucket list trip to Italy in 2013, was a lot of the Italian I learned, and versions of the food dishes my family cooked, were not the exact ones in Italy. We had 2 weeks, starting on the Amalfi Coast, then train rides to Venice, then finished in Rome. I guess when they immigrated they had to use the ingredients on hand where they now lived, and many of the Italian words I learned from my childhood, were americanizations of the actual, or possibly because of the different dialects. For example, my gramps who lived with us always used the word, “bacahouse” for bathroom:) For years, until I took language lessons, I thought that was the Italian word for bathroom, and then laughed at myself when I realized it was just the Italian accented term for “Back House:, which our family home had back in 1900’s. My nephew, now in his 50’s, still slips and say’s , “Main-a St” because that’s how his Gr Gramps called it. Acutally, he added the “a” vowel to almost every English word he said:) I hope to be able to return to see other places we couldn’t see, and return to some, such as Minori, on a future visit.
I have an Italian American friend who learned to speak from his grandparents too. No one here understands him!
When travel is allowed again, I highly recommend people consider traveling with you, Judy. You are so knowledgeable and excited about experiencing delicious food. I will never forget your guiding us through Sicily and our couscous lessons with Pino, our two trips to Calvino Brothers Pizzeria in Trapani for undoubtedly the best tasting pizza on the planet and all the other foodie destinations we never would have found on our own!
I have enjoyed Stanley Tucci taking me on a trip down memory lane and I salivate watching him eat. I want fried artichokes from the Jewish Ghetto and wish you could come up with a recipe for Pizza Ebraica from Pasticceria Il Boccione there.
Eating our way through Italy and having you join us for part of the journey was a trip of a lifetime for three dedicated foodies. Thank you again Judy!
Thanks Sandra! hard to even immagine when tourism will get back to normal! But can’t wait.
ps you can find that recipe online. a typical oil and wine based cookie, with dried fruits and nuts and some almond flour. Reminds me of a version of MAndelbrot https://www.tinastable.com/pizza-ebraica/
but you can google around for other versions as well. It’s pretty simple. I remember their things there as always being kind of burnt!