Lidia's Kitchen

-Buongiorno.

I'm Lidia Bastianich, and teaching you about Italian food has always been my passion.

Just like that.

You got that right.

It has always been about cooking together and building your confidence in the kitchen.

For me, food is about gathering around the table to enjoy loved ones.

Your family is going to love it.

Share a delicious meal and make memories.

Tutti a tavola a mangiare.

"Lidia's Kitchen: Tradition to Table."

-Funding provided by... -Every can of Cento tomatoes is born in Italy, where they are grown and ripened in sun-drenched fields and then harvested by local farmers who select them just for us.

Cento -- trust your family with our family.

-Authentically Italian Prosecco Doc the Italian sparkling art of living.

-For over 140 years, Auricchio traditional handcrafted provolone, made in Italy.

-Cooking is a journey, a beautiful journey.

Kneading, chopping, stirring.

Anything that gets you to the joyous table is a pleasure.

It's fun.

There is nothing better than the smell of fresh bread.

And this focaccia is extra special because it is filled with Stracchino cheese.

And you can see the bubbles, how nice and crispy it is.

Everyone always asks me, "What olive oil do you use, Lidia?"

So, let's take the time to explore all things olive oil with my grandson, Lorenzo.

Mmm.

-Oh, nice.

-What do you smell?

-I smell olive oil.

[Laughs] -I love risotto, so when I find a new way to enjoy it, I am more than happy to share it.

Try this one with barley for a heartier twist on my all-time favorites.

Focus on the here and now in the kitchen.

Enjoy the journey.

I bet most of you think, oh, I got to cook.

My goodness.

But do you know what?

Think of peacefulness in the kitchen.

I find comfort, I find peace just cleaning vegetables like this.

It's cathartic, makes me feel good.

And ultimately, you know that you're going towards a goal, you're going to feed your family, and you're giving yourself and your mind and your senses space.

The chopping of parsley and of course, the aromas that come with it bring me to a peaceful place.

[Indistinct conversations] I'm ready to go.

Did you get that?

Focaccia di Recco.

Buongiorno.

Welcome to my kitchen.

And today I'm going to show you an easy favorite of my family, certainly.

Focaccia di Recco.

But let's begin with the cheese.

Focaccia, you know, bread.

But this focaccia has the stuffing, and the cheese that's usually put in the stuffing is this soft fresh cheese called Stracchino.

It's imported, but you can use also Crescenza instead of it.

And then we put it to drain a little bit because you don't want to wet the dough.

You want the cheese to be as dry as possible.

So, let's make the dough.

Here you see flour, oil, water, and salt.

Where's the yeast?

There's no yeast in this Focaccia di Recco.

Recco is a little city in Liguria, west of Genoa, and Liguria is known for its focaccia.

It claims to have first made the focaccia.

Yeast focaccia or flatbreads have been made for centuries before that, but this is a special focaccia from Recco because of the cheese.

So, here we have the flour.

And you want bread flour, high-gluten flour, because we're going to roll it very thin.

So, you want it to be elastic.

Let's put some salt.

Let's put it in the processor.

Let's combine the water and oil.

Okay.

First, give it a whirl, and then let's add the liquid.

Okay.

Yes.

It's nice and it's a little bit on the sticky side, but that's the way we want it.

And it's very pliable.

Beautiful.

I love the feeling of dough.

As a kid, grandma would put a little stool for me, and I would get up to the table and knead the dough with her.

And as you can see, it's rolling beautifully.

And we are going to put this in plastic wrap to rest.

So here we are.

Wrap it up tightly and let it rest at room temperature for about an hour.

And then we'll roll it out and make the focaccia di Recco.

I'm here in the kitchen.

I have some time and I thought I'd check in with everyone.

Let's see who wrote in.

Deb sends an e-mail.

"I saw your kneading board and asked my husband to make one for me.

It's a little different than yours, but it does the job.

Mine has a lip right in front of me so the flour stays on the board.

Thank you for your inspiration."

Oh, that's nice, Deb, I'm glad.

That's a big, long board.

I see the lip in the front.

Mine has a lip in the back and on the side, but that's great.

Good kneading.

The dough has rested, the cheese has drained.

We're ready to go.

And this focaccia di Recco pan is copper.

Look.

And it's a great one.

It's the traditional one.

You can do it in a pizza dish, but just make sure it has a little bit of a lip.

Let's oil this well.

In the meantime, I have the oven heating at 500 degrees.

That's that.

Now let's get to the dough.

It has rested.

So we're going to need one for the bottom and one for the top.

So let's cut it in half.

It's almost like an apple pie.

You need a base and you need a top.

And you can already see how the dough stretches easily.

Okay.

And to do it around, you actually roll around, and then you can flip it over.

And as you can see, it really stretches.

And the fact that it is bread flour, high in gluten, really helps the stretching.

It looks nice and thin.

Let's just plop it right into the vessel here.

And if it breaks a little bit here and there, don't you worry.

You see, just push it a little bit with your hand, and you can stretch it right in here.

That's the base.

And you're going to put the stracchino in kind of little dabs all over, one in the center.

There we go.

Help yourself with another spoon so you can get it off.

If you don't have stracchino, you can even use cream cheese.

It'll be different.

It'll taste different.

But you could use it, certainly.

It will melt and it will kind of spread.

Let's do the cover sort of.

And always help it with your hand a little bit.

Stretch it.

My dear friend Nancy Silverton, she's a great baker.

And she makes focaccia di Recco at Chi Spacca in LA, and it is delicious.

And let's pull it over the side and let's cut it all around.

And you sort of help it along.

Just squeeze it a little bit so it's nice and sealed.

And then you go in between the cheese and just give it little rips.

Just like that.

This gives an opportunity for the moisture, the steam to come out so that the dough remains nice and crispy.

And let's brush it with oil gently.

Looks ready to go.

Let's put a little bit of salt.

And it's ready to be put in the oven.

So the oven is at 500 degrees.

About 15 to 18 minutes.

It'll be nice and brown on top and also on the bottom.

And it is a delicious focaccia di Recco.

I have some more time.

So let me see what you guys are writing in.

Robbie writes, "How do I freeze pizza dough?"

That's a good question.

You have to let the pizza dough raise once.

You have to let the yeast begin to activate.

Once it has risen, you punch it down.

You mix it.

You knead it.

Shape it back into a bowl, brush it with olive oil, cover it so it doesn't form a film, and ready to freeze.

Now, when you're ready to bake, you got to pull it out.

Let it come to room temperature, let it rise slowly.

Punch it again, and then you proceed to make your pizza.

Okay, let me go check with baking in the oven.

And keep on writing, I appreciate it.

The focaccia di Recco has rested and you can see the bubbles.

How nice and crispy it is.

You can cut it with a knife, but I like the pizza cutter.

Okay, this is my slice.

You see it flaky.

The cheese is running there.

Mm.

Let me taste it.

And of course, a little prosecco to complement this wonderful crunchy and light focaccia.

Mm.

You can make one.

You can make two.

They'll disappear in no time.

Okay.

I'm going on for more.

Degustazione di olio d'oliva.

How do you choose olive oils?

How do you buy olive oils?

How do you taste olive oils?

That's a question that's constant on my social.

Because olive oil is, of course, at the basis of Italian cooking, and it's so important.

But you got to know how to buy it.

First of all, olive oil is made, of course, of olives.

There's more than 1,200 different species of olives, and it could be a monovitigno, just one single varietal, or a blend of olives.

Usually three different olives will be used in making olive oil.

The olives, all olives are green.

When they mature, they become black.

But how do we buy it?

How do we know?

How do we taste it?

So, Italy, 20 regions, every single region produces olive oil.

So let's see what the general traits of these olive oils are.

The first one is from Puglia.

Now, Puglia is the heel of Italy and it is the largest producing region of Italy.

You travel through Puglia, which is beautiful.

You see those thousands and thousands of olive trees.

So we look at the color.

The color looks beautiful, looks bright.

And the second big one is the olfactory.

And then, of course, is the taste.

So why don't you take yours and let's - It looks beautiful.

A nice golden greenish yellow color.

Let's do the olfactory bit.

Mm.

-Oh, nice.

-What do you smell?

-I smell olive oil.

-[ Laughs ] How about artichokes?

-Oh, yeah.

-How about cut grass?

-I'm kidding.

-How about, you know, vegetation?

-Yeah, yeah.

-Do you smell -- -Yes, yes, yes.

-And that's what you're supposed to smell.

So take two, three whiffs.

So you really kind of record what you're smelling.

The next one will be to take a sip of the olive oil, and you slurp it in, and I'll show you how.

And you hold it on your palate.

Don't swallow it.

You hold it on your palate, and then we'll just... [Inhales] ...pull a little bit of air in, close our mouth, and then blow out of our nose so that the aromas of the oil that's on your tongue will travel through your olfactory senses and will get even more pronounced.

And then, when you're finished doing that, you remember that, then you ingest it nice and easy and let it slowly go down, down your throat, and you will get the viscosity of the oil, and you will get also the actual flavor.

Sometimes it could be buttery, it could be very much grassy.

It could be piquant.

So shall we take a sip?

-Yes.

-Okay.

One, two, three.

Watch me.

[ Gurgling ] What did you taste?

Good idea.

And a piece of an apple.

Just a little piece, and I'll take a piece of an apple because the apple really cleanses the palate.

But what did you taste?

There was a viscosity in the oil.

-Yeah.

-Kind of the density of the oil you felt on your tongue.

And of course, going down, all these taste buds right here really reacted to the flavonoids.

These are the good elements in olive oil actually that are antioxidants.

And the more olive oil has them, the better the olive oil is.

And you recognize it like this.

-Yeah.

-So I would use this one with the broccoli rabe and pasta and all that.

I think it would be very good for all of that.

So let's go to the next one.

from Liguria.

And we're going north now.

And the temperature is different, the climate is different, and the oils are also different.

And this oil is made from 100% Taggiasca.

Taggiasca is the olive traditional of Liguria.

So let's do the same thing.

The color is nice and bright.

Let's take it to the nose.

This one is not as open or as grassy as the first one, but it's very elegant.

It's buttery.

-Yeah.

-Mm.

Mm.

Very mild.

-Yeah, very.

Like, there's some polyphenols residue down as it going out the throat.

But it's soft.

You can see a great pesto, how this would really make a great pesto.

I would use this one with fish, light herbal pasta.

What would you use it with?

-I like a mild olive oil, so I'd use it with a bunch of stuff.

Vegetables, I like vegetables.

-Steamed vegetables would be nice.

The next olive oil is from Sicily.

Just one varietal is used.

And I think what's important if you buy Italian olive oil that you look for the government guarantee, DOP.

-Denominazione di Origine Protetta.

-That's a guarantee from the government that it is from the region, the actual place where it says it is and the varietal that it says.

-Yeah.

And made in a particular way.

-Exactly.

Okay.

So here again, vegetation.

I feel artichoke, spinach.

-Yeah.

-You see again?

-This is stronger than the last one.

-Yeah.

In the south, the temperature are higher, the maturity is more intense, and you can sense it right away.

So let's take a little sip now.

I still feel the polyphenols a little less.

-Yeah.

-But there is a denser viscosity, so what it tells me, it's going to be good with tomatoes.

All of the indigenous vegetables that are Sicily.

-Yeah.

I could see me using it in a nice pasta because it's got like a nice flavor on its own.

-Complexity.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Anchovies a little bit.

-Yeah.

-Capers, all of that.

Yeah.

So here we have an olive oil that is a blend, a blend of three different cultivar.

That means three different olives, could be just regional or this one could be olives collected from different regions and then made into the oil.

Let's see, what do you feel about a blend?

So here's a mix between the vegetables, I feel, and the butter.

Don't you feel a mix between the Liguria and, let's say, Sicily?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Okay, let's take a sip.

-Wow.

That's got, like, a powerful kick to it.

-Yeah, there's a lot... -Yeah.

-...in front of the mouth far as flavor and the polyphenols.

-Yeah.

-And this sort of spreads across the board whether you do sauting, vegetables, pasta, soups.

I think you can do a lot.

The viscosity is dense.

There's a lot of substance there.

-Yeah.

-So I think they're all good oils, they're extra virgin olive oils.

And the taste is up to you.

The only way to get to know it's like wine.

You need to taste it, record it, and identify what you like in an olive oil.

And what would you like to use it?

Just I think buying olive oil in smaller quantities because it oxidizes so fast and it is expensive, but in smaller bottles so you have them there.

Keep it in a dark glass bottle away from light.

Do you understand olive oil better?

-Yeah, I think I would love to do this with my friends.

-Let each one bring a little bottle of oil and share.

You'll have fun.

But most of all, you'll have learned a lot about olive oils.

Risotto Di Farro Con Verza E Salsiccia.

Barley.

It's a grain.

It's a great grain.

From soups to making risottos to side orders.

The Romans used it a lot, so it's one of the oldest grains in the Italian culinary history.

It's a grain that needs to be cooked before you actually begin the risotto.

Here I have cooked barley, and to cook barley is rather simple.

You just put some water, some salt, you remove the bay leaves once it's cooked, and it's about 3/4 of the way done.

And now we're going to make some sauce to sort of dress up the risotto.

Start with some oil, some onion and sausage.

That's the basis of the flavoring here.

So the sausage, you can cut it in slices.

But I like to pull it out of the casing.

And it's simple.

Sometimes you can even buy sausage that's out of the casing, but it has all the flavoring of sausage.

So I'm going to just kind of break it up a little bit.

And if it really sticks together, what's good is just to put a little bit of white wine right in here, and it begins to break apart.

[ Sizzling ] Onion.

Onion and cabbage go good together.

It's a good base for a lot of Italian sauces.

So I am cutting, making the slices.

Not all the way, because I want the head to stay together so it doesn't slip away all over.

And then you go across crosscutting it.

And the onion is cut.

Let's put the onion in with the sausage.

And here I like the thyme as a flavoring.

So, thyme, you just need the leaves.

You don't want the woodsy stem.

I usually hold it at the top and kind of go counter stem.

Just like that.

You could put the whole stem in there and usually the leaves will fall off.

But then you would have to go and fish for these woodsy stems in your sauce.

Now let's chop this a little bit and let's put it right in.

I'm going to put a little bit of wine in here to deglaze and to get everything cooking.

And good drinking wine, that's what you cook with.

And now we deal with the cabbage.

We're going to use only half of it.

But cabbage is one of those vegetables that really keep.

And to cut the core, you just have to go at the core of it.

Get it out, cut it like that.

Let's cut it like this so it's more manageable.

And now let's shred it.

So let's season this.

Salt, peperoncino.

The onions have wilted, but they still have their texture.

And I think it's time to put the cabbage right in.

[ Sizzling ] I'm going to need some salt for the cabbage.

Wine now.

Ah, let's do it.

You know, when in doubt, pour the wine in.

And this is going to slowly break down.

Cover it.

And now we have time to chat a little bit.

And you know, I love to hear from you.

So, Victoria.

"I wanted to know why Italians use parsley?

Some say it's a compliment to a dish, but it really has no significant flavor."

What do you mean, Victoria, "no significant flavor"?

Parsley has a very unique flavor.

It is very nutritional.

High in vitamin C and minerals.

So it is quite important.

And it looks beautiful as garnish.

So, Victoria, keep on using those fresh herbs and keep on sending and keep on asking.

Now let's go back to the cabbage.

Mm.

You can see how this is cooking away.

I am going to put some stock.

And at this point, I'm going to add the barley.

Now, I told you, the barley is cooked almost 3/4 of the way.

Whereas the risotto, you start the rice right from the beginning.

Here you make the sauce, you cook the barley partially, and then you add it, let it simmer.

Let's come back to it periodically and then we'll dress it up for the finale.

When I'm waiting, I love to hear from you.

So let's go and check what's in my e-mail.

"In your recipes, you use a lot of cabbage.

But what kind should I buy at the store?

There are so many options these days."

So, Greg, there's the regular cabbage, there's the Savoy cabbage.

There's the red cabbage, there's the Chinese cabbage.

It's endless.

Basically, I use the red cabbage to make salads.

But the other cabbages I love in soups.

I love them to make pastas.

I love them to make risottos.

To stuff cabbage leaves with meat.

I especially love the Savoy cabbage, the curliness on the leaves.

It looked like a green rose to me.

I hope I answered some of your questions, and I will keep on looking for you.

Look how good this looks.

The risotto, I've been mixing it, and I think we are there.

Let me put just a little bit more of the stock here.

This is the time to add the scallions.

The scallions are going to wilt and cook just with the heat of the risotto.

And I'm going to do the mantecare just like you do a risotto.

Let's put the few dabs of butter.

Room temperature, mix that in.

It has a real earthy aroma, the barley, you know?

Let's put the cheese.

The butter and the cheese kind of pull all the flavors together, gives it that creamy comfort feeling.

And a little plate for Lidia.

A ladle is a great way to serve this.

Okay, let's go to the other plate.

Let's go to the Lidia plate.

All right.

Here we are.

Ready to bring it to the table.

This looks beautiful.

I wanted to serve you today.

How's that?

Look how beautiful.

Now let me taste.

Mm.

It has texture.

The cabbage, the sausages.

There's a creaminess about it.

I am going to sit down and enjoy it.

But in the meantime, I want to invite you, too.

I don't want to leave you out.

And as I always say, tutti a tavola a mangiare!

[ Singing in Italian ] Cin-cin, Nonna.

Salute.

Mm.

-A la salute.

-The food from this series is a celebration of the Italian dishes Lidia cooks for the ones she loves the most, from the traditional recipes of her childhood to the new creations she feeds her family today.

All of these easy-to-prepare recipes can be found in Lidia's latest cookbook, "From Our Family Table to Yours," available for $35.

To purchase this cookbook and any of her additional products, call 1-800-PLAY-PBS, or visit shop.pbs.org/lidia.

To learn more about Lidia, access to videos, and to get recipes, tips, techniques, and much more, visit us online at lidiasitaly.com.

Follow Lidia on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, @LidiaBastianich.

-Funding provided by... -At Cento Fine Foods, we're dedicated to preserving the culinary heritage of authentic Italian foods by offering over 100 specialty Italian products for the American kitchen.

Cento -- trust your family with our family.

-And by...