Italian flair

Italian cooking represents simplicity at its best. Learning to make a simple basic tomato sauce is essential, or a simple risotto.

Marinara

A very basic tomato sauce has nothing more than its tomatoes, basil, and olive oil, garlic is added as an extra to flavor. Having that basic, anything else can be added into it. I had this added sardine with onions and a garnish of celery top.

Risotto

Risotto is as simple as stirring to cook. Here I have a mushroom risotto, with Italian sausage and garnished with green onion.

Heat a little oil in a pan and throw in mushrooms, sprinkle salt and pepper and allow mushroom to roast in the pan, when the mushroom colors, remove it onto a plate.

Dice onions are first sweated in the same pan until soft. Then add rice into the pan on high heat and constantly stir until rice becomes translucent. Add wine and stir, add hot stock 2 to 3 ladles at a time and constantly stir. At the moment when the rice is almost done, throw in mushrooms and mix in. Mix in as well a nob of butter and grated cheese, add more stock if the risotto appears too dry.

The sausage is merely cooked through on a pan with little oil.

This is not exactly an Italian dish. Here are a vegetable risotto and baked garlic ginger chicken, garnished with diced tomatoes. The chicken is marinated with minced garlic and ginger, with a little sweet soy sauce.

When the risotto is done, place the risotto onto the baking dish and then lay the chicken on top of the risotto. heavily grate cheese all over the dish and few nobs of butter on top and bake in a hot oven until chicken is cooked through, roughly 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the thickness of the meat. The chicken will turn golden brown from the cheese Then garnish with diced tomatoes.