"Al dente" means "to the tooth" in Italian. (Like "terroir", it's one of those concepts that poorly translates into English.) The phrase refers to the desired texture of cooked pasta, which should be soft but still slightly firm at the core of the noodle (or shell or spiral or alphabet letter). Some cooks define "al dente" as "not hard and not soft."
Pasta cooked "al dente" should require some chewing but not crunch or stick to the teeth when chewed. The firm texture should allow you to taste some of the pasta's flavor. Overcooked pasta tends to be mushy and flavorless.
So how do you know when your pasta is "al dente"? In my house growing up, we threw a strand of spaghetti at the wall -- as soon as it sticks, it's done. The problem with that test is that overcooked pasta sticks to the wall, too. So now I just use my teeth: Before I think it's ready, I draw a piece of pasta from the pot, let it cool a few seconds and take a bite. If it's ready, my mouth knows.
Related: What's the point of putting oil in my pasta water?
Related: How to cook garlic for pasta
The cured italian meat pancetta comes either rolled (rotolata) or flat (stesa). Rolled pancetta is often sold thinly sliced. Flat pancetta comes as a slab. You can use it in any dish that would benefit from an underlying, mild pork flavor.
Here's an easy way to prep thin slices of rolled pancetta. First, stack 3-4 slices and roll them up like a cigar. If you want short strips (like lardons), cut the pancetta cigar in half lengthwise. Skip this step if you want the strips to be long.
Then slice the cigar crosswise. Toss the pieces around with your hand to separate them.
To dice slab pancetta, cut a few slices crosswise as thick or thin as you like. Stack the slices, then slice off and discard any unwanted tough skin.
Cut the slices into strips lengthwise.
Rotate the strips 90 degrees around and slice them crosswise to finish the dice.
what you should know
You've got your tender summer squashes -- zucchini and yellow squash among them -- which are eaten skin-and-all well before they're fully grown.
And then you've got your doorstop winter squashes -- most notably the pear-shaped butternut -- which are fully matured and have a hard, thick (and, as far as we're concerned, inedible) shell.
squash picking Look for a butternut that is heavy for its size and free of any cuts or scars. The skin coloring should be similarly pale all over.
wolverines! In many places, butternut squash is now available year-round. But if you suddenly find yourself a guerrilla fighter in the Colorado mountains who has to scrounge for and ration food, you can store one in a cool, dry place for weeks.
butternut cracked There's no easy way to prep a butternut squash. You just have to get in there and hack away at it. When prepping one, we find it helpful to think of it as two separate objects, the narrow neck and the bulbous, seedy end.
oh gourd part III Squashes date back thousands of years. Along with beans and corn, the squash is one of the "Three Sisters," the cornerstones of Native American cuisine.
what you need
Earlier this spring, Claire investigated the pros and cons of Y and straight peelers, which some find helpful in dealing with butternuts.
We usually find a large paring knife to be the most effective way to remove the tough skin of a butternut (even if it means losing a little of the squash's flesh).
With Amy Goldman's The Compleat Squash in hand, there is nothing about butternut squash that you will not know. (No joke.)
For the (really, really good) butternut-banana puree below, try using Jameson or Tullamore Dew.
what you do
Make this butternut squash and sausage casserole with sage for breakfast, then have the leftovers with dinner.
If you like sweet potato fries, you'll love butternut squash tempura with soy-lime dipping sauce
Everyone who starts a food blog has to take a blood oath to post, at some point, on butternut squash risotto.
For a peppery take on a tired old stand-by, try this curried butternut squash soup.
Dessert or Thanksgiving side: butternut squash and banana puree with whiskey and pecans.
what you should know
Often called "Italian bacon," pancetta is different from its American counterpart in one important way. Bacon is usually smoked (and only sometimes cured), while pancetta is pork belly that is cured and spiced but not smoked.
roll vs. slab Pancetta can be prepared in two ways: as a roll (rotolata), in which the fat and muscle spiral around each other; and as a slab (stesa), in which the fat is almost entirely on one side.
make and prep your own Rolled pancetta is most often sliced paper thin. With slab pancetta, you often get a slightly thicker slice you can then dice. (If you want to cure, roll and age your own pork belly, check out Chow's step-by-step guide on making pancetta.)
if you lack guanciale Pancetta is often used in place of guanciale, which is the less commonly available cured pork cheek called for in traditional pasta dishes like carbonara and all'amatriciana.
if you lack pancetta If you can't find pancetta, you can use bacon in its place. Do you need to blanch the bacon before using it? Depends on how you want the finished dish to taste.
what you need
It's more focused on lardons than pancetta, but Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery is our favorite of Jane Grigson's contributions to the world of food reference.
More recently, author and blogger Michael Ruhlman has updated the world of charcuterie with the appropriately titled Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing.
In Pig Perfect, Peter Kaminsky goes on a pilgrimage in search of the world's best cuts of pork. He mostly succeeds.
what you do
Tender, bitter and salty, this recipe for lima beans and radicchio with pancetta is Italianesque comfort food.
Not as comforting, though, as this fettuccine with pancetta, egg and parmesan, a variation of classic pasta carbonara.
Another classic winter dish: Italian cabbage and white bean soup.
This hearty lentil soup with chorizo and potatoes combines the mild spiciness of the Spanish sausage with the porky richness of pancetta.
Even though it's out of season, we've seen some beautiful asparagus lately. Food miles be damned: we've been eating a lot of this sautéed asparagus with pancetta and garlic.
Unlike their summer squash cousins, which are harvested when thin-skinned and immature, winter squash are left to mature late into the growing season (pumpkins are picked after the first frost).
With fully developed seeds (that must be scraped out before cooking) and tough, rind-like yet edible skin, winter squash can last for months if kept cool and dry.
Some winter squash varieties to look for are butternut, buttercup, delicata, spaghetti squash and pumpkin.
Chopping is probably the most common way to prep an onion. Chopped onions show up in anything that needs the basic, earthy pungent flavor that onions give. Chop them larger for longer-cooking dishes like stews and rustic soups, and smaller (call it a dice if you like) for anything from salsas to sauces to ragouts.
To start, cut the onion in half through the root. The root itself will help keep the onion together for chopping
Rotate the onion 90 degrees and cut off the papery end (not the root end). This will make the skin easy to peel away and discard.
Peel back the onion's papery skin. It's often easiest to peel away the first layer of the onion along with the skin.
Make a series of diagonal cuts (roughly 45 degrees) into the side of the onion. Keep more space between the slices for a large chop. Make the cuts closer together for a small chop or a dice.
Now make a series of horizontal cuts to finish shaping the chop or dice.
Finally, rotate the onion again and slice crosswise against the checkerboard pattern you made in the onion. The chopped pieces will fall away from the onion.
Which rices can I use for risotto?
Which rices can I use for risotto?
For this classic northern Italian dish, you want an absorbant, high-starch rice with short, fat grains that will yield a moist, creamy risotto but hold their own for an al dente bite.
Arborio has long been the favorite, but recently, the more expensive and less widely available Carnaroli has become the rice of choice for risotto connoisseurs. Vialone Nano, from the Veneto, can absorb twice its weight in liquid, meaning it is hard to overcook (although some cooks claim it produces a less delicate result). Carnaroli is a hybrid of Vialone Nano and a Japanese rice that was developed in Italy in the 1940s.
Risotto is made by sautéing rice grains in a bit of butter and/or olive oil and diced onion until translucent, then ladling in stock gradually and letting it to absorb before adding more. This process is repeated until the rice is cooked (18-20 minutes).
Most risotto recipes call for almost constant stirring to help release some of the rice's starch and result in a creamy finished dish. We're not so militant about the constant stirring -- in our experience, it's one of those passed-down recipe-isms that doesn't make as much of a difference on the finished dish as conventional wisdom says it does.
Reference: What does al dente mean?
Recipe: Risotto With Treviso Radicchio And Taleggio (Lucullian Delights)
Recipe: Cauliflower Risotto With Spicy Pangrattato (Traveler's Lunchbox)
Recipe: Roasted Beet Risotto (Coconut & Lime)
