giuliochef

If you start to cook italian a very useful book is also "Il cucchiao d'argento". You can read a big part of the book here (free registration).

I totally agree, Rome have turned an expensive city, especially after the Euro coming most of the cheap restaurants have doubled their prices (but luckily osterie and trattoria are still cheap)... so ,two cheap restaurants: In central area, very close to Trevi fountain there is Ristorante l'Archetto with a huge choice of spaghetti (via Natal del Grande, 38) Another one, between Piazza del Popolo and Piazza di Spagna is Ristorante Il brillo parlante ( http://www.ilbrilloparlante.com/ also in English), via della Fontanella, 12. But maybe one of the best in Rome if we are talking about quality/price relation is Ristorante Giuda ballerino, Via Marco Valerio Corvo 135 Tel. 06/71584807. It's in a suburb, but it's very original (they are devoted to comics and they have a comics library inside). You can choose the sampling menu or from menu a la carte. Here is an example of a sampling menu: Tortino di patate e polpo con crema di olive Taggiasche (potatoes and octopus cake with cream of olive Involtino di radicchio al vino rosso con spigola Red cabbage in red wine sauce with seabass Terrina di Faraona con pistacchi e cognac. Guinea fowl terrine with pistachos and cognac Maltagliati di nero di seppia con calamari, pomodoro e origano Black maltagliati (made with cuttlefish ink) with squids, tomatoes and oregano Risotto con asparagi, salame rosa Pasquini e ricotta affumicata a freddo al fumo di ginepro Risotto with asparagus, pink salami juniper smoked ricotta Controfiletto d’agnello con fegato grasso d’oca e tartufo estivo Lamb fillet with foie grase and summer truffle Selezione di formaggi cheese selection Piccola pasticceria Pastries Millefoglie di croccante di mandorle con crema ai lamponi e frutti di bosco freschi Crunchy almonds Millefoglie with raspberries and fresh beries Pralineria Pralines. The bill: 44 Euro(!). I don't know if they are open in August.

Mozzarella in carrozza (in carriage), it's like a sandwich: 1 or 2 days old mozzarella, sliced (because it should be quite dry). Now, cut your usually bread (the "toast bread", we call "pan carrè", but if you have some home made bread use it) in the same shape of the mozzarella slices (often triangle shape). It's better if the bread is not very fresh, so use a two days old bread and soak it in fresh milk for few minutes. Put the mozzarella between bread slices (add a fillet of anchovie and a caper or slice of ham for better taste), pass all in plain flour, then in eggs, finally in breadcrumbs and then fry it: Serve for a delicious afternoon snack. Sformato di patate (potatoes) and mozzarella: grease with butter a pan and cover with bread crumbs; prepare a rich mashed potatoes (with butter, grated parmesan, pepper, nutmeg and eggs), put in the oven-pan alternating with layers of mozzarella slices. Sprinkle with grated parmesan and garnish with butter. Bake in oven for about 30 minutes.

There are several ways to stuff them, but I love to eat fiori (flowers) di zucchina as a starter (the classic roman style): stuffed with anchovies and ricotta cheese or mozzarella cheese (if you want you can add a caper or an olive for each flower), then plunge in pastella (batter? sorry my english), finally deep fried and served with fried baccalà (dry salted cod reconstitute for one night in water) and fried mixed vegetable (zucchine, eggplants, mushrooms, artichokes and apples - this is "fritto alla romana"). Or stuffed with Dublin Bay prawn and sole mousse served on chopped tomatoes salad. You can also prepare them as they do in Liguria: stuffed with boiled potatoes, ricotta made from sheep's milk, chopped chive or majoran, egg white and baked for 5-6 minute at 200° Celsius. In Trentino (the region near the Austrian border) they stuff zucchini flowers with speck (smoked ham: http://www.speck.it/index_f.html -also in English-) and chopped green onions. In Piemonte they fry fiori di zucchina stuffed with sweet fontina cheese and ham. In Puglia they stuff with dried tomatoes, capers, black olives, burrata (spreadable buffalo mozzarella) or buffalo mozzarella, plunge in batter (made with plain flour, eggs, brewer's yeast, sparkling water) and deep fried. Another delicious way is risotto or fresh tagliatelle with tiger prawns and zucchini flowers.

Hi Adam, (first at all i apologize for my english) in Liguria you can try everything with pesto (for example gnocchi al pesto or trofie, a kind of pasta), spaghetti or linguine ai batti-batti (a sort of little lobster), cozze ripiene alla spezzina (stuffed mussels in La Spezia style), risotto alla pescatora or risotto alla marinara (fisherman's risotto or seaman's risotto), fishsoup (zuppa di pesce), cima alla genovese (stuffed breast of veal), torta ai carciofi (artichoke cake), torta pasqualina (spinach, cheese, and eggs cake), torta di alici or acciughe (anchovies cake), torta di funghi (wild mushroom cake). If yuo're lucky you can taste ovoli in insalata (a kind of very rare wild mushroom served as a salad); ratatuia, mixed vegetables stew; every kind of fish and seafood, for example mussels (cozze), clams (vongole), squids (calamari, totani), sea truffles (tartufi di mare), seabass with herbs (branzino or spigola alle erbe); minestrone; ravioli di carciofi al timo (artichoke ravioli with time sauce); stuffed rabbit (coniglio ripieno), stuffed pigeons (piccioni farciti); castagnaccio (chestnuts cake), pinolata (pinenuts cake), torta paradiso (paradise cake). Don't forget to visit "le cinque terre" (literally "the five lands), a very very nice place. ( http://homepage.sunrise.ch/homepage/avong/...g/cinque_terre/ or http://www.5terre.com/FrameSet.php?LeftFil....e=HomePage.php. it's also nice to visit Castelnuovo Magra, in the beautiful Magra valley, near Sarzana. If you decide to go to visit Castelnuovo, try this restaurant: Armanda, in piazza Garibaldi 6 (6, Garibaldi square), it's a very little restaurant, but very good and quite cheap.