Two of Lidia Bastianich's favourite recipes: white bean soup, ziti and eggplant - mandarin dish restaurant menu

Lidia Bastianich is a simple supporter of cooking fresh seasonal food.
"The goal of cooking is to be fresh, it's seasonal, cooking locally, working as little as possible during the season, and that's exactly what food is necessary," New York-
Television chefs, restaurant owners and cookbook authors said in an interview.
"Leave nature.
"She also believes in teaching her culinary wisdom to a large number of fans.
For example, she called for the use of San Masano tomatoes in many of her recipes.
When asked about this, she began to explain it in detail.
Tomatoes are grown in the San Masano region of the southern Italian province of Campania;
Naples, she says, is the capital, and Mount vesuwei is nearby.
"What's unique about tomatoes is that it's a little sexy --
It looks like a long tomato, but its skin is thin, its flesh is dense, its seeds are few, and its juice is not much, so its flesh produces a good sauce.
She added that the Danic acid in the seeds will make the sauce bitter and the juice in the tomatoes will sour.
Here are two recipes from Bastianich's new book, Lidia's favorite recipe.
Grilled eggplant and ricotta cheese (Norma)
In the introduction of the recipe, Bastianich wrote: "This is a delicious Sicilian pasta, as I found out when I studied Italy and Italy in Palermo, which is available on the menus of almost every restaurant.
In Sicily, they fry the eggplant before adding it to the pasta, but here I direct you to bake the eggplant --
It's just as good, but it's much less fat.
I was asked to eat this recipe over and over again
My audience seemed to like eggplant and ricotta cheese, a perfect combination of the two.
2 large, strong eggplants (each about 7.
5 cm/3 inch in diameter, 625g/1/4 lb)30 ml (2 tbsp)
Coarse salt, more 90 ml for cooking pasta and seasoning pans (6 tbsp)extra-
Virgin olive oil, divided into 2 garlic cloves, 1 can of peeled cut (992 g/35 oz)
Tomatoes (Italy)
San Masano is the best)
Liquid crushed with hand500 g (1 lb)ziti250 ml (1 cup)
Freshly ground granapa Diano or Pammy Giano-
Parmesan cheese cheese250 ml (1 cup)
Fresh basil leaves, washed, dried, chopped 5 ml (1 tsp)
50 grams of red pepper skin (1/2 lb)whole-milk ricotta (250 ml/1 cup)
Pruned stems from eggplant.
Remove about 2 peels. 5 cm (1 inch)
Eggplant is wide and about half of the peel is intact.
Cut the eggplant into 2 parts. 5-cm (1-inch)
Stir in a large bowl with 30 ml (2 tbsp)salt.
Pour into the spoon and drain for 1 hour.
Rinse the eggplant under cool tap water, drain thoroughly and shoot dry.
Heat the oven to 200 ° c (400 F).
Brush the baking pan with half olive oil.
Place the eggplant pieces on the baking tray, stir with oil and spread them evenly together.
Baked eggplant is very tender and Brown in about 25 minutes.
Gently flip the eggplant pieces once or twice during baking so they can be cooked evenly.
Bring a large pot of salt water to ziti and boil it with high temperature.
Heat the remaining olive oil with medium heat in a large frying pan.
Sprinkle the garlic on the oil for about 3 minutes and shake the pan until golden.
Add crushed tomatoes, add pepper slices, and season gently with salt.
Boil, then fire, sim10 minutes.
Stir ziti in boiling water.
Stir frequently and return to boiling.
Half cooked pasta
Stirring occasionally for about 10 minutes until al dente.
Drain the pasta and pour it back into the empty pan at low heat.
Pour about half the sauce and gently stir the pasta with the sauce.
Remove the pot from the fire and stir 125 ml (1/2 cup)
Ground cheese and basil.
Stir the baked eggplant pieces in half, then stir again, and then place the teaspoon in pasta (
You want the ricotta cheese to warm up, but you don't want it to mix completely with the sauce).
Plate pasta and spoon to keep the sauce on each food.
Add the same amount of remaining baked eggplant to the top of all pasta plates.
Sprinkle the rest of the ground cheese.
6 copies. ———
White bean soup (
Canelini)
On television and in Lydia's book Italy in the United States, bastinić said she talked about Italy --
American food and immigrant food are very similar to Italian food.
Canadian immigrants
This soup is a specialty in southern Italy and has been a favorite for immigrants for generations.
"Simple to make, delicious, nutritious and affordable-
She wrote in the recipe introduction to "Lidia's favorite recipe": "All of these elements have been appreciated by those who have brought it to this country and by all of us today"375 ml (1 1/2 cups)
2 l of large northern dried Benin, small Lima or other small white beans (8 cups)
2 fresh bay leaves or 3 1 ml (1/2 cup)extra-
Virgin olive oil (divided)
Add more flavor to the finished salt. 5 l (6 cups)
Leaves, about 1 head (
Preferably tough outer leaves)
, Wash and drain 8 cloves of garlic, peel and cut into 4 to 6 whole dried peperoncini (Red Pepper)Cold-
Soak Beans in advance: pour them into 2-l to 3-l (8-cup to 12-cup)
Container, pour enough cold water to cover at least 10 cm (4 inches).
Let's soak for at least 8 or 24 hours in a cool place.
Drain completely.
Drain and transfer to a big soup pot. Pour in 2 l (8 cups)
Water, stir in the leaves of the bay, boil.
Adjust the heat to keep the Wen Huo, pour half of the olive oil and cook until the beans soften with only 2. 5 cm (1 inch)
Liquid residue 1 to 1/2 hours.
Season the beans with salt, then add Escalle to stir and stir occasionally until Escalle is very tender for about 15 minutes.
Take the pot out of the fire.
Heat the remaining olive oil with medium heat in a small frying pan.
Add garlic and pepper and shake the pan to cook until the pepper changes color for about 1 minute or less.
Carefully remove from the high temperature (
It will splash quite a bit)
Pour a bucket of soup in a frying pan.
Rotate the pot, mix everything, and then stir a pot of seasoned soup back into the big pot.
Check the seasoning and let the soup rest for 10 to 15 minutes when heated.
Garlic bread can be served if needed.
6 copies.
Source: Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali's favorite recipe for Lidia: 100 simple Italian dishes, from basic sauces to irresistibleKnopf, 2012).