Italian chefs thrive on ‘simplicity’

WHEN chef Stefano Manfredi (pictured right) recalls the food from his hometown of Gottolengo, Lombardy, in northern Italy, he can still feel the seasons and hear the clash and clank of saucepans and the bubble of chatter in the kitchen.

Manfredi believes the best Italian cooking comes from recipes that have been passed along families for generations.

The 60-year-old, who migrated to Australia with his family in 1961, says in order to cook like an Italian, home cooks must first learn to develop an instinct for simplicity.

“Simplicity is one of the building blocks of good Italian food, and understanding that simplicity is very important – it's what makes a good Italian cook a great Italian cook,” says Manfredi, who recently released the encyclopaedic Stefano Manfredi's

“The greatest compliment I receive as a chef is when someone tells me they used one of my recipes as a guide and then cooked it to suit themselves, because it means they are experimenting and feel confident in the kitchen.,”

He says the best thing about learning to “cook like an Italian” is the knowledge that fixing mistakes is easy when you are equipped with the right tools, techniques and attitude. “Italian food is so simple that you can improvise and correct things by first starting with quality ingredients and understanding different flavour combinations. It is about knowing what a great dish cooked with a minimum of fuss tastes like.

“Being a good Italian cook is also about learning to cook intuitively. I learnt to cook a lot of my family's traditional dishes from my mother, but I've adapted them to suit my own personal taste,” he says

Stefano's golden rules:

Let the ingredients speak for themselves.

If you roast a chicken, use the carcass to make a stock for risotto and any leftover chicken in the dish itself.

The best food comes from the best ingredients.

Experienced Italian chefs know the magic number when making pasta is one egg to 100g of flour. But if the flour has a lot of moisture or the egg is too large, those quantities change. Pasta should feel silky smooth, like a fine sheet of Italian cloth. Forget the recipes and make it your own. The only way cuisine moves forward is through evolution.