Cooking it Simple, Photo: Jeff Stockton

Cooking great food doesn’t have to be a complicated affair.

Gabriel Pellegrini, Executive Chef and owner of Sagra Trattoria in Austin, Texas says delicious, inspired cuisine doesn’t have to be overly complicated.  And he offers us a few tips as a guide to keeping it simple.

• Using the best ingredients really is very important in all cuisines but in Italian cuisine it is crucial.
• Most Italian recipes only contain a few ingredients, and the simplicity lets the flavors of the individual ingredients really shine through.
• Its also very important to season as you go. Every step in the recipe needs to have the proper amount of salt and pepper, the water used to cook the pasta needs to be seasoned, tomatoes in the sauce, everything! Don’t just add the seasoning at the end.
• We like to under cook our pasta slightly and then allow it to cook the rest of the way in the sauce.  This helps the pasta absorb the flavor of the sauce and also helps thicken the sauce.
• Tomatoes are a good addition to almost anything.  They add umami, which helps bring out the depth in flavor in the rest of the ingredients. With all the other flavors being enhanced, less salt in necessary.