Cook. Eat. Discover. Magazine
Recipes & Reflections on Italian Food Culture and Beyond. By Oliver Haenlein - Pastaio, Chef and Food Writer, from CED Gastronomy Holidays in Tuscany
Latest Posts
· Wed 11 Jun 2025
Recipe: Pasta alla Gricia, and Rome’s 'Famous Four'
A lip-smacking quartet of pasta dishes lies at the heart of Roman cuisine. But while three are well known outside of Rome and even abroad, Gricia has always flown under the radar.
· Thu 8 May 2025
Freedom on the Road Between Britain and Italy!
Picking up your life, cramming it onto bags, and moving it across Europe every 6 months, has its irritations. But they pale into insignificance once the car is packed and we can hit the road.
· Tue 14 May 2024
Recipe: Zingy Lemon Sauce for Pasta
How can something with such basic and so few ingredients be so delicious?
· Mon 4 Mar 2024
9 of the Very Best Cookbooks on Italian Cuisine
These works have been vital to our learnings here at Cook Eat Discover! Dear old friends, always sitting nearby, ready to inspire and inform.
· Wed 31 Jan 2024
Recipe: The Stuff of Dreams! Stuffed Squid in Tomato Sauce
This is a great dinner party dish. It hits the Venn diagram sweet spot between something impressive that none of your friends can make, and something surprisingly undemanding in terms of time and skill.
· Mon 11 Dec 2023
Recipe: 'White' Sausage Ragu
A delicious meat sauce, plus reflections on how food cultures travel the world.
· Thu 24 Aug 2023
An August Adventure in Perfect Puglia
A dreamy summer holiday under the Puglian sun.
· Tue 28 Mar 2023
Real Eats in London - 5 Authentic Gems for those Tired of the Capital's Food Scene
The last few decades have been a rollercoaster of innovation and hype for the food scene in London. It's been exciting at times, but this winter we decided to go back to something more honest and authentic.
· Wed 8 Feb 2023
Surviving the ‘Hungry Gap’: Winter Veg Recipe Ideas for the UK Food Shortage
Remember how hard it was to find flour during COVID? Well now it's tomatoes we're searching for! Peppers, cucumbers and salads are all also currently in short supply in the UK.
· Tue 8 Nov 2022
Recipe: Pumpkin and Guanciale Sauce For Pasta.
This sauce exemplifies the beautiful combo of pork and pumpkin, and is one of our favourite things to make at this time of year. It will go well with most pasta shapes and is also incredibly simple, with just four main ingredients!
· Mon 8 Aug 2022
Recipe: Zucchini Risotto with Crispy Prosciutto and Stracciatella
This risotto has been a real CED favourite in 2022! Zucchini have been abundant in our garden recently, and their fresh and sweet flavour creates a beautiful risotto.
· Wed 16 Mar 2022
Video Recipe: Aglio, Olio e Peperoncino! Garlic, chilli and olive oil spaghetti
This is the ultimate speedy supper, and one of the reasons I fell in love with the food of Italy as a child
· Thu 13 Jan 2022
Video Recipe: Pasta e Ceci - Pasta, chickpea and rosemary soup
This soup is a real family favourite - a much loved bowl of comfort that’s popular throughout Italy for a good reason. It’s something we at CED make most weeks at home in the winter months.
· Fri 27 Aug 2021
August Eat the Seasons: Peppers
We've got a little food history, some top cooking and pairing tips, nutritional info from CED's favourite nutritionist Emily Moreton, plus a beautiful recipe from chef Fabrizia Ricotta; he prepares them how his nonna did, and serves them with a beautiful whole lemon sole fish.
· Wed 31 Mar 2021
March Eat the Seasons: Wild Garlic
Wonderful wild garlic was the subject of March's seasonal celebration; make sure you check out our video recipe at the bottom of the piece!
· Mon 15 Mar 2021
CED meets: Chef Francesco Mazzei. Q&A and a special recipe from an Italian legend
CED was thrilled to speak to Francesco, who has become a staple not just of the high-end UK restaurant scene, but on our TV screens too. He told us about his childhood, inspirations, current projects, death-row meal, and even provided us with a special recipe for the feature!
· Mon 1 Mar 2021
February Eat the Seasons: Rhubarb
This February we celebrated Rhubarb - and we've collaborated with chef and friend of CED Fabrizio Ricotta who's written a recipe for a beautiful rhubarb and custard tart for us.
· Mon 22 Feb 2021
Zero-Waste Carrot Leaf Pesto
We're delighted to introduce a new contributor to CED Magazine: Alba Gelli, who has written about this ingenious pesto, passed down to her from her nonna.
· Tue 9 Feb 2021
Supermarket Wine of the Week: Lidl Barolo 2016, £11.99
Buying a nice bottle of Barolo can break the bank, but we think we've found a delicious wine at an absolute snip - just a little over a tenner at Lidl!
· Sat 30 Jan 2021
January Eat the Seasons: Leeks
Mid winter can be a bit of a lean period for seasonal veg, but the noble leek is harvested throughout the colder months, and you can make all sorts of delicious things with it. All hail the leek! Check out our video recipe at the bottom of the page for our special leek, sausage and saffron risotto.
· Thu 7 Jan 2021
Video Recipe: Tagliata di Manzo - sliced steak with Parmesan, rocket and balsamic vinegar
A light yet absolutely delicious way to enjoy steak!
· Mon 21 Dec 2020
December Eat the Seasons: Brussels Sprouts
I feel like sprouts are going through a bit of a renaissance. Nowadays, everyone wants a piece of them! When I was a kid, saying you liked Brussels Sprouts would make you as unpopular as saying you didn’t like football. They were infamous.
· Thu 10 Dec 2020
Let’s talk about Gelato!
What is it, how’s it different from ice cream, and why is it so damn delicious?!
· Wed 25 Nov 2020
CED meets: Italy's young prodigy, Michelin-starred chef Paolo Griffa
One of Italy’s most exciting young chefs, Paolo tells us his story: What inspires him, what makes Italian food culture so special, and why he’s been delivering cakes to some of the most vulnerable people in his community over lockdown.
· Tue 17 Nov 2020
November Eat the Seasons: Cauliflower
We're delighted to bring you the first of a new monthly feature: Eat the Seasons!
· Wed 14 Oct 2020
Video Recipe: Heavenly Ragu - The ultimate meat sauce for pasta!
As is the case with many great Italian dishes, this is not a complicated thing to make, but it does need plenty of time to cook so that it can develop its full flavour.
· Wed 17 Jun 2020
Video Recipe: Butterly lovely! Simple sauces for stuffed pasta shapes
The more complex the pasta….the simpler the sauce!
· Mon 13 Apr 2020
Video Recipe: Pasta with Mussels
This pasta and mussel sauce dish will transport you to a summer's day on the Amalfi coast! We have an Instagram video to go with the recipe too, you'll find the video below.
· Thu 2 Apr 2020
Video Recipe: Effortless Tomato Sauce for Pasta
Don't overcomplicate it! Aside from the olive oil, our pomodoro sauce has 3 ingredients in it.
· Tue 12 Nov 2019
Recipe: Pumpkin Risotto - A Perfect Autumn Risotto with Four Textures of Pumpkin!
We've used a classic Italian risotto method, but added different textures of pumpkin at different times.
· Wed 21 Aug 2019
Recipe: Salsa ai Funghi
A Simple But Delicious Mushroom Sauce for Pasta and Meats
· Thu 4 Jul 2019
Recipe: Super Salsa Verde!
We're putting this up due to a few requests for the recipe from former Cook Eat Discover guests who we prepared it for in Tuscany. Vivid green and delicious with meats, fish and vegetables, Salsa Verde is the condiment you've been missing in your life!
· Tue 2 Jul 2019
Recipe: SOUPER BOWL! Aquacotta
Aquacotta - A little known Tuscan gem of a soup that we absolutely love!
· Tue 2 Jul 2019
Recipe: Spaghetti alla Puttanesca! What is 'Whore’s Spaghetti’ and why should you learn to cook it?
The naughtily named spaghetti alla Puttanesca, literally whore’s spaghetti, is a perfect 'I’ve-got-nothing-in-the-fridge-and-I-can’t-be-bothered-to-go-to-the-shop’ solution. Garlic, tomato, olives, capers, chilli, spaghetti. Easy peasy.
· Tue 2 Jul 2019
Recipe: You Need to Learn to Make Pasta alla Norma!
Alrighty then, who the hell is Norma? I have no idea, something about an Opera, or summat…What we do know, though, is that it’s a delicious Sicilian classic, full of the flavours of the South if Italy.
· Tue 2 Jul 2019
Pasta of the Week - Strozzapreti: “Priest stranglers!’
Some pasta shapes’ names have no meaning, they’re just names. Some have very literal translations, as in the case: ‘Strozza' = strangle, ‘Preti’- priests, so ‘Priest Stranglers'!
· Tue 22 Jan 2019
Wild Food Special Pt. 2: Cooking with nettles
Zuppa di ortica e asparagi - Nettle and Asparagus Soup
· Tue 22 Jan 2019
Recipe: Flawless Foolproof Foccacia
Focaccia looks wonderful doesn’t it? Golden brown, thickly crusted, dimpled, rosemary sprigged and flecked with shards of salt.
· Tue 22 Jan 2019
Recipe: Perfect Panna Cotta - the essence of simplicity!
Many people I’ve spoken to seem to have an irrational fear of making panna cotta. With a faraway look of dread in their eyes, they tell me of the experiences that have scarred them - lumpy bits of gelatine...overset consistencies...thick skins forming on the surface!
· Tue 22 Jan 2019
Bangin' Bruschetta: Tips and Toppings Ideas
I think bruschetta gets a bad rep in Britain, mainly because they usually consist of some bland, anaemic tomatoes on a piece of soggy cotton-wool bread.
· Tue 22 Jan 2019
Supermarket Wine of the Week! Burdizzo Vermentino, 2016, Asda, 12%, £6.18
Vermentino isn’t the best known grape - but it’s a popular white wine grape in Tuscany and super underrated in our opinion.
· Tue 22 Jan 2019
Supermarket Wine of the Week! Chianti Contralto, Sainsbury’s, 12.5%, £5.75
Ok so I know we already did a Chianti a couple of weeks back when we looked at a Tesco’s Finest Classico Riserva….but in this Contralto we’re looking at a very different wine despite the similarity in name.
· Tue 22 Jan 2019
Wild Food Special Recipe Pt 1: Elderflower Cordial
Want to be able to claim that you ‘forage’, but don’t know where to start? Elderflower cordial is wild food foraging made easy
· Tue 22 Jan 2019
Recipe: 5 Minute No-Cook Spinach Pesto, (plus a quick bit of pesto chit-chat)
So you’re fed up of meat, you feel fat and you need something easy with a few vitamins in it. What do you do? You make Cook Eat Discover’s easy spinach pesto of course!
· Tue 22 Jan 2019
Recipe: Veggie Heaven - Sicilian Sweet and Sour Aubergine Caponata
This is vegetarian Italian food at its best!
Subscribe!
To get all the our latest blog content straight to your inbox. Plus updates on Cook Eat Discover's retreats and workshops.