Pizza Sauce Recipe I’ve always stuck to the claim that you can make pretty good pizza at home.  My critics argue that making “pizzeria” type pizza in a home environment is impossiblegiven that a home stove cannot reach the 900+ degree Fahrenheit temperature a proper wood burning stove can and, moreover, impart the appropriate flavor and heat to pizza dough (click here […]

Mussels in spicy tomato sauce is an Italian restaurant stand-by and one of my favorite seafood dishes.  The dish, however, can be easily ruined with foul seafood, thick sauces, and overcooking.  Mussels should not be rubbery, smell bad, or be covered in gelatinous “sauce.”  Our version of mussels starts with the highest quality seafood you can find, so develop a relationship with a […]

(photo: close up of a few Villa Cappelli sun dried tomatoes in olive oil) One of the most important aspects of a product claiming to, in fact, be “sun dried tomatoes” is that the tomatoes are indeed dried by the sun.  We’re so adamant about proper sun dried tomatoes because we produce our own variety cured in extra virgin olive […]

One of my favorite ways to consume olive oil is via the simple and humble tomato salad.  Our tomato salad is prepared with red onion, basil, dried oregano, Kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper and the best extra virgin olive oil we can get our hands on.   Recently, we’ve fallen in love with two extra virgin olive oils that […]

(photo: various food mills; ours is the top left above) How many of you own a food mill?  Uh-oh, I only see a few hands and I’m getting some quizzical looks!   OK, let’s jump out of the role play and get down to why I think everyone should own a food mill; after all, like a chef’s knife and a cutting board, the […]

(photo: an Italian tuna sandwich with tomato salad prepared with Pace da Poggio Etrusco extra virgin olive oil) As many of you know we keep plenty of high quality tuna in olive oil in our Italian pantryat all times!  And we usually prepare our tuna in two ways: 1. as a stand alone salad to be consumed with olives, cheese, […]

  (photo: La Castellina extra virgin olive oil used to make handmade ravioli with tomato sauce) Every once in a while a particular recipe I’ve made hundreds of times tastes like something completely different.  For example, my wife Erin (who secretly does much of the cooking behind Scordo.com!) made a batch of tomato sauce and I quickly proclaimed it “the best sauce […]

(photo: thanks to howtoeatlikeabird.com for providing the image) Fresh fish requires very little manipulation and (quality) whole fish can be roasted in the oven with olive oil, Kosher salt, and freshly cracked pepper (you can stuff the cavity of the fish with parsley and lemon slices if you want to get fancy).  Firm fleshed fish like cod, red snapper, sole, […]

The tomato mozzarella sandwich is so simple it hardly needs explaining, but it certainly should be prepared more often by home cooks (hence the post!).   A good tomato mozzarella sandwich, like most Italian dishes and recipes, is dependent on great ingredients; therefore high quality tomatoes, whole or Buffalo milk mozzarella cheese, extra virgin olive oil, and bread are vital.  For my […]

Back in August, we published a slightly unorthodox eggplant parmigiana recipe where I first roasted, mini or baby eggplant, (these are usually smaller versions of the generic eggplant found in most US supermarkets) and thereafter covered with tomato sauce, grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, and baked.  The result was outstanding but not as cheesy and decadent as the more classic, Italian American, version […]