You’ll never find a product called “Italian Seasoning” in Italy, and for good reason! These blends of herbs and spices mix a ton of different ingredients together and ruin any real, Italian flavor your food might have.
Less is more when it comes to seasoning, so today Eva is sharing some tips and tricks for using herbs and spices like an Italian. Stay tuned to learn when NOT to use basil, and other handy guidelines for Italian flavor!
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ITALIAN SWORDFISH STEAK RECIPE – https://www.pastagrammar.com/post/simple-italian-swordfish-steak-recipe-how-to-make-pesce-spada-grigliato
“EGGS IN PURGATORY” ITALIA SHAKSHOUKA RECIPE – https://www.pastagrammar.com/post/how-to-make-eggs-in-purgatory-the-italian-shakshouka-recipe
We’ve since found some Calabrian oregano on Amazon! You can try it yourself here (affiliate): https://amzn.to/3GGhdJT
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00:00 What Is Italian Seasoning?
01:31 How Italians Use Salt & Pepper
04:52 How Italians Use Peperoncino
06:53 How Italians Use Garlic
08:11 How Italians Use Parsley
10:05 How Italians Use Sage
12:10 How Italians Use Rosemary & Thyme
13:38 How Italians Use Marjoram
15:27 How Italians Use Oregano
17:42 How Italians Use Basil
20:22 How to Season Your Food Like an Italian
26:14 Pasta Grammarian in Action!
#italianseasoning #italianfood #recipe
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PAUL’S SODIUM ANALYSIS
Eva says the normal serving is 80g of dry pasta. What happens when we cook it? Well, there are three things that can happen:
1) We can take the pasta out of the water about two or three minutes early and put it into the sauce to do the final cooking and to cream it – mantecatura it – all together. When I do that, the pasta comes out of the pot at about 205g. (Note that I don’t drain the pasta in a colander. I just scoop it out, and it’s still quite wet when it goes into the sauce.) That means the 80g of dry pasta has absorbed 125g of salty water. With pasta water that is 1% salt by weight, the pasta has absorbed about 1.25g of salt. But each bit of the salt is made up, remember, of one atom of sodium and one atom of chlorine. The atomic weight of sodium is about 23 atomic mass units (amu), and the atomic weight of chlorine is about 35.5 amu, so by weight there is a lot more chlorine than sodium in your salt. For every gram of salt in your pasta, there is just under 0.4g, or about 390 milligrams (mg), of sodium. That means your serving of pasta will have about 488mg of sodium before it goes into the sauce. Compared to a lot of other stuff you can eat, that’s pretty low. If you finish your pasta in a tomato sauce made from canned tomatoes, you’d add about 140mg of salt per serving from the tomatoes. So except for any other salt you add, your finished serving of pasta with tomato sauce will have about 608mg of sodium.
2) We can cook the pasta al dente, as we would for a pesto, for example. When I do that, the pasta comes out of the pot at about 235g. This means al dente pasta has picked up 155g of salty water, 604mg of which is sodium. So other than any salt added to the pesto, a serving of al dente pasta with pesto will have around 600mg of sodium.
3) We can overcook the pasta into a disgusting slop pile (that is, we can make a mappazzone). When I wasted some perfectly good pasta to test this, it came out of the pot at 264g. The 80g of dry pasta absorbed 184g of salty water, of which a whopping 718mg was sodium. If you add this slop to a sauce made with canned tomatoes you end up with 858mg of sodium total per serving. So properly prepared pasta will have a bit over 600mg of sodium per serving. If you overcook your pasta this figure goes up to perhaps 860mg of sodium per serving or even higher.
Compare this to a serving of
Chef Boy-ar-dee mini ravioli: 1,000mg of sodium
Nalley’s chili: 1,130mg of sodium
A cup of milk: 125mg of sodium
An English muffin: 250mg
The normal baker’s percentage for salt in bread
dough is about 2%, or about 780mg of sodium
per 100g of dough, or about 3.2 ounces of baked
bread.
We have to conclude that home cooked dry pasta has a LOT less sodium in it than almost any prepared food that you’ll find.
49 Comments
"Salt is everywhere"
Except in the bread in Tuscany 🤣
Eva,
Do you cook in Italy with strawberries, savory I mean ???
Was Eva a cook when you met or has her skill developed after you married?
salamoia Bolognese has entered the chat
Please, don't add parsley in your ragu as she said if you want a fresh twist. It's a 🚩 and a waste of parsley. If you want something fresh just cook something else
When I make anything Italian, I never use Italian seasoning.
Sad. "salt is used everywhere".
Talented chefs are able to cook without it. Using herbs and the natural taste of the ingredients to flavor the dish.
Enjoying the true taste of the meat, vegetables and fruits to flavor the dish. But unfortunately, many cooks (Ex/ Gordan Ramsey) now have such blunt and insensitive taste buds they drown the dish in salt or sugar.
Me? I can tell if the vegetables were washed in tap water, filtered water or spring water.
Foods drowned in salt or sugar are inedible to me. I can taste the salt in French baguette. Salt is already naturally in all plants and meats.
By the way, salt in boiling noodles is a option, not required. I did my own expedient. I boiled without salt. For me the taste was better without added salt. Cooks sometimes add salt to shorten cooking time. It's a cheat to bring up boiling temp. I also use spring water to boil the noodles. For me food boiled in tap water is inedible. I sometimes bring my own spring water to restaurants if they use tap water for cooking. Huge difference for me.
Salt is not bad for you.
In the USA the Stregas burn sage to spiritually cleanse an area. 😂
To be honest I didn’t watch the video like at all (saved for watch later). I seen your hair in the thumbnail and had to comment how gorgeous it is!
"Italian seasoning" may be inauthentic, but if you aren't concerned about authenticity and like to use it, go for it.
italiano here. We also use a can of spegettios w/ a the meatabollsa in the microwave oven with american cheese slices and tajin.
"We italiana love garlic"
Nooooooope
"Can't put black pepper in either dish its way too strong"
"gonna put pepperecino in both dishes"
honestly, italians confuse me.
I wonder if they've had much New Mexican cuisine (They're in Arizona, no? Just a state away). It's chile based so I'm sure Eva's Calabrian pallette and Harper's joy of heat would appreciate what we have. The beans and rice staple we make may be different to what they're used to but it's neither TexMex nor Mexican at all and rather more simple (and pretty old as cuisines go) with main features that enhance the flavor of the chile. Plus, we use red chile sauce in a pretty similar way to how Eva would use a tomato sauce. We use tomatoes as well, of course, but we tend to prefer them fresh and raw, though we often also add red chile to our tomato sauces if we ever make them. I wonder if this is something Eva might appreciate, though I wonder if our use of garlic and onion might not put her off (definitely not what most Americans think of as an "Italian" use of garlic but a little more than what she seems to like). And roasted green chile might be an ingredient to explore in combination with Italian cuisine. I wonder what if that's something I could try out as well.
Always learn from these two when we need to. Their humor is just the seasoning for their show.
Its odd after watching so many korean or thai cooking videos to see garlic used with restraint. Sometimes its good to be smacked around by garlic, but sometimes its not.
As an American I bleed garlic. I can eat it raw
basil, thyme, rosemary and oregano are the right ingredients for a simple blend. Just make it yourself
I dunno I believe when it comes to her accent she is overdoing it on purpose: she speaks correctly, she uses words like "require"… I mean come on! The format is fun tho and true, Italian Seasoning in Italy just does not exist. Many grocery items marked as "Italian" sold abroad we have never seen in our supermarkets. So if u read "Italian" on a label be aware 99% of the times there is nothing Italian about what u are buying. Especially pizza. And pasta.. I mean if u believe the Olive Garden has anything Italian about it u are VERY wrong;)
Do this girl smokes crack?
Now there is more garlic consumed in England than France, I don't know about Italy though?
Very informative, I might eventually learn something.
I don't think jarred italian herb seasoning is authentic but I still think it's useful in home cooking
I just dump a whole lot of Italian seasoning into tomato paste as water and break my pasta into thirds before boiling it to WELL DONE. I know what I am doing ok.
Fried Sage with Calves Liver ? Excellent. Please note there is no 'z' in Basil, there is an 's' so it is not BAZEIL it is BASSIL. A Base is not a Baze. Thanks.
I feel this way about any type of blended seasoning, be it Italian, Mexican, Asian, Taco, Chili, Beef stew…I know precisely what flavors I want and which spices supply them.
Ava, you have taught me that you need to taste every ingredient, every spice in a dish. Americans over season every dish.
I made your zucchini, ricotta, cheese. It was amazing with the calebrian chili.
I agree with Harper, about the black pepper.
Spice blends and dried herbs/spices do have a place in cooking, and their flavor profiles suit different dishes, but definitely aren't common in every culture's food traditions
She looks like she has after-sex hair!
I’ve heard Italians say oregano was the “pizza man’s herb”. What does Eva say to that?
Im a Mayo face and i would eat that and want more, yummos
Io uso la salvia sempre con l'alloro in polvere per le salsicce di maiale fatte in casa. Sono buonissime!
MY EXES MOM ALWAYS SAID YOU SHOULDN`T BE ABLE TO SMELL THE GARLIC JUST TASTE IT WHEN YOU KISS LOL
How fun! Cute, sweet and informative, even for an experienced cook!
Thank you so very much for your videos, especially this one. I have learned so much about cooking Italian meals.
Your people killed raped and enslaved my people so sorry if you are upset at the rest of us using italian spices our way however complain to your ancestors for trying to take over the world and trying to use force to control everything and everyone. in future keep to your boarders and we'll keep to ours and these kinds of things won't happen. And hey when we traditional Celts have dinner we don't add poisons to our seasonings like you guys historically have so if you ask me anything we do to "italian" style food is an improvement to sending people to the afterlife with food.
I feel like Eva has the most Italian head of hair I’ve ever seen. It’s amazing.
I've never used Marjoram in my life. Family is from Naples.
Eva…. as a Calabrian…do you use garlic AND onion? or just one or the other??? Never both….
I am not a chef by any means, but I learned how to cook from watching my mother.She rarely measured anything other than in the palm of her hand. But seasonings were used sparingly by her. I learned a term from some cooking show(I was an addict of the Food Network!) to "Let the food taste like itself!" There are so many dishes I have made for friends and family and they ask why my dish tastes so different and lighter than when others cook the same thing, and I tell them I let the food taste like itself, I guess its the same as Less is More.
I watched a family member make a traditional Mexican Soup, and she used a whole bottle of chili powder and was searching for more, because she was cooking it by looking at the color of the soup, it wasn't red enough, she kept saying. She was angry at her kids because it was too spicy for her kids and others to eat and she refused to throw it out, freezing it and eating it mostly by herself. I told her several times while she was cooking and she got mad and asked if I wanted to cook it, I just her finish and went to get a fast food burger.
Meanwhile, I have a Thai chicken recipe that calls for 30 cloves of garlic…!
Requesting Taralli. I love the savory kind, with either red or black pepper. I don't know anyone who makes them, only bought them in Italian specialty stores.
Thank you.
you can combine a lot of them together, you are just following dumb traditions
My Grandmother always had peperoncino, hanging from her stove, when i was young tore one off and ate it, they tried everything to put out the fire. Never had it again. Ava my grandmother came from the Abruzzi section of Italy. My Dad's Family came from Sicily i got the best from Both, maybe thats why my Dad picked the name Rosemary for me.😊
First and foremost – I so enjoy your videos. Eva's cooking makes my 50% Italian DNA very happy and the way you two present authentic Italian food and lifestyle is just so… so… sooooo Italian (passionate, full of joy of life). There's only one little thing I don't enjoy so much – the background music. Your viewers come from all over the world, I take it most of us don't speak English as a first language and English with a strong Italian accent sounds so lovely but it takes a lot of concentration to understand. Your videos don't need background music. They are fantastic as they are, you two lovely people and a lot of yummy food – no need for anything more. I know, every cooking channel has music ( and plastic flowers on the work surface 🫣 or spectacular food and utensil acrobatics 🙄). You guys are doing a great job without all this, makes you and your channel special. I'm looking forward to many more delicious recipes, thank you both for the time you put into these videos. Best wishes from Bavaria 🙋🏻♀️
In Hungary majoran used mostly in the soup dishes. Try it pasta grammar, it is perfect with sour creme based soups.
I just found out i'm Calabrian
I love you guys. Thanks for sharing Eva's Calabrian cooking perspective. I also love that you try to include history throughout your videos. Also noticed the Texas Pete in the background…great stuff!