Tomato sauce can refer to many different sauces made primarily from tomatoes, usually to be served as part of a dish, rather than as a condiment. Tomato sauces are common for meat and vegetables, but they are perhaps best known as bases for sauces for Mexican salsas and Italian pasta dishes. Tomatoes have a rich flavor, high water content, soft flesh which breaks down easily, and the right composition to thicken into a sauce when stewed, without the need for thickeners such as roux or masa. All of these qualities make them ideal for simple and appealing sauces.
In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi-solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavour, texture, and visual appeal to a dish. Sauce is a French word probably from the post-classical Latin salsa, derived from the classical salsus 'salted'. Possibly the oldest recorded European sauce is garum, the fish sauce used by the Ancient Romans, while doubanjiang, the Chinese soy bean paste is mentioned in Rites of Zhou 20.
Lasagna, also known as lasagne, is a type of pasta, possibly one of the oldest types, made in very wide, flat sheets. In Italian cuisine it is made of stacked layers of pasta alternating with fillings such as ragù, béchamel sauce, vegetables, cheeses, and seasonings and spices. The dish may be topped with grated cheese, which melts during baking. Typically cooked pasta is assembled with the other ingredients and then baked in an oven. The resulting baked pasta is cut into single-serving square or rectangular portions.
Pesto or more fully pesto alla genovese is a paste made of crushed garlic, pine nuts, salt, basil leaves, grated cheese such as Parmesan or pecorino sardo, and olive oil. It originated in the Italian city of Genoa, and is used to dress pasta and flavour genoese minestrone soup.
Schnitzel is a thin slice of meat. The meat is usually thinned by pounding with a meat tenderizer. Most commonly, the meat is breaded before frying. Breaded schnitzel is popular in many countries and is made using veal, pork, chicken, mutton, beef, or turkey. Schnitzel originated as wiener schnitzel and is very similar to other breaded meat dishes.
Linguine is a type of Italian pasta similar to fettuccine and trenette, but elliptical in section rather than flat. It is about 4 millimetres in width, which is wider than spaghetti, but not as wide as fettuccine. Linguine was traditionally served with sauces such as pesto, but others such as tomato or fish based sauces are popular as well.
Ziti or zite is a shape of extruded pasta originating from the Italian regions of Campania and Sicily. It is shaped into long, wide tubes, about 25 cm long, that generally need to be broken by hand into smaller pieces before cooking. Ziti has similarities to bucatini but is much thicker.
Eritrean cuisine is based on Eritrea's native culinary traditions, but also arises from social interchanges with other regions. The local cuisine shares very strong similarities with the cuisine of neighboring Ethiopia with several dishes being cultural to both nations as a result of the two nations having been unified for hundreds of years. It also has influences from Italian cuisine due to the Italian colonization of the nation, and minor influences from other cuisines in the region.
In Italian cuisine, ragù is a meat sauce that is commonly served with pasta. An Italian gastronomic society, Accademia Italiana della Cucina, documented several ragù recipes. The recipes' common characteristics are the presence of meat and the fact that all are sauces for pasta. The most typical is ragù alla bolognese. Other types are ragù alla napoletana, ragù alla barese, ragù alla veneta, and so on.
Sofrito, sofregit, soffritto, or refogado is a basic preparation in Mediterranean, Latin American, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese cooking. It typically consists of aromatic ingredients cut into small pieces and sautéed or braised in cooking oil for a long period of time over a low heat.
Parmigiana, also called parmigiana di melanzane, melanzane alla parmigiana or, in the United States, eggplant parmesan, is an Italian dish made with fried, sliced eggplant layered with Parmesan cheese and tomato sauce, then baked. The origin of the dish is claimed by the regions of Campania, Sicily, and Emilia-Romagna.
Italian cuisine is a Mediterranean cuisine consisting of the ingredients, recipes, and cooking techniques developed in Italy since Roman times, and later spread around the world together with waves of Italian diaspora. Significant changes occurred with the colonization of the Americas and the introduction of potatoes, tomatoes, capsicums, maize, and sugar beet—the latter introduced in quantity in the 18th century. It is one of the best-known and most widely appreciated gastronomies worldwide.
Tunisian cuisine, the cuisine of Tunisia, consists of the cooking traditions, ingredients, recipes and techniques developed in Tunisia since antiquity. It is mainly a blend of Arab, Mediterranean, Punic, and Berber cuisine. Historically, Tunisian cuisine witnessed influence and exchanges with many cultures and nations like Italians, Andalusians, French and Arabs.
Neapolitan cuisine has ancient historical roots that date back to the Greco-Roman period, which was enriched over the centuries by the influence of the different cultures that controlled Naples and its kingdoms, such as that of Aragon and France.
Venetian cuisine, from the city of Venice, Italy, or more widely from the region of Veneto, has a centuries-long history and differs significantly from other cuisines of northern Italy, and of neighbouring Austria and of Slavic countries, despite sharing some commonalities.
Bolognese sauce, known in Italian as ragù alla bolognese or ragù bolognese, is a meat-based sauce associated with the city of Bologna. It is customarily used to dress tagliatelle al ragù and to prepare lasagne alla bolognese.
Breaded cutlet or braised cutlet is a dish made from coating a cutlet of meat with breading or batter and either frying or baking it.
Pasta al forno or timballo di pasta is a typical dish of Italian cuisine, made of pasta covered with béchamel sauce, tomato sauce and cheese, and cooked in the oven.
