--- Season 3 of premieres at 8:00pm on Tuesday 17 May 2022 on SBS Food, or stream it free via SBS on Demand ---
With the surging price of food and other escalating costs of living, there’s never been a better time to make the meals you cook at home stretch a lot further.
For , host of SBS’ Cook Like An Italian, cooking once and eating twice is a simple feat. All you have to do is follow the culinary path laid out by Italy’s famed ‘la cucina povera’ (cooking of the poor), and make use of food that would otherwise be thrown out.
During episode three of , Colloca explains how Italian cuisine features a vast repertoire of recipes, created upon a foundation of leftovers and a food waste reduction strategy.
“The art of breathing fresh new life into leftovers is one of the most valuable things my mother ever taught me in the kitchen,” Colloca says, recalling how recipes that stretch a long way are usually handed down from generation-to-generation in Italy.
“I’ve always felt that Italian cooking is one of the world’s most frugal cuisines because anything leftover in the fridge or the pantry is fair game when it comes to making food go further.”
However, she adds, to cook once and eat twice and really make use of every single ingredient, you should plan ahead. “When I plan my shopping for the week, I always think about what ingredients can be used in more than one meal. Plus, it’s important to shop where the produce is really fresh and in season because fresh produce is more flavourful.”
Colloca proudly displays a sense of frugalness by first making spaghetti alla Nerano, a zesty combination of fried zucchini, pasta and peppery provolone cheese. She then uses the leftovers in a reinvention dish, presented as homemade spaghetti frittata.
“In Italian, a frittata literally translates as fried and it’s a little bit like a quiche, without the crust. But when it comes to transforming leftover meats, pastas or even any veggies lingering in the crisper, this is a dish limited only by imagination.”
chef, Giovani Lo Surdo is another Italian-Australian who advocates for always using leftovers to ‘cook once and eat twice’.
Waste reduction in action: OzHarvest chef, Giovanni Lo Surdo. Source: OzHarvest
Lo Surdo tells SBS he always cooks according to the OzHarvest slogan and finds Italian cuisine to be an easy fit for food waste reduction.
“Italians are resourceful and good food never gets thrown away," Lo Surdo says. "Firstly, not every vegetable needs to be peeled when cooked so that reduces food waste. Seeds from fruits and vegetables can also be used for the next crop."
The chef recalls how his family, a long-line of fisherman, reinvented fish and seafood leftovers to make additional meals and preserved dishes. "We used to use fish bones for stock and seafood shells for bisques and sauces. We salted and preserved fish like sardines and anchovies in olive oil, so that we could eat it at a later date.”
Lo Surdo, who is often charged with the job of cooking nutritious food on a budget for vulnerable people, explains how he dips into his Italian heritage to turn off-cuts and left overs into prized dishes.
“When many shops sell pre-cut pumpkin, it’s common practice to cut off the parts of the vegetable that don’t look nice prior to sale. We [collect those pieces], roast them off and add them to risotto.”
The chef uses broccoli stems – cooked, then blitzed – to create pasta sauce. The rind of a block of Parmesan cheese is also added to soups and casseroles for added flavour.
“We use the peel of citrus like lemons to make a candied fruit to put into desserts including cannoli and cassata. We also use citrus peel to make limoncello. Leftover lemon juice is used to make granita.”
Italians are resourceful and good food never gets thrown away.
Finally, Lo Surdo adds, stale bread can be added to multiple Italian dishes. Fried, it can top any pasta dish or salad for added crunch. Or, it can bulk out the filling used to stuff vegetables like zucchini, marrow or capsicum.
“If you want to reduce food waste and use your leftovers to make another meal, look at the old ways of cooking and Italian cuisine.
“Think about using second grade cuts of meats, not prime cuts. Buy vegetables and fruits that are cheaper as it usually means they are in season. But most importantly, only buy the food you need.”
