Italian Recipes85 authentic family recipes

Italian food in the Indian diaspora isn't quite Italian — it's Italian cooked with whatever the local kitchen actually has. Olive oil shares the shelf with ghee. Parmesan gets swapped for a salt-cured Indian cheese. Basil gets supplemented with kasoori methi when a sauce wants more depth. This isn't a compromise; it's how home cooks have always cooked across borders.

Our Italian section leans toward the dishes that translate: hand-rolled pasta (gnocchi, orecchiette, tagliatelle) that doesn't need exotic equipment, simple sauces (aglio e olio, arrabbiata, puttanesca) built around pantry staples, and trattoria classics (chicken parmigiana, pollo alla cacciatora, risotto Milanese) that scale to feeding a crowd. The pizzas are home-oven friendly, not wood-fired.

Our Italian recipes assume you can find olive oil, dried pasta, canned tomatoes, and a hard cheese — but we flag substitutions for everything else. About 60% are vegetarian or easily adapted, and the few seafood dishes use fish you can actually buy in Dubai or Bombay (not langoustine).