The Truth About ITALIAN SEASONING | How Italians Actually Use Herbs & Spices

if you've ever walked into a grocery store you've undoubtedly seen a product advertised as Italian seasoning or Italian herbs and spices well actually I should rephrase that because if you've walked into an Italian grocery store you've never seen such a thing do you want to hear what Wikipedia has to say about Italian seasoning yes Italian seasoning is a blend of ground herbs that commonly include some combination of Basil oregano rosemary thyme garlic powder Sage or coriander the blend varies by brand with many having vague non-specific ingredient lists so what they do is they put everything together pretty much yes and then they give the name yeah without taste I Define flavor profile a taste of everything today Eva's gonna walk us through some of the most common herbs and spices that Italians use and how they use them now I can't help but notice that you have two pans here in front of us what's up with that yes I would like to cook two dishes they they herbs rule okay so as we go to the several ingredients I put them on in this pan or in this one okay I'm curious to see if as we go I can guess what you're gonna make we'll see all right we're starting off with the universal basics of salt and pepper sauce Italian food is used everywhere and for everywhere I mean I mean really everywhere maybe except coffee in the morning it's real that we can't eat we shouldn't eat a lot of salt but it's also real that if you don't use it in the proper way your ingredients don't really taste so your dish don't really doesn't really taste I think pasta water is the thing that trips people up the most because they see how much salt you put in but they don't realize that the pasta doesn't absorb all of that salt most of the salt is still left in there it's more of a method for salting the pasta in fact quick shout out to our friend Paul who did the most incredible scientific analysis of of how much of the salt is actually absorbed by the pasta to prove that you're not over salting getting too much sodium by properly salting the pasta water anyway I'll I'll probably I'll put a link somehow to his analysis down there is amazing don't be scared when you season your pasta because the pasta wore their need salt maybe you can be a little bit more how do you say you can pay attention maybe if you want to when you make maybe the sauce or you use it as your salad or something like that so I anticipated this I have another salt because I'm guessing you want them for both dishes now the pepper is interesting okay I grew up learning that pepper is akin to Salt it goes in everything salt and pepper salt and pepper you're the salt to my pepper so I always used to put pepper in absolutely everything that was even remotely Savory but I've observed that you actually pretty rarely use black pepper in Italy we use black pepper we don't use as much black pepper as you use here in America this for sure and then there are several dishes that doesn't They Don't Really require a black pen one of the useful example can be a simple tomato sauce now having had it without black pepper I can't imagine it with it it would be just way too strong of a flavor for such a light fresh flavor as that then it doesn't mean that if you really like black pepper you can add a Sprinkle of it on top of your dish but maybe sometimes we don't really need for sure you need the black pepper when for example you make a ragu because aragua has a very strong taste when you make for example meat stew think about Peppers don't black pepper if you have something that is very light very delicate maybe we can also skip it so do you are you gonna include it in any of your dishes today no there you go it's time for one of my favorites pepperoncino I'm calabrina so here I have a problem addiction my problem is the addiction so if you're a calabrian like me when it comes to pepperoncino you put it everywhere also in the coffee maybe in the morning if you are not calabriana you don't really use it in most of the Italian dishes it's like Bolognese Ragu is not spicy at all if you think also for example the generation from Napoli is not spiced though if you're a calabrian you add it everywhere you know as an American I come from a country where we're exposed to tons of Mexican food and Asian food and stuff so like I might not have the highest level of uh spice tolerance in the world but like I love spicy food lots of Americans love spicy food but when I'm with your parents it doesn't matter how many times they see me add pepperoncino to my food they should know by now I love spicy food if I look at a pepperoncino they're so used to other Italians who don't like spicy food that they're always like be careful it's spicy it's spicy like I I know that's I like it I like spicy food yeah but because we know that it's like in Italy okay we collaborians are famous because really we put pepperoncin everywhere aside happens that if you have a friend's from I don't know maybe Milan or 13 they don't really use to the spiciness so are you going to put pepperoncino in either of your dishes actually today I'm going to put pepperoni in both of my dishes of course your calabrian will symbolically Place one pepperoncino there how's that work foreign [Music] garlic this one has caused quite a bit of confusion we eat Italians love gummy we use garlic a lot how can we Define garlic it's like a fundamental Italian flavor but not so strong as you think here in America is like here when they want to do something Italian they just put a ton of garlic pretending that is the biggest the most common Italian flavor no garlic is the one ingredient of the Italian food very how do you say it's very rare to find the flavor of the garlic like the predominant flavor of one of our dishes normally you just put one clove in for a little bit of flavor and you usually take it right out and you also remove the The Germ most of the time the strong flavor of garlic is in the germ so are you going to use any garlic in your two dishes today yes both all right then you're gonna use this whole thing no parsley if you uh get the general opinion I would say of the bloga sphere The cookbook sphere parsley is just something that you have to add on top of any dish in order to make it Italian you always gotta add chopped parsley on top so that's why I saw a lot of carbonara with parsley oh yeah carbonara um aliolio pepperoncino and parsley fettuccine alfredo like so many pasta dishes you just put put a bunch of parsley on top you don't put use parsley in a catch a paper you don't put parsley as a garnish on a margarita pizza most of the time we use parsley with fish fish pastas too right for example risotto you put parsley because it goes very well or even puttanesca which is just the only Seafood in it is anchovies but you have that Seafood flavor so you put some pasta spaghetti with clams spaghetti you put parsley so most of the time we use it with fish then sometimes we use this also with meat if you want to I don't know like to make eurogun smell a little bit better for example you can use just this so you give a little bit of smell a little bit of flavor but actually you don't use a lot of parsley so does this ingredient belong with any of your dishes today yes yes okay [Music] here we have some Sage smells very good now this one I'm really curious about because as far as I know I I'm only aware of one very specific use case in Italian cuisine where Sage is used but I don't know if I'm wrong or not Alana what you are talking about is the famous subura Salvia sage and butter sauce usually used for like ravioli it's an amazing sauce but it's maybe the only time I can think of where you've reached for the sage for Italian food when it comes to Pasta most of the time is used with uh for Paving repairing the batter because the two togethers they go very very well Sage is used a lot also in um marinated marinades marinades for meat think for example a wildborn wild boar because whiteboard has a very strong taste usually you should marinate it at least for 12 hours you put also the sage because it helps to reduce that strong and wild Taste of the Wild board no wonder I've never seen you use it it's a little hard to find wild boar here and actually Sage by itself is we use also like an antipasto oh my gosh I can't believe I was forgetting about maybe the one of the most delicious things I've ever had okay I need to explain on the pasta grammar tour we went to this Farm where I was first introduced to fried Sage leaves they dip them in a thin batter and then fry them phenomenally good I can't believe I was forgetting about that all right so Sage going into either of our dishes no no Sage all right well we've had our parsley we've had our Sage which means we need our Rosemary and Thyme sorry you knew that joke had to be coming at some point I don't know what you're talking about you don't know the song uh you going to Scarborough Fair yeah [Music] we use Rosemary and Thyme time time Ros Marino we use the timber rosberino obviously with meat also here in America how can you roast a piece of meat without Ros Marino a team there he goes perfect with chicken one of the best dishes that we have in Italy but I don't think just in Italy all over the world is chicken and potatoes with time and yeah yeah it's a must we don't use rosemary with fish while we use sometimes we can use also thyme with fish so the flavor the smell of time ago also with some fish but basically we use whipped meat all right well this will give me a big clue about what you're cooking today are you gonna put any Rosemary or thyme no no [Music] maybe it's just me I never ever would have thought of this as being Italian but you use it a lot in fact I don't think I ever had anything in with this before I met you marjoram I I couldn't even tell you what a marjoram plant looks like there's a grown a tree and you shouldn't be so surprised because majorama is a traditional is very very originated from the Mediterranean area so being guys in the middle of the middle yes we use now how we use majorana for example we show people a lot of savory pies for example [Music] because the flavor of majorana goes very very well with this kind kind of dishes majorana goes also well with meat so if in if you have the fresh one you can use this also to marinate your meat I can say that for example in our Cuisine is not so used it's used a lot instead in the north and in Sicily and says yeah I've noticed it a lot in Sicilian food like all the Sicilian pizzas you made they all used marjoram all right well does marjoram have a place in either of our dishes not today no so you're not making Sicilian pizza together I don't know maybe there's a sicilian pan of pizza I don't know about he was reading about this winter but not today [Music] now this one's a little bit scandalous because you a calabrian is using Sicilian oregano now let's hear a clear the situation you need to go back to calabrina I want to be sure that I can go back so the best study you know calabrina grows wild the people during summer they go and pick the oregano then they dry and the flavor and the smell of the calabrina oregano is unique so because they know how to sell better their product than us calabriano in America I found the Sicilian one it's anyway is a good oregano you can't buy the original already in a job yes see I know but you can't buy because you shouldn't you shouldn't you can no yes you shouldn't buy the original there because it doesn't taste it blew me away when I first started having it like this because this smell is the flavor of this is the southern Italian cooking because this is more a southerner herbs we my family maybe because we really like oregano we love already you know we put oregano everywhere it's like we put Ariana fish we put oregano meat we put oregano for example on a summer tomato salad it goes perfect also with eggplants we use it a lot maybe but it's pretty concentrated in the South it's more a southern spice I'm going to use them I'm going to use okay good just so you know what Ava does with this is actually we'll take this out and then put it into a jar like you sort of break off you don't have to keep it in there we keep if we want to do the Albanian pasta foreign last but certainly not least is maybe the most Italian herb there is and it's also my favorite there but because I love Basin it smells as you're waving that I'm just getting like a hit in the face is the smell of salmon basic lights just a gift uh how do you say mother nature is a gift the best pair with basil is tomato sauce so most of the time well you use Tomatoes you use bass I said most because we have several exceptions like every rule has exception but if I'm thinking about a plate of spaghetti with tomato sauce for sure this is one of the main ingredient because without this your spaghetti with tomato sauce doesn't taste as good as they should we don't really use basil uh with fish it's not that you can't but usually we fish we prefer parsley and here is a little bit of a ruler maybe it's very rare that data in the Italian food we use together parsley and Basin yeah because I was just thinking again about puttanesca which is a tomato sauce where you don't find basil but yeah you find parsley in that usually we use all one or the other one so I'm not just a person I'm not just a person in all my life that loves basil modeling and this person is my cousin domain and strange his favorite sandwich was sandwiched with basil a basil sandwich yes what is a basil sandwich two slice of bread with leaves of Basil inside closing it we don't want any more today sandwich was a brand and basic I want to try a basil sandwich now so I really like it and I'm going obvious to use the basil I'm going to use my basil here definitely not with the parsing huh now with the parsley I think I'm having some idea not of the specific dishes you're gonna make but of the various possibilities here and flavor profiles but maybe I should just let you get it cooking basil salt garlic spicy pepper this screams to me tomato sauce as we said before I'm going to use the one clove of garlic and I'm going to peel it [Music] and remember that you can't cut basil with a knife so because otherwise your basil will become a bitter so what I'm going to do is take this and put direct inside and of course I'm going to use some sauce [Music] while my tomato sauce is cooking I'm starting work on my second dish so I'm guessing from the parsley and the oregano that fish is on the menu I'm adding to the olive oil some water this time I'm going to chop my garlic but before chopping it I need to take out the germ this part so all the bad garlic flavor is there and we have just a good part of the garlic with a dry pepper like that I'm just break it could you use fresh Chili Pepper yes if you have fresh you can use fresh and the reason why I'm going to use the dry because I don't have a fresh calabrian pepper remember that after you break the pepper with your hands don't touch your eyes already here we have a tale of two smells like this with the tomato and basil just has that amazing fresh tomato sauce smell and then here because the garlic is chopped and with the oregano and the spicy pepper we have just a much stronger Savory smell [Music] oh swordfish [Music] and because this this is fish we can garnish with some pasta [Music] with my tomato sauce I'm going to make a dish that is common around all the Mediterranean areas but every country has its own version for sure you know a version of this dish with the name shaksuga in immediately we do it in our own way but we call it the water in purgatory because I mean eggs in purgatory yes because after you cook the eggs and there is the contrast between the red the white the orange of the yolk they look like a soul in the flame of the Purgatory it doesn't make sense this is where the name come from I'm going to add the summer Basin because it works very well I know that this is not an herb this is not a spice but for sure is a fundamental Italian seasoning ah this looks and smells like a very well seasoned meal this they look amazing and I'm pretty hungry I'm gonna try the swordfish while you try the eggs all right Bon Appetito foreign [Music] okay I really want to try the eggs you want some swordfish I need some bread I think the biggest thing I've learned is that when it comes to seasoning it's not so much the addition of things that makes a big difference it's the removal of things like that we would just lose all the unity of taste if you added basil into this if you had too much you just destroy a dish so you need to put all the things that that need that ingredient like in this case this goldfish or in this case the eggs they need less is more always except when it comes to cheese there more is more guys we hope you learned something new about Italian seasoning today if you try applying this to your own cooking please send us a picture on Instagram or Facebook at pasta grammar speaking of which we have a pasta gramerian in action Tilly made an amazing looking carbonara it looked very well seasoning that's a case where or black pepper you want a lot of black pepper and you don't want parsley no parsley there's no parsley on this garbage all right guys we'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Pasta Grammar

Views: 237,115

Keywords: italian seasoning recipe, how to make italian seasoning, italian herbs and spices, italian herbs, italian spices, is italian seasoning real, how italians season, salt, pepper, peperoncino, how italians use, basil, sage, rosemary, thyme, garlic, marjoram, parsley, italian parsley, swordfish, pesce spada, oregano, eggs, shakshouka, eggs in purgatory, uova in purgatorio, uovo in purgatorio, recipe, italian food, how to cook italian food, italian flavor, harper, eva, ava

Id: Y_48kPCGnmg

Length: 26min 37sec (1597 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 23 2023