Southern Italian Dinner Menu

Chiles add spark to this sauce, with toasted bread crumbs sprinkled in for pleasing crunch.

Recipe: Spaghetti with Anchovies and Bread Crumbs

Southern Italians keep their seafood salad simple so the shellfish flavor stands out. It's a juicy dish, so be sure to offer bread for dipping.

Recipe: Mixed Seafood Salad

You might expect a whole fish baked in salt to taste salty, but it doesn't. It's exceptionally moist, because the salt seals in juices.

Recipe: Salt-Baked Striped Bass with Herb Lemon Chile Sauce

Despite its name, broccoli rabe is botanically closer to turnip greens than to broccoli. The garlic and chiles play well with the vegetable's slightly bitter flavor.

Recipe: Sautéed Broccoli Rabe with Garlic and Chiles

Torrone (hard almond nougat) is an Italian specialty. Most Calabrian families eat it unadorned; here we've chopped it and then folded it into a semifreddo ― a frozen custard dessert similar to ice cream ― to give tradition a delicious twist.

Recipe: Almond Nougat Semifreddo with Bittersweet Chocolate Sauce