LIDIA: Buongiorno.

I'm Lidia Bastianich, and teaching you about Italian food has always been my passion.

It has always been about cooking together and ultimately building your confidence in the kitchen.

So what does that mean?

You got to cook it yourselves.

For me, food is about delicious flavors... Che bellezza!

...comforting memories, and most of all, family.

Tutti a tavola a mangiare!

ANNOUNCER: Funding provided by... ANNOUNCER: At Cento Fine Foods, we're dedicated to preserving the culinary heritage of authentic Italian foods by offering over 100 specialty Italian products for the American kitchen.

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♪ ♪ ANNOUNCER: Grana Padano -- authentic, Italian, rich in tradition, yet contemporary.

ANNOUNCER: For over 140 years, Auricchio traditional hand-crafted provolone.

Made in Italy.

ANNOUNCER: Authentic Italian cured meats.

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ANNOUNCER: And by... LIDIA: You think that cooking is all about the chef?

Not so.

It's about the ingredients.

And here I am in the Lago di Garda regions with olive oil, wines.

How can you not be inspired to cook with all this beauty around you?

A platter of cheese with seasonal fruit is the simplest way to end a meal.

I like to take it a step further and add my homemade plum mostarda and fluffy fried bread.

Sweet apples and savory sausage are a match made in heaven and make an easy one-pot meal that can feed a hungry family.

So let's get in the kitchen.

Sweet and savory fruit.

What you have around you really makes you feel at home here.

Here, I have a grape trestle.

I have two fig trees.

These thing's really bring me back home.

So the vegetation takes you to a place, especially fruits.

As a child, we knew the calendar for when the next fruit will be ripe.

First fruit's, of course, the cherries.

And we would climb the tree, and we knew exactly when they would be ready.

And of course, the grapes, the trestle, the grape rows.

And of course, the fig trees, and we had them in our courtyard.

I knew the timing, the harvest.

I knew when the fruit was perfectly to eat.

And fruit, yes, could be turned into a dessert treat, whether you bake with the fruit, cook the fruit in wine, in honey and whatever, even cooking savory dishes.

One of my favorite dishes is pork chops with pears and onions in the oven with a little bit of vinegar.

And it is this excitement and passion for fruit that I carry to the table and to my stove.

Cheese plate with plum mostarda and gnocco fritto.

Mostarda, mustard, you think of only mustard.

But us Italians use our fruit, cook it with sweet honey, sugar, and mustard, and he makes a great accompaniment to cold cuts, to cheeses, to roasts, to many things.

So let's begin.

We need acidity.

Let's put vinegar.

♪ Wine.

♪ In here, this is mustard powder.

Let's put that in here.

And it's important that it's sort of dissolves, because it forms, like, small bubbles, so make sure that that is all dissolved.

Let's add the sugar.

Mustard seeds.

Let's add the seeds.

And a little ginger.

And this is grated.

And put a little bit of salt here, just a little to bring out the flavor.

And of course, a little peperoncino.

So you're getting the sweet and the savory mixture in here.

Italians, we love our vegetables, and we love our fruit, especially in season, and we preserve all of those for those winter months.

And mostarda is one of the ways to do just that, mostarda di frutta.

It could be any fruit.

It's a simple way to preserve.

And here we have plums.

So, here we are.

Let's put this all right in there.

And you want this to cook and become a very kind of syrupy mixture.

We'll give it about 20 minutes, mix it occasionally, and the mostarda will be ready.

Buongiorno.

I'm in Italy.

And even from Italy, I connect with you.

I want to know what you want to know.

So in a way, you're coming with me to Italy.

And here I have a little video that Rebecca sent.

Let's see what she wants to know.

REBECCA: Hi, Lidia.

I'm Rebecca.

My favorite food is cheese.

And I am looking to up my cheese board game.

Right now, I use things like Brie or Port Salut.

I absolutely love a good goat Gouda, but I would love your opinion on what Italian cheeses I can add to my board and maybe some wine to pair with it.

Thanks so much.

LIDIA: So, Rebecca, you're asking me, what can you add to your cheese board?

Italy is one of the largest producers of cheese, and so you have a big selection.

So, I would add some local cheese.

It could be fresh, or it could be aged up to 15 months.

It's delicious.

You can add some provolone.

You can add some Pecorino Romano.

You can add some Montasio.

And if you want something on the softer side, the Gorgonzola is delicious, too.

Now, you know, cheeses, how are they made?

I just came from the mountains and watched the local cheese, Piave, being made.

It's all in the milk.

It's that wonderful pasture, those flowers, those herbs in the ground, those beautiful cows.

I befriended some of them.

The milk is brought up to body temperature.

Rennet is added, which coagulates the proteins in the milk.

And these curds are broken down, and then they're drained, and it's put into forms.

Then it is submersed in a salty solution just to give it some flavor, and then it is aged.

So, Rebecca dear, I gave you some nice explanations, and I gave you some good ideas on what cheese to add to your board.

But, of course, you want to know the wine.

A glass of sparkling rosé would go with any cheese.

So, salute.

Enjoy your cheese.

So, we made the mostarda, and that is for this beautiful cheese platter.

I'm going to show you how to make the gnocco fritto.

So, gnocco, it's a dough.

Fritto is fried.

So let's make the dough Here, I have some warm milk, some olive oil.

♪ Some yeast.

And just mix that well.

♪ Okay, and we'll let that prove a little bit.

In the meantime, here is our mostarda.

It has cooled, and it is beautiful and chunky.

Let's -- Mmm.

And, you know, the mostarda like this, it's great to make it, but sometimes even double.

If you have a lot of fruit, double the recipe, and it'll keep -- Mostarda like this with a little bit of acidity will keep for a while in the refrigerator.

The mostarda's going to look beautiful on the cheese plate.

And now let's make the dough for the gnocco.

Put the flour.

Some salt.

Club soda.

That gives it a little bit of air, little bit of a lightness.

♪ Let's see if that yeast has proved a little bit.

It's began to be active.

Let's put it in, and let's begin to mix.

♪ Whenever you're making dough, have a little bit more flour close by and have a little bit more liquid like I have here, the club soda.

And so let's add flour until it's at the right consistency.

And you do want it loose.

You don't want it too firm.

So, I'm going to change it to a dough hook, because I want to knead for a few minutes.

And usually to change it to a dough hook, what I do is that I slowly raise this, and the dough sort of slides off.

Mmm.

It's a little sticky, but that's okay.

Let's put the hook on.

And you knead it like that for about five minutes, because it is a dough, and you want to knead it.

Put it in a glass bowl, and you let it rest for about 15 minutes, and then we'll fry it.

Okay.

Maria needs some help with storing cheeses.

She writes, "Sometimes I find a piece of Pecorino, but it is usually too large to use all before it's no longer fresh.

How can I stop it to remain as fresh as possible?"

Cheese always continues to mature and dehydrate and concentrate its flavor, so what you're talking about is this concentration of flavors that happens if you hold cheese for a while longer.

So one way to sort of slow that down is to seal, to keep the oxygen away from this piece of cheese.

So take a piece of plastic wrap and wrap it tightly around the cheese and then put it in the refrigerator, in the cool part of refrigerator.

So it will delay, shall we say, the maturing, the concentrating of the flavors.

I hope that helps, Maria.

You're exploring the cheeses of Italy.

Great place to be.

The dough that we kneaded, I put in a nice oiled bowl, and it has risen perfectly.

And let's go on and work with it.

So, this is my kneading board.

My grandmother had one.

This one was made for me.

And it has the corners here so nothing will fly off.

And then it has a lip going down which grabs the table.

And so as you knead it, the board doesn't run away from you.

So it's perfect.

Everything is contained, and it's -- For me, it's a little piece of memory, and I want to share it with you.

So let's go and knead a little more this dough.

Cut it in four pieces.

♪ So, I'm collecting a little flour.

I have the pieces there, and this is here.

You see how soft it is and light.

And you want it like that, because when you put it in the oil, it puffs up.

♪ The more flour you put, the harder the dough gets, so you don't want to overdo it with the flour, but it doesn't stick.

So it's a very simple dough to work, a very simple dough to make.

Let's cut the corners off.

♪ ♪ Flour a sheet, sheet pan like that.

Here we put these, the gnocco fritto that I know, that I remember were always square.

And so I'm going to continue to cut them and put them on a floured pan, and we're going to fry them.

Stephanie is wondering about provolone.

She asks if provolone can be used instead of Provola.

She's not sure they have Provola where she lives.

Provola is provolone in a younger stage, and it's milkier.

And to cook, it sort of melts better and so on.

But provolone is just as good.

You get more flavor delivered with a provolone when you're cooking.

And taste the intensity.

You might want to use a little bit less.

But either one are excellent to eat or to cook with.

Thank you, Stephanie.

Here we are, frying the gnocco fritto.

Fritto is fried, and so we're frying.

We have a nice pot of hot oil.

You just take them lightly, and you just drop them in just like that.

And not too many, because, you know, that lowers the temperature of the cooking oil.

So I'm looking at these, the ones that I dropped before.

Some of them are ready.

Let me pull this one out.

Gnocco is all about that, the little belly.

And inside, it's empty, so, really, it's crunchy.

Okay.

These are all done.

And now the beautiful part, the payoff, the presentation.

So a nice basket of gnocco fritto.

And here is the star of the table, the cheese platter.

You know, Italy has the largest diversity of cheeses.

And cheese like the Gorgonzola, the Grana, the Piave, the Robiola, the Taleggio, these are all north and middle Italy.

And then you go down south, and you have the Provola, the provolone.

Further south, Pecorino.

So, how would I make this plate?

Let me show you.

A piece of cheese.

I'll take some crumbly cheese.

Of course, some of my mostarda, just like that.

Gnocco fritto.

And if you go to Parma in Emilia-Romagna, they'll give you a gnocco fritto, and on top, they'll drape a slice of prosciutto.

So, does this look inviting?

Absolutely.

And with this, a bubbly, a spumante, certainly.

Let's take some cheese with a little bit of mostarda.

♪ Mmm.

The complexity of the milk and then the contrast of the sweetness and of the spiciness of the mustard -- It's a marriage made in heaven.

And then this?

I mean, give me a break.

How delicious is this?

And you just bite into it.

Mmm.

And you can see the inside, it puffs up, and that's the beauty of this gnocco fritto.

Let me see how it goes with this Spumante.

♪ That's not only a taste.

That's a slurp.

And I liked it, and I enjoyed it.

You wash down all the complexity of the cheeses.

Of course, I could just invite you, but I think a better idea is, why don't you make your own?

Some of my favorite time in the kitchen has been teaching my grandchildren to grow into confident cooks.

And these days, even though they are living on their own, that doesn't mean they stop asking for my advice.

Sharing recipes -- risotto with orange juice.

Hi, Lorenzo.

LORENZO: Ciao, Nonna.

How are you?

LIDIA: Oh, I am fine.

Are you cooking these days in your apartment, in your little kitchen?

LORENZO: Of course.

In fact, recently, I made one of my favorites, and one of yours, risotto.

It was absolutely delicious.

LIDIA: Can I give you maybe a little bit of an idea that's delicious?

You want to hear it?

LORENZO: Yeah, of course.

I'd love to.

LIDIA: I had it for the first time in Sicily.

My friend Anna Lanza made this risotto with oranges.

It's delicious.

LORENZO: Wow.

LIDIA: Yeah, and it's very simple.

You go through the procedure of the same risotto -- you know, the onions and the stock and all of that, and then some rinds.

You put some fresh orange juice, and you continue to cook it just like a risotto.

And then you add butter and cheese.

So, how do you like the idea of a risotto with orange?

LORENZO: It sounds really delicious.

It sounds very refreshing, almost.

LIDIA: It is.

It's very refreshing.

And it has that little sweetness, that little acidity that oranges bring to the dish.

Did you ever think of citrus in risotto?

LORENZO: You know, I never thought of that.

And I guess I'm wondering, like, what other stuff can you add orange to?

I mean, there are some salads.

I know in other cuisines, there's, like, chicken.

LIDIA: Oh, absolutely.

You can use an orange, lemon, that citrusy sweet or sour with fish, with pasta.

You remember when you and I were in Amalfi, and we had spaghetti with lemon sauce?

LORENZO: That was absolutely delicious.

I was not expecting that at all.

But the lemons there are so good.

LIDIA: So, there you go.

You see?

When you think you have nothing in the kitchen, you have a lemon or an orange, and you can make a great risotto, okay?

Keep in touch.

Let me know if you need any more recipes.

LORENZO: Ciao, Nonna.

Ti voglio bene.

LIDIA: Ciao.

Love you.

That's the best in life, you know?

Communication, you impart some knowledge, and then they carry on your flavors.

Sausages and apples.

Here I am in my garden.

And I like fruit and my proteins and my meat.

I love cooking them together.

So get yourself a nice big pan and some olive oil.

Okay.

And I'm gonna put in the sausages.

♪ Okay.

So, let the sausages brown on both sides.

Some onions.

Let's see.

White onions.

You can with red onions.

And as you can see here, it has a little bit of the root.

I leave that so that when I cut it like that in quarters and I put it in there, eighths like that, this will hold the pieces together.

So I'm gonna put the onions on the side.

I want them to caramelize, as well.

And as you notice, I have a pretty nice, large pan so that there's a lot of surface for everything to caramelize.

So, that's cooking.

Let me add some peperoncino.

Just like that.

Okay.

Some salt.

So this is pretty easy.

Now, I love sage with chicken, with sausages, with veal.

And sage is quite pronounced.

Just put in the leaf, the whole leaf.

Let it release all its flavor.

Okay, let me put some heat up here and get it nice and brown, and I'll begin to clean the apples.

One, two -- I think three is going to be enough.

So, I'm looking at it, and I'm looking at the cooking time.

The apples are big, so maybe I'll make it like this.

I don't want them overcooked.

And you certainly follow the recipe, but sometimes, you know, common sense works.

Now, you see, this is enough for that.

I think everybody gets two pieces, and we're okay, so we'll just core them.

I do it the last minute so they don't oxidize, so they're nice and bright.

Okay.

♪ Let me put just a little bit of apple cider vinegar, and I'm going to bring this to boil, and then I'm going to add the apples to it.

So I left a hot spot now for the apples because they're the last one to go in.

Let's put them right in here, and I'm trying to squeeze them all in so they all have some -- some loving from the hot pan so they become nice and caramelized.

So, let me cover it up a little bit.

Let's build up the heat.

I'm going to clean up, and we'll be ready to go, go to the table and eat.

So, Donna is asking about apples.

She says, "In recipes such as sausage and apples, how do I know what kind of apples to use in which recipe?"

When you're cooking with apples, the same like baking with apples.

You want an apple that will hold together, that has a little bit more acidity.

Certainly, the Granny Smith apples are a good example of that.

So look for an apple that will hold firm when you're cooking it.

I love cooking with fruits.

I think that proteins and fruits are delicious.

There's such a sweet and savory element to it that I really appreciate.

So I'm glad you're looking at that, Donna.

Okay.

I think we're getting ready.

Let's check it out.

And this is nice all-in-one platter kind of look, so we'll put the sausages a little bit on the bottom first to hold everything.

♪ ♪ Oh, this looks so beautiful.

Oh, I forgot the sausage for Lidia.

That's no good.

Let me get a little piece of sausage for Lidia.

Okay.

A little apple and onions for Lidia, as well.

Fresh sage right from my garden.

So, let me taste some before I bring it to the table.

It's not a question of whether it's good or not.

It's how good it is.

Okay.

Mmm.

Delicious.

Sweetness, acidity of the apple, the sweetness of the onion, the complexity of the sausage, a little sage in the background -- You got a perfect harmony of food.

So now here we are.

You bring it to the table like this.

You can imagine what your guests will be saying.

So here it is.

So, come.

Come and join me.

Tutti a tavola a mangiare!

Let's have a party in my garden, Lidia's garden.

Salute!

♪ Fruits are always on the Italian table, be it breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

And fruit can really be incorporated in cooking.

It could be cooked, you know, to lighten sausages with apples, so you can see the apple kind of brings the acidity.

It completes the meal.

It's not just sausages.

Pork chops with the pears.

Pears bring that -- a little sweetness and yet that balance in the meal.

And then, of course, the dessert part where you bake your fruit, grill them, peaches, pears.

So, keep that fruit in your kitchen, as well as on the table.

And Grandma loved grapes just as much as a good song.

[ Erminia and Lidia singing in Italian ] ♪ ♪ ANNOUNCER: The food from this series makes Italian cooking easy for everyone and showcases simple-to-prepare recipes that require fewer steps, fewer ingredients, and less cleanup, without sacrificing flavor.

The recipes can be found in Lidia's latest cookbook "Lidia's a Pot, a Pan, and a Bowl," available for $29.95.

To purchase this cookbook and any of her additional products, call 1-800-PLAY-PBS or visit shop.pbs.org/lidia.

ANNOUNCER: To learn more about Lidia, access to videos, and to get recipes, tips, techniques, and much more, visit us online at lidiasitaly.com.

Follow Lidia on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram @lidiabastianich.

♪ ♪ ♪ ANNOUNCER: Funding provided by... ANNOUNCER: At Cento Fine Foods, we're dedicated to preserving the culinary heritage of authentic Italian foods by offering over 100 specialty Italian products for the American kitchen.

Cento -- Trust your family with our family.

ANNOUNCER: Grana Padano -- authentic, Italian, rich in tradition, yet contemporary.

And by... ANNOUNCER: Olitalia, "From chef to chef."

ANNOUNCER: "Lidia's Kitchen" studio provided by Clarke, New England's official Sub-Zero and Wolf showroom and test kitchen.