Gennaro's Cucina: A cookbook of classic Italian recipes that help to budget during a cost-of-living crisis

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The Italians are very proud of whatever they’re making, they express themselves through food. You see them at the table, ‘Try this’, ‘Try that’, they love feeding you.” in batches, ensuring you reheat the oil between each batch. Remove each batch using a slotted spoon and leave to drain on kitchen paper. Step 4

Remove and discard the garlic cloves from the tomato sauce. Combine the remaining tomato sauce with the deep-fried aubergines, the cooked pasta, basil leaves, three quarters of the mozzarella and half the grated Parmesan. Along with the majority of post-war Italian families, the young Gennaro was raised on a diet harvested on a limited budget. Restricted choice of scarce ingredients meant they learnt the value what they had, how to cook dishes lovingly and use imaginative methods of preservation to make simple dishes go far: including salting, drying and curing. Gennaro has worked in some of London’s most popular restaurants, such as the late Antonio Carluccio’s ‘Neal Street Restaurant’. In 1999 he opened his own restaurant ‘Passione’ in Charlotte Street, London, which was awarded Best Italian restaurant in 2005. Along with the majority of post-war Italian families, a young Gennaro was raised on a diet harvested on a limited budget. Restricted choice of scarce ingredients meant they learnt the value what they had, how to cook dishes lovingly and use imaginative methods of preservation to make simple dishes go far: including salting, drying and curing. Cucina povera is the food that traditionally fed the poor of Italy yet remains the basis of most Italian dishes we love to eat today. It's a simple philosophy - delicious, hearty meals using accessible and affordable ingredients. Encouraging an ethos of zero waste, Gennaro's Cucina ensures that every part of the ingredient, and your budget, is put to good culinary use.a. The prize on offer is one (1) x signed copy of CUCINA and one (1) x Gourmet Italian Hamper. There are three (3) prizes to be won. He learned to cook himself because, simply, everyone did. "Inside my house papa wanted to cook, grandfather wanted to cook, my grandma would cook, my mama would cook, my sister was taught by my grandma. Remove the leaves from the dandelion (and the heart if using puntarelle) and save the roots to make a salad (see recipe intro). Take the leaves and blanch them in a pan of boiling water for a couple of minutes until tender. Drain well. Bread was another grain-based food used in many cucina povera dishes; stale bread was never wasted and put to good use like the classic Tuscan panzanella salad and the Puglian dish of pane cotto e patate. Bread was used to fill vegetables like peppers, courgettes and aubergines to make the family meal go further, as well as made into breadcrumbs to coat foods for frying. The 74-year-old says he throws nothing away. And not only for environmental reasons. In a cost of living crisis, throwing any food away is literally money in the bin. Knowing what you can do with leftovers is the key to cutting your food bill, Contaldo believes.

Classic Italian cooking, at its very heart, is cost-effective. The basis of many of the most famous dishes is known as “cucina povera” literally translating to “poor kitchen” or “poor cooking”. The chef says: “There was not much, so whatever you had you cooked in many different ways and nothing used to be thrown away.” Gennaro Contaldo is widely known as the Italian legend who taught Jamie Oliver all he knows about Italian cooking and is one of the UK’s best-loved chefs, as well as being author of a dozen best-selling Italian recipe books.

In 2011 he toured the Italian regions alongside Antonio Carluccio in a four-part series for the BBC, "The Two Greedy Italians". This was followed up by a second series which aired in 2012, "The Two Greedy Italians: Still Hungry".