Lemon-infused pizza with sausage, mozzarella, and arugula excerpted from Gennaro’s Limoni: Vibrant Italian Recipes Celebrating the Lemon by Gennaro Contaldo.
Ask a foodie about the Amalfi Coast and lemons immediately spring to mind. The sweet, aromatic, large and thick-skinned sfusato Amalfitano is the extraordinary and delectable citrus fruit that Gennaro Contaldo grew up with.
Lemons were and still are a part of daily life for locals of the Amalfi Coast, and Gennaro continues this tradition in his everyday cooking. From a sliver of zest in his morning espresso to helping with minor ailments and even household chores, lemons have a wealth of uses.
No part of the lemon is wasted—flesh, pith, and skin are chopped into salads, juice is drizzled over meat, fish, and veggies, while the aromatic zest adds a complexity to a dish’s flavour. Even the leaves are used to wrap meat, fish and cheese for extra flavour, or finely chopped and made into a tea infusion.
