TikTok Is Falling For The Pasta Queen's Italian Appetizer
Italian culture revolves around food. Meals in Italy are meant to last for hours and have multiple courses. The restaurant wait staff will leave you alone until you request the check — a significant difference from the rushed meals we favor in the U.S., per Georgetown University.
At the root of this cultural difference is the importance Italians place on food and the pleasure it brings them. Meals are meant to be enjoyed with family and friends, indulging in conversation. Italian recipes generally have few ingredients, allowing you to savor the taste of each element without masking the flavor with too many additions. This cuisine requires quality ingredients, which is why Italian food is popular globally. According to a survey by YouGov, 86% of Americans polled voted Italian food as their favorite ethnic cuisine.
Traditionally, antipasto (appetizer) is served to begin a meal. These are small bites that aren't meant to fill you up. Antipasto is similar to the charcuterie boards filling up Instagram posts. Varied by region, antipasto consists of cured meat, fresh and pickled vegetables, olives, crostini, and polenta, per Great Italian Chefs.
Italian transplant Nadia Caterina Munno, known as The Pasta Queen to her millions of social media followers, has made a name for herself with theatrical cooking videos and critiques of other people's cooking. Sharing her nonna's recipes, Munno's passion for cooking Italian food is palpable. Despite her nickname, Munno's repertoire goes beyond cooking pasta. Recently, she shared a recipe for an antipasto that has TikTok drooling.
The Pasta Queen's roasted tomato and burrata crostino
The Pasta Queen prepared a crostino with roasted tomatoes and burrata for her TikTok followers. Followers like Tina G. commented, "Perfection," and Christopher Game wrote, "I think I love you..." Crostino or crostini are small slices of toasted bread, topped with savory ingredients. Like bruschetta, which is a mainstay on Italian restaurant menus, crostino are smaller bites that are roughly half the size of bruschetta (via Delallo).
While The Pasta Queen usually narrates her videos, she allows the sounds of cooking to do the talking in this video. Grape tomatoes are halved and placed in a glass baking dish with generous amounts ("glugs") of olive oil, minced garlic, and salt. While the tomatoes roast in the oven, The Pasta Queen cuts a loaf of rustic bread into thirds and splits each wedge in half the long way. Bypassing the range, she opts to pan-fry the bread in olive oil on the stove, pressing each piece down with her fingers to ensure contact with the hot pan.
The toasted bread is rubbed with raw garlic before tearing and smearing burrata on top. The roasted tomatoes and a spoonful of their juices are placed on the burrata before torn basil is added as a garnish. True to Italian culture, just a handful of quality ingredients were used to create this simple first course. All that's left to say is, "This crostino is heavenly, just like you are."