Chef Salvatore Cardamuro grew up in the service industry. His parents always owned restaurants, and his earliest memories are helping out in the busy kitchen as a child. “I have worked back of the house to front of the house and everything in between. It has truly given me a complete understanding and perspective of how to make a restaurant run smoothly,” he says. “I remember making sauces and kneading dough as a kid in my parents' restaurant. I loved to be part of it all and never dreamed of any other career.” Cardamuro's Sicilian and Neapolitan heritage is important to him and his cooking style is greatly centered around that. “What I love most about cooking is being able to share my culture with everyone.”
Here, he is sharing a recipe for “the most popular Italian cookie,” the Pignoli. Cardamuro remembers visits with his grandparents as a child, playing cards with his grandfather and baking these cookies with his grandmother—traditions that have become some of his fondest memories. The charm of this cookie is the intense almond flavor with a chewy center and crisp outside studded with pine nuts. Pignoli cookies are a staple at any Italian bakery and are available year-round at Mario's Italian Eatery at Simon Silk Mill in Easton, where Cardamuro has worked since February 2021 as the executive chef. It is a recipe he knows by heart, is super simple to make, uses fresh ingredients and is one cookie that he is confident everyone in your family will love. Serve them with a hot cup of espresso and you will have a new favorite dessert.
Mario's Italian Eatery | 669 N. 13th St. Suite A-102, Easton | 610.438.0311 | marioseaston.com
Pignoli Cookies
Ingredients
- Equal parts blanched almonds, ground down, and confectioners' sugar
- 2 egg whites per every pound of cookie mixture
- 1 Tbsp. almond extract
Instructions
Mold the cookies into circles and roll them in pine nuts.
Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
Published as "Beyond the Menu" in the March 2022 edition of Lehigh Valley Style magazine.
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