Chef Francesca Marsetti represents a new generation of Italian chefs, eager to embrace international flavors. She's a personal chef and regular guest on the popular Rai 1 daytime cooking show, È Sempre Mezzogiorno. A master of fusion food, Chef Marsetti's creativity and ingenuity is limitless. In our interview, she tells me that it all began after tasting Japanese food for the first time. As the daughter of a butcher, the teppanyaki method of cooking meat stunned her.
With her lifelong passion for food, this well-traveled chef never ceases to experiment with new flavors and continues to expand her culinary horizons. From poke bowls to falafel and Jamaican-inspired pasta salads, Chef Marsetti always adds an international flair to her recipes. Now her signature style, fusion food, was the catalyst that led to her first appearance on Italian television.
Chef Marsetti shares that Italian cuisine has an innate flexibility due to its regionality. This characteristic makes it an ideal candidate to create fusion dishes. She says it can be as simple as adding an ingredient like teriyaki sauce to grilled cotecchino. Or she suggests taking it a step further, by drizzling it over rich, creamy stracciatella di burrata from Puglia or a classic gelato alla crema. Whichever pairing you opt for, this bold Japanese sauce is a great accompaniment to many Italian ingredients. And while Chef Marsetti says most cuisines pair well with Italian flavors, she does remark that the smoked, dried fish typically eaten in Nordic countries can be among the trickiest to incorporate.
A recipe near and dear to her heart, Chef Marsetti shares with our readers her sesame-crusted branzino with stracciatella and teriyaki sauce.
