Customer Reviews

The New Regional Italian Cuisine Cookbook: Delectable dishes from Italy's Alpine Piedmont region to the island of Sicily

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an excellent book, I got it a few months ago and have been slowly trying the recipes, some are harder to find ingredients than others. At this very moment I'm making the Palermo Rib eye steak recipe from it. Twice I've made the Zucchini Casserole. Because of this book I've started cooking with anchovies as an ingredient in dishes something I never would have considered before.

Every dish has a picture which helps me a lot to decide if I want to make it.

What an awesome book! I gave it to my Italian-food-fan mother in law for her birthday and for the entire week I was there we cooked out of it! Delicious, creative, new! Wonderful addition to the "old" cook book!!!

This book is udder garbage. Don't let the pictures fool you! The recipes are just simply untested. None of the pasta doughs work. And procedures are missing.

Terrine of chicken livers and white asparagus.
the recipe calls for the livers and asparagus to be cooked far longer than what is required, the livers would be rubber, and the asparagus would be mush.

Nougat Honey Semifreddo
"cook the honey until dark in color" is it too much to ask to get an exact temperature here? honey is already dark in color, any darker and its burnt!

Wine Cream Gratin
Zabaione did not thicken and had to alter it.

Mussels in Fennel Gravy
Terribly under seasoned!

Chocolate Mousse
Probably the worst recipe in the book. Baking chocolate is very different from a 70% cocao chocolate. Because the recipe calls for baking chocolate, it is EXTREMELY bitter, i want some sweet for dessert not this crap. Oh and not to mention the 2 tsp of black pepper in the mousse, that just pushed it over the edge of nasty.

Rabbit with Saffron
we all chuckled at this one. "1 rabbit cut into 12 pieces." Cut the freakin rabbit into its primal parts and cook it!

Baked potatoes and Dandelion greens.
Are they guessing on cooking times???? I have never met a casserole that has to cook for 1 hour 15 minutes. It was dry as a bone after that long. Cook this thing 45 minutes tops.

Fried ricotta with stewed figs
Unlike the picture, serve these two mixed together, because the ricotta have NO flavor.

All of these recipes plus the pasta recipes that are just plain incorrect. These doughs tear long before they can be rolled thin enough, the minute amount of eggs in these recipes can no way activate enough gluten to give enough extensibility to the dough. And with the intentional or unintentional exclusion of steps in most of the recipes i give this book 1 star. Don't forget to wash and scrub those lemons ladies and gentlemen!.