Customer Reviews

Pasta Revised

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is the perfect way to get started cooking some great pasta. The first 5-10 pages provide the reader with the basics to pasta, preparation, proper cooking utensils, etc. The book is then divided into chapters such as tomato sauces, cream sauces, meat dishes, vegtable and herb pasta, and many more. The recipes are easy to read and usually contain 10 or fewer ingredients, which makes the 1/2-1 hour after work to make dinner a lot easier. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for good, easy, classic Italian pasta meals.

I love this book! I learned to cook pasta from my husband's Italian mother and grandmother and I thought I was doing well, but this book has refined and simplified my pasta dishes. The book is easy to read and easy to use with step-by-step directions. After making one of the tomato based sauces, my husband said it was the best he'd ever had! There are recipes for every type of pasta, too, using seafood (my favorite), herbs and oils, and cheese. Fresh pasta, store bought, how to cook it...whether you've been cooking pasta all your life or just learning how this book is perfect. The pictures alone make it worth while. I, also, purchased the author's Ultimate Bread book and love it as much as this one.

Book: "Pasta: Every Way for Every Day" by Eric Trueille & Anna Del Conte (2nd American Edition, 2004)

Rating: 3 (of 5) stars

Ok, this is a slightly longish review, so get comfortable, and I'll do my best to explain why I feel this book aimed a tad low, and only merits three stars.

I grabbed this book off a discount rack for 1/3 it's cover price. I found it mildly diverting, and too short a read. It actually took me longer to write this review than to read the book.

The good (and the merely adequate):

* PHOTOS: The food photography is generally excellent and honest - the pictures and garnishes actually match the recipes (courtesy of one of the authors doing all their own cooking and plating for the photos). So, for those who thrive on food photography, and like to `window-shop' for recipes, you'll like this book for it's numerous, oversized, and delightfully accurate photos.

* ORGANIZATION: The recipes are organized into 11 helpful general flavor categories (Tomatoes, Cheese & Butter, Seafood, Meat, Olives & Olive Oil, Greens & Herbs, Beans & Lentils, Garlic, Peppers & Eggplant, and Filled Pasta), and within those categories they're sub organized by cook-time style (make ahead, no cook, quick cook, slow cook, and baked). I like the latter (cook-time style), but unfortunately, there's no convenient recipe index ... the omission of which is only partially made up for by a rear index and their "Pasta Planner" and Pasta on the Menu" tables.

* HELPFUL INFORMATION: The chapter introductions include some helpful advice (for beginners) on the `how to' basics - minimally stocking one's pantry for pasta cuisine, salting and boiling water, judging pasta doneness, storing fresh ingredients, etc. Particularly useful are the little tidbits at the end of some of the recipes, which include listing the recommended pasta types for a given sauce, and "think ahead" information (i.e., useful tips on advance preparation and storage - something the vast majority of cookbooks routinely omit).

* COMPETENCE: On the whole, everything in this book seems very competent, if a bit over terse and unspectacular in places. On the one hand, it's refreshing to see balanced flavors, and cogent advice on things like the `bell curve' of doneness for squid (which experienced cooks know must either be cooked hot and VERY briefly, or slowly for a long time, to avoid toughness), taking care not to burn the garlic, etc. On the other hand, some sections aimed far too low. Take the opening blurb on p,102: IMNSHO, flat parsley is best soaked loose for several minutes in a sink-full of cold water, drained (or spun), pressed dry in a chef towel, then rolled up in dry paper towels and stored in a loose plastic bag in the produce drawer of your fridge ... the authors however make no mention of washing their leafy herbs, and apparently just toss it in a plastic bag into the fridge, perch it tented in a cup of water (which only works well for scallions and asparagus BTW), or chopping it unwashed straight into the freezer. The section on cheese is anemic too. The advice to store hard parm and romano in the fridge wrapped simply in foil is sub-par. I have a food science tip for the authors - the first time you use a fresh block of hard grating cheese, reduce it's surface area by grating first all the rough sides until smooth, then wrap first in a paper towel lightly moistened with white vinegar (change it every 2-3 weeks), then place in a freezer-proof plastic bag, burp out all the air, and store in the produce drawer ... the reduced surface area and slight presence of vinegar inhibit mold, and the freezer bag is less permeable to moisture loss. Stored that way, parm, and to a lesser degree, romano, can last for several months.

The not so good: (in no particular order)

* EXCESSIVE VISUAL FILLER: The page count is a thinnish 168, and only about one fourth of that is useful recipe text - the remaining three fourths is visual filler (excessively oversized and/or unnecessary photos & white space). The first recipe doesn't appear until page 31, and most of what comes before it mostly pictures and fluff. If you stripped all the pictures and fluff out of this book, and just left the useful text, it'd barely weigh in at 40 pages, covering just over 80 recipes (excluding minor variations). With a cover price of $20 USD (as of this writing), that works out to 50 cents per page and 25 cents per recipe ... not a good value. For example - the chapter on "pasta with beans and lentils" includes only 3 recipes, but it's padded out to 6 pages with photos and whitespace. For the same page count, I'd rather have had 6 recipes, and limited the photos to half a page each (which is still plenty big).

* UNDERWHELMING SCOPE: This book is also limited almost exclusively to pastas dressed hot or warm ... there are no pasta soups, or cold pasta salads. Even what little turf *is* covered is covered rather thinly ... on pgs 16-19 for instance, the book only describes 9 flat and 6 shaped pastas, which barely scratches the surface of the shapes commonly available. The vast majority of pastas covered are also dried ... the section on fresh pasta seems to be an afterthought, and is limited to just flat egg pasta, rolled with a hand-crank machine (nice if you own one, useless if you don't). It would have been more useful to many readers to cover the rolling pin by default, and leave the machine as an optional extravagance for the well equipped reader. Also, many first time pasta makers are intimidated by kneaded egg dough, and would find a simple semolina and water recipe (no eggs, minimal kneading) a lot more approachable ... but the authors don't even mention it.

* ETHNICALLY NARROW FOCUS: I adore Italian cuisine, and cook it semi-regularly, but I wish the cover or dust jacket of this book had made it more obvious that this book is exclusively ITALIAN, in its ingredients, recipes, and culinary ethnocentricity. With all due respect to Anna Del Conte, a reader will most assuredly NOT get struck by a Jovian Thunderbolt for using non-Italian ingredients, or the "heresy" (exact word, p.25) of using grated cheese with one's shellfish {or white clam sauce}. I found the ethnically vague title doubly irritating, given that Treuille spends time on the last page elaborating how he often cooks in the "Books for Cooks" bookstore in London ... you'd think that such a cross-cultural culinary literary setting would have inspired a clearer and more insightful book title yes ? Nope.

* UNDEREXPLAINED INFORMATION: This book is lightly seasoned with under explained factoids. For example, on p.21, the authors claim, without explaining why, using a little oil in your pasta water is a pointless waste if you boil the pasta with plenty of water and stir it in timely fashion. For the uninitiated, that's called a half-truth. The reason for the oil (and even most professional chefs don't know the food science behind this) is not to lubricate the pasta, but rather to serve as an anti-foaming agent, which helps prevents boilovers if the ratio of water to pasta is less extravagant than the 5 quarts per pound. Anyone who's ever brewed beer knows all about "hot break" protein boilover. All you need (for boiling pasta) is about 1-2 tsp of oil per pot, to form a small ring of tiny droplets around the edge of the rolling boil - that's it. Personally, I prefer to use just enough water to give the pasta room to move freely, and save energy - I'm not trying to boil pasta-flavored bathwater for the half the building, or run up my gas bill.

* TERMINOLOGY: The dicing size of vegetables and meat is rarely, if ever, mentioned ... you're expected to flip to the back of the book (without being instructed to do so), and guestimate the size based of a few `life-size' photographs. That's bad editing. Sorry, but if a recipe calls for onions to be diced ¼", 1/8", 1/16", or sliced thinly, the recipe should always SAY SO. Also, you have to flip to the end of the book in order to confirm that all references to "butter" throughout all the recipes are indeed unsalted butter ... they should just have said so in each recipe, without making the reader hunt for it.

* HEADNOTES: There aren't any ... just a brief chapter note at the start of each section about the chief ingredient. They do occasionally include a brief one sentence "Chef's Note" at the bottom of every fourth recipe or so (right after the `make ahead' note) to give a helpful tip or explain an Italian term (ex: they define puttanesca on p.34 but not primavera on p.116), but IMNSHO such notes are NOT an adequate replacement for proper head notes.

Verdict: Not a bad introductory book, but underwhelming for more experienced cooks. Certainly above average, but the authors could, and should, have aimed much higher. I mean come on, how can you have a chapter devoted to pasta with olives, and then only include three recipes, all of them featuring pitted olives from a can ? The whole book is like that - first it entices, then falls short of elevated expectations. I hope the authors will revist and expand it someday, but I'm not holding my breath because I know as well as you do that people like me are not the primary target audience. Meanwhile, other books come readily to mind ... Marcella Hazan's "Essentials of Classic Italian Cuisine" has none of the fancy photos, but covers most of the same material in much greater educational depth ... and pasta's just one chapter in her book. I've also seen a plethora of oriental books (mostly Chinese & Thai) that cover pasta making just as well, if not better ... albeit with a different flavor palatte.

Do you like pasta? Then buy this book! I was looking for a book by Anna Del Conte and decided to try this one. Boy, am I glad I did. It's the best cookbook I own. The authors give basic instructions on such things as making "perfectly cooked pasta every time," and there is an endless number of easy, delicious recipes that also tell you which pasta to use and what can be done in advance. The "at a glance" format makes it so easy to quickly navigate through this book. And there's so much more! You will treasure this book.

I love pasta and always like to use this book when I am creating something from scratch. I have found this book to be very helpful in teaching me about cooking pasta and all of the wonderful sauces that can go with it.

The first portion of the book is excellent because it explains how to choose pasta in terms of ingredients and size/shape for a good pairing to the selected sauce. It also goes into techniques like tossing and using the right amount of cooking time. The recipes were clearly written and accompanied by many full-color photographs of what the dishes looked like when done.

Overall I have had a lot of good results with the pesto, tomato, and meat recipes. My cream sauces have not turned out as well though which is why I gave this book a four instead of a five. Regardless, it IS excellent and I believe a sound investment if you are looking to add a solid pasta book to your cookbook collection.

I'm a good cook, and love to make more complex meals, but this book has basic great recipes - - while some are more complex, this is the best pasta book I've seen that can point you to ingredients you likely already have in your pantry, and help you to whip up something wonderful. Haven't been disappointed in a recipe yet, and have bought this book for a few friends who are still in the beginner to intermediate stages of loving to cook, and they all love it. Bottom line is that the recipes are great.

The Italians, who are masters at combining sophistication with simplicity, have eaten pasta for the past millennium or so. They know that no other food can nourish and delight so easily, while asking for so small and effort on the part of the cook. Simple, yet sustaining, a dish of pasta satisfies our hunger yet invites the eye and pleases the palate with its countless shapes, colors, and flavors. ~Anna Del Conte & Eric Treuille

Eric Treuille has been in love with cooking since he worked in his uncle's boulangerie in France. He has worked as a chef in Paris, London and New York. Here he presents the ten commandments for pasta making, tools of the trade, pasta varieties, cooking secrets, classic sauces such as pesto and essential pantry items for busy cooks.

Recipes:

Pasta with Tomatoes - Red Pesto, Tomato and Mozzarella Al Forno
Pasta with Butter and Cheese - Butter and Parmesan, Lemon, Basil, and Mascarpone
Pasta with Mushrooms- Mushroom, White Wine and Cream
Pasta with Seafood- Shrimp with Lemon and Basil, Smoked Salmon with White Wine, Cream, and Chives
Pasta with Meat - Crispy Pancetta and Scallions, Classic Bolognese, Classic Lasagne
Pasta with Olives and Olive Oil- Spicy Lemon Olive, Chili Olive Pesto
Pasta with Greens and Herbs - Basil Pesto with Variations, Sizzling Sage Butter, Spinach Lasagne
Pasta with Beans and Lentils - Braised Umbrian Lentils
Pasta with Garlic- Golden Garlic and Onion, Roasted Garlic and Cherry Tomatoes
Pasta with Peppers and Eggplant- Roasted Pepper Pasta, Red Pepper Pesto
Fresh and Filled Pasta - Fresh Egg Pasta, Porcini Mushroom Filling

After reading this book you will know why it is important to buy the highest quality pasta you can find, why a heavy-bottomed deep pot is best for slow cooked sauces, and how you can serve pasta in an authentic fashion.

At the start of Pasta, you will find page after page of pictures and pasta descriptions. Fettuccine, Tagliolini, Bucatini, Chifferi, and many others make their appearance. At the end of the book, there are sections for what to keep in the refrigerator, freezer and cupboard. The Pasta Planner section lists pasta according to Make Ahead, No Cook, Quick Cook, Slow Cook, and Al Forno.

The Pasta on the Menu section gives ideas for Pasta Parties, Pasta to Impress, Summer Weekend Pasta and more. There are notes about using Tipo 00 flour and there are four mail order sources at the end of the book. May I also suggest Zingermans online for pasta and cheese. King Arthur Flour might also be a great source for supplies and bowls.

The end of the book shows all the top skills in brilliant color. Learn to peel tomatoes, soak dried mushrooms, peel garlic cloves, chop onions, peel peppers and finely chop garlic.

The recipes all have short lists of ingredients which makes this book perfect for new cooks. A few recipes require you to make a separate sauce ingredient, but most of the recipes include the sauce ingredients along with the instructions for how to cook the pasta.

The Crispy Pancetta and Scallions Recipe has the following ingredients:

8 pancetta or bacon slices
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
4 scallions, sliced
1 lb dried pasta
¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan
salt, black pepper
additional freshly grated Parmesan to serve

The recipe instructions are very simple and there are additional notes about which pasta you could use. You might want to use penne, rigatoni, gnocchi, or conchiglie. A "Cook's Note" concludes each recipe and at times will include a tip or a note about the ingredients.

If you know anyone who loves pasta and you want to buy them an amazing gift, this is the book. However, if you only buy one and send it to yourself, I can almost guarantee you will keep this book because it is that interesting. So, you might want to purchase two!

We just visited a magical Italian restaurant and suddenly I wanted to make pasta again. As I look through this book I am remembering the candlelight and the tiramisu.

~The Rebecca Review

Truly, if I could only own one cookbook of pasta recipies, this book would be the one I'd want. There are countless books available on the subject and yet none I've seen present pasta cooking in such clarity and with such excellent results.

If you want to know how to make all the basics, and make them right, you'll find the answers here: Pasta with Olive Oil and Garlic, with Marinara, Pasta Primavera...they may seem simple but if you follow the directions here, you can't go wrong. Handy details include pasta noodle suggestions as well as alternatives that work well, and variations on recipies depending on what ingredients you have available as well as how you may want to experiment and mix things up. Many recipies in this book have become staples of my cooking, and favorites include the Pasta with Chick Peas and the perfect Putanesca. This cookbook gets my highest recommendation.

I am an Italian-American and very picky about my Italian cookbooks. This one is excellent, we have made probably about 30 different recipes in it and only 2 have been clunkers. What I really love about it (besides all the gorgeous photos) is the alternative suggestions for sauces and pasta styles. I wish all my cookbooks looked like this.

I picked up this about two months ago and have been making two or three recipes a week ever since. So far every one was been a keeper.

The recipes are clearly written, all ingredients are listed at the beginning (no surprises lurking in the last line of text) the directions are clear and easy to follow. Each recipe is illustrated by a large photograph, and indicates which type of pasta is best suited for that particular dish. In addition many recipes have variations offered.

Besides the recipes there is lots of other information concerning various types of pasta, proper preparation techniques, hints on stocking a pantry and storing ingregients and cooked dishes. Also there are a couple of meal planning charts, one based on ingredients and the other by suitability (summer, cold weather, for children, for parties etc) that come in handy when looking for a particular recipe.

I highly recommend this cookbook, even for a cook experienced with Italian cuisine this one has much to offer.