Molto Italiano: 327 Simple Italian Recipes to Cook at Home
Author: Mario Batali
"The trick to cooking is that there is no trick." ––Mario Batali
The only mandatory Italian cookbook for the home cook, Mario Batali's MOLTO ITALIANO is rich in local lore, with Batali's humorous and enthusiastic voice, familiar to those who have come to know him on his popular Food Network programs, larded through about 220 recipes of simple, healthy, seasonal Italian cooking for the American audience.
Easy to use and simple to read, some of these recipes will be those "as seen" on TV in the eight years of "Molto Mario" programs on the Food Network, including those from "Mediterranean Mario," "Mario Eats Italy," and the all–new "Ciao America with Mario Batali." Batali's distinctive voice will provide a historical and cultural perspective with a humorous bent to demystify even the more elaborate dishes as well as showing ways to shorten or simplify everything from the purchasing of good ingredients to pre–production and countdown schedules of holiday meals. Informative head notes will include bits about the provenance of the recipes and the odd historical fact.
Mario Batali's MOLTO ITALIANO will feature ten soups, thirty antipasti (many vegetarian or vegetable based), forty pasta dishes representing many of the twenty–one regions of Italy, twenty fish and shellfish dishes, twenty chicken dishes, twenty pork or lamb dishes and twenty side dishes, each of which can be served as a light meal. Add twenty desserts and a foundation of basic formation recipes and this book will be the only Italian cooking book needed in the home cook's library.
Publishers Weekly
It takes a kind of genius or obsessive personality to open five successful restaurants, host two Food Network shows and write three cookbooks, and Batali's manic energy comes alive on every page of this fourth book devoted to dishes for the home cook. With over 300 recipes, the volume is an overstuffed celebration of the rustic local fare Batali loves, organized by course (antipasto, soup, pasta, fish, etc.). Fans will find repeat renditions of signature Batali dishes found in his earlier volumes, such as Short Ribs in Barolo, and Bucatini all'Amatriciana, but can also discover tantalizing new ones, such as Malloredus with Fennel, Game Hen with Pomegranate, and Lamb Shanks with Orange and Olive. Batali excels when he translates complex traditional dishes for the modern kitchen, such as Pork Loin in the Style of Porchetta. But in his desire to keep things simple, he sometimes goes astray, as in the case of homemade sausage, which is reduced to two not-very-simple steps of instructions. Such compression threatens to undermine Batali's true passion for teaching Americans to savor the intense flavors of local ingredients simply prepared. All in all, the book tries to pack in too much; the two pasta sections would make a book in themselves. What the home cook really needs is more Mario, fewer recipes. Photos, drawings. (May) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes
Author: David Tanis
David Tanis might cook in the most famous restaurant in America, but here he is all about keeping meals simple at home.
In this eloquent appeal for good sense in cooking great food, Davis Tanis serves up twenty-four seasonal menus that are simply conceived and simply served—on platters, family style. His food bursts with invention and flavor, such as wild salmon with spicy Vietnamese cucumbers to celebrate spring and braised duck with fried ginger for a cool-weather dinner.
Tanis has an elemental, unpretentious finesse with ingredients and a genuine gift for words. Deliciously down-to-earth, his intuitive menus make cooking a pleasure, not a stress—whether you're "Feeling Italian" (Steamed Fennel with Red Pepper Oil; Roasted Quail with Grilled Radicchio and Creamy Polenta; Italian Plum Cake), "Slightly All-American" (Sliced Tomatoes with Sea Salt; Grilled Chicken Breasts; Corn, Squash, and Beans with Jalapeсo Butter; Blueberry-Blackberry Crumble), or "Too Darned Hot, Alors!" (Provenзal Toasts; Melon and Figs with Prosciutto and Mint; Deconstructed Salade Niзoise; Lavender Honey Ice Cream).
"David's recipes are simple and marvelous," says cookbook author Paula Wolfert. "What more can a food lover want?" Tanis shows you how to slow down, pay attention, give ingredients their due, and provide meals that will delight friends and family.
Here, at last, is a cookbook that has nothing to do with celebrity chefdom and everything to do with real life. Cancel the dinner reservations and pick up this book—and rediscover the pleasure of cooking at home.
Publishers Weekly
Both a meditation on the powerful rites of cooking and serving a meal and a gentle but serious education in doing both, this book by the part-time head chef at Berkeley's renowned Chez Panisse is an impressive ode to the simple beauty of food. With 24 menus distributed over the course of a year, Tanis emphasizes seasonality with ingredients (blueberry-blackberry crumble in summer; celery root mashed potatoes in winter) and with the types of dishes provided for each menu (as with a divine, warming lobster risotto as part of a menu for a cold spring day). Anecdotes from his peripatetic life of enjoying good food around the world, from Venice to Morocco to New Mexico, add another intimate dimension and help the book appear written just for the reader by a kind, patient friend. Many of the recipes are almost as simple as the title implies: a summer menu features sliced tomatoes with sea salt, while a course for a fall lunch consists of nothing more than pears and Parmigiano cheese. Others, like a black paella with squid and shrimp, are more involved, but the detailed instructions make them accessible to any cook willing to put in the effort, and the results are delicious, never fussy. Taking a stand against the typical cookbook organization from appetizers through desserts, Tanis teaches how to think clearly about conceiving, preparing and enjoying simple but delicious meals. Full-color photos throughout. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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