The Best Pasta Sauces: Favorite Regional Italian Recipes: A Cookbook

by Micol Negrin

The first cookbook to explore the best, most authentic Italian pasta sauce recipes from a regional perspective, by food writer, cooking teacher, and Milan native Micol Negrin.   The culinary odyssey begins in northern Italy, where rich sauces are prepared with fresh cream or local Creamy Fontina Sauce with Crushed Walnuts and White Truffle Oil; Parmigiano Sauce with Fresh Nutmeg; Pine Nut and Marjoram Pesto.   Central Italy is known for sauces made with cured meats, sheep’s milk cheeses, and extra-virgin olive Spicy Tomato, Onion, and Guanciale Sauce; Smashed Potato Sauce with Cracked Black Pepper and Olive Oil; Caramelized Fennel and Crumbled Sausage Sauce.   In southern Italy, simple, frugal ingredients meld into satisfying and delicious Sweet Pepper and Lamb Ragù with Rosemary; Fresh Ricotta Sauce with Diced Prosciutto; Spicy Cannellini Bean Sauce with Pancetta and Arugula.   The islands of Sicily and Sardinia take advantage of the bountiful seafood from the Mediterranean and game from the mountainous Pork Ragù with a Hint of Dark Chocolate and Cinnamon; Red Mullet Roe with Garlicky Bread Crumbs; Rich Lobster Sauce.   Negrin also provides a primer on saucing the Italian way, the basics for handmade pastas, the key to cooking pasta al dente, vital ingredients for every Italian kitchen, perfect wine pairings, and the best food shopping sources around the United States. Complete with mouthwatering color photographs and detailed maps of the various regions, The Best Pasta Sauces lets you travel to Italy without ever leaving your kitchen.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Amazon

347 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 14, 2014

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deep dive into regional Italian pasta dishes, I learned a lot about Italy and cooked some wonderful dishes, too! There are a few naturally vegan recipes, many easily veganizable recipes, and the book opens up even more for vegans if you're willing to play with mock meats and vegan cheeses. There are only handful of recipes I wouldn't be interested in replicating. The recipe for aglio e olio tasted just like we had in Italy, and her technique for sautéing the garlic was eye opening. The Slow-Cooked Sausage Ragù with Milk and a Hint of Tomatoes, made with No Evil Foods Italian sausage, cashew milk, and Violife parmesan cheese, was the perfect Sunday night dinner, and only needed to be cooked for 30 minutes instead of 1.5 hours. Her recipes are clear, straight-forward, and not at all fussy. I love that she offers a few different pasta options for each dish, and substitutions for ingredients that might be harder to find here than in Italy.

I took this out from the library and it's one of the few non-vegan cookbooks I want to add to my collection. I love veganizing regional food and learning about different cultures, and this book hits all the marks for me.

[Coral · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cookbook all about pasta sauces, arranged by region. There is no index or table of contents for the recipes, so you might have to search for a bit if you need to revisit one and didn't bookmark it...and it might take longer to do that if you aren't familiar with the main characteristics of the foods in each area. Despite that, it is clearly written, full of simple yet tasty recipes, and includes suggested pasta types and wine pairings for each sauce.

[Dray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a wide compendium of regional sauces from Italy. Very useful and goes beyond the top 10 sauces used commercially.

[Linda Heiberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

The is me and pasta, the maps were helpful.

[Yaaresse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, one star lost right off the top because the Kindle version does not have a recipe index. The book is divided into chapters by region. If you see something you like and don't bookmark it, good luck ever finding it again unless you can remember which of the 20 or so regions it was from. I've seen plenty of other cookbooks that sort recipes by regions and include a recipe index with links in the ebook version. They are easily searched and navigated. It's 2017. Ebooks are no longer a novelty. Get with the program. If a cookbook is not navigable, it is not functional and will not be used.
/rant

Ok, as for the recipes, the few I made were pretty good. There are a few interesting techniques, such as pureeing vegetables or beans for sauce bases. Quite a few of the recipes, especially those from the northern and mountain regions, are high in fat and salt: heavy cream, lots of cheese, sausages and cured meats, oils. Sure, it looks and sounds good, but I was hoping for more healthful options.

Since I rate cookbooks on how much I think I actually will cook from them and how much new information or skills I glean, I can't justify giving this one more than three stars.

[Marc Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now this is my kind of book. I like to make food naturally from scratch and have only recently discovered how easy it is to make tasty pasta sauces from scratch.
This book came up on offer on Kindle and I thought that it would be very useful to have on the go when I am thinking about what cook that night on my commute.
The sauces are authentic regional ones that are used in Italy. The author has travelled around Italy collecting these examples.
What makes this book so special is the way that she discusses the sauces, how they are cooked and why they are prepared the way that they are.
So, take a simple tomato sauce. I make mine up with onions and garlic and then add a bowl of small fresh tomatoes from my local grocers to soften. I know the debate about peeling them and removing the seeds but have never understood all the faff. Apparently there is an acidity to the seeds that alters the flavour. I like it when the cooking is discussed in this kind of detail. Understanding it can transform the simplest meal into a feast.
If you like to discuss your food then this is the book for you.

[Patti · Rating 2 out of 5]

I plan to make "Mom's Creamy Gorgonzola Sauce" but it's the only recipe I bookmarked.

[Cory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Needs an index.

Would've been five stars if the book had an index. Sauces are very good and not overly difficult to prepare.