A guide to choosing, making and cooking Italian pasta with over 100 authentic recipes drawn from all the regions and illustrating the variety of ways in which pasta is used. Giuliano introduces the whole range of types and shapes, explains their differences and suitability for various sauces.
This humble little pasta cookbook is a real find. It has been my go-to pasta cookbook for decades. It covers such a wide variety of topics, including making your own homemade pasta from scratch, how to use the wide variety of shapes and simple recipes for classic sauces and preparation. I love the pesto recipe. I have spurned all other supposed preparations for fettucine alla'fredo. The carbonara makes for a very satisfying dinner when my wife and I make it. I recently delved into one that was so absurdly simple, but so good, roasted pepper cream sauce with smoked salmon flaked in. Tossed with farfalle and I had the best lunch I've had in a long time.
Just a wonderful book. Being Italian I have well over 100 different Italian Cookbooks and this is one of the easiest to read and use. Wonderful graphics, very good recipes and if you had to choose only 1 cookbook on pasta this one is the definite winner. Hazan and his mother are great Italian cooks and this book is brimming with mouthwatering photos and recipe. All I can say is, "Mangia, Mangia!"
I have an extensive cookbooks collection, and this one is my favourite for pasta. I have cooked halfway through it, and haven't found a recipe we didn't like at all. Sometimes I make notes like "too mild for us" or "would be better with less or more cream", but tastes differ, and all the recipes you need to mold into your family's form. But in this book the quantity of corrections is minimum. I love the idea of how the ingredients are presented, and wish all the recipes would have this photo accompaniment - as a visual, I find it so much easier to understand the recipe when I see it. Probably, this is the one minus I can find - some recipies are just the text, sometimes with the photo of the prepared dish. The substitutes for pasta types are helpful too.
True confession: this is the only cookbook by a man I've ever owned. And it's good, too: beautiful to look at and easy to cook from. Giuliano Hazan can even make the humble cauliflower into a great pasta sauce! Try his Penne with Cauliflower, Tomatoes, and Cream and see what I mean.
Why have I never heard of this classic until stumbling onto it in a particularly dusty library corner? In this book, you'll find clear, complete information about types of pasta, how to make it at home, classic and innovative sauce recipes AND adorable photos of the author holding up platters of pasta like a proud Papa. I will be ordering a copy of this for my personal library.