Pasta: The Beginner's Guide - Couverture rigide

Lai, Carlo

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1623540461 ISBN 13 : 9781623540463

Editeur : Imagine, 2015

Synopsis

Have a passion for pasta? From spaghetti with mushroom sauce and fettuccine bolognese to lasagna, ravioli, and gnocchi of every type, this is the indispensable guide to preparing the most-loved food on the planet.

From fresh-from-scratch noodles to sauces to delicious fillings, Pasta offers recipes that are deliciously simple with easy-to-follow instructions for cooks of all skill levels.  These are authentic recipes from renowned chef Carlo Lai that will surely tempt a wide-variety of diners and are easily concocted by even the most novice of cooks. Create to-die-for spaghetti carbonara, lasagna with salmon and zucchini, meat-stuffed tortellini, gnocchi gorgonzola, and much, much more. This is dining Italian-style . . . right at home. Buon Appetito!

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Milan, where the living is fast and the cooking takes time. That is where Carlo Lai was born. But it was in the kitchen where he actually grew up, helping his mother stir the minestrone and stuff the tortellini in their family restaurant. When he was sixteen, Carlo began his formal cooking studies. Choosing the warmer weather of Sardinia, his family moved and opened a new restaurant called El Cervelee de Milan (The Good Tastes of Milan) where they still make their own bread and fresh pasta every day and cook great Italian food with a Sardinian touch.

Extrait. © Reproduit sur autorisation. Tous droits réservés.

When I was about three years old, my mother took me into the kitchen and said, “Look, Carlo, today I’m going to make pasta and now that you’re a big boy, you’re going to help me.” I was so proud.
            Then she made the dough in a big wooden bowl, gave me a little ball of dough to play with, and fed the rest of it through what looked to me like a metal monster that stomped on it like a cement roller, until the dough came out of the monster’s mouth looking like snakes. Together we draped it on the drying rack and waited for it to dry. This was my first tagliatelli – or fettucine (the name depends on where in Italy you are from, but more about that later).
            It was like magic.
            Today, making fresh pasta is still like magic to me.
            Milan, city of haute couture. The place where the living is fast-and the cooking takes time. That’s where I was born. But it was in the kitchen that I actually grew up, helping my mother stir the minestrone and stuff the tortellini in our family restaurant.
            When I was 16, I decided to study cooking formally (in Italy it takes five years!), but despite my warm Italian heart, Milan was simply too cold, and our family decided to move to Sardinia, where the weather is warmer. And there we opened another restaurant, called El Cervelee de Milan (The Good Tastes of Milan), where we still make our own bread and fresh pasta every day and cook great Italian food with a Sardinian touch.
            It was at our restaurant that I first met Frank, an American writer who used to have lunch there every day, always at the same table in the corner, always ordering ricotta-stuffed spinach ravioli in butter and fresh sage sauce before his main course. “Frankie,” I asked one day, “you love the ravioli so much, why don’t you learn to make it yourself when you go home?”
            He was astounded. “Make it myself?” he said. “Carlo, amico mio. When it comes to fresh pasta, you are a Ferrari, and I’m simply a Fiat 500. I am excellent at eating pasta, but I can’t possibly make it! I am sorry, Carlo, but you will have to send the ravioli to me in America.”
            But I am Italian, and when I decide something, I’m like the Trevi Fountain in Rome – I cannot be moved. I decided I would write a cookbook. It would be a book for beginners, with easy-to-follow directions and lots of pictures. Something so simple that even a person who had never cooked before could understand. And I would call it Pasta – the Beginner’s Guide – for Frank, for his friends, and all of you out there for whom pasta is a passion. That’s how this book came to be.
            But first, to clarify where I’m coming from, I’d like to tell you a little about the history of the great Italian kitchen and the real history of pasta:
            Although many people consider French cookery to be the mama of all western cuisines, it is really the Italian kitchen that holds that claim to fame. It all dates back to the ancient Romans, who found some of their inspiration in both Greece and Asia and combined that knowledge with ingredients found in their native land. In 1533, when Catherine de’Medici traveled from Florence to France to marry the future King Henry II, she brought her own battery of cooks who taught the French exciting new dishes, including sweets and ices – the origin of the fabulous Italian ices that are enjoyed all over the world today.
            Pasta is also an ancient Italian food, first mentioned in a 13th-century cookbook, published five years before Marco Polo returned from his famous journey to China. That means that by the thirteenth century, Italians were already eating many forms of pasta, like vermicelli and a kind of tortellini. So much for the Marco Polo theory! Polo did make an important contribution, however: his writings – and his discoveries – led to the opening up of a direct trade route to the spices of the Far East. In fact, the most glittering palaces of romantic Venice were built with the profits from the spice trade, which until then had been monopolized by Arab middlemen (and that, incidentally, is how nutmeg got to the Italian kitchen).
            You know, I’m sure, about Michelangelo, da Vinci, and other great Italian artists. But did you know that my ancestors were also instrumental in assimilating many products of the New World and introducing them to the rest of Europe. The list includes the tomato; the pimento (red bell pepper), which was originally discovered by the Spanish conquistadors; the potato, imported from Peru in 1530; and corn, the grain we use today to create our beloved polenta.
            But above all else, Italians have a passion for pasta. There is no lunch or dinner without it, though in Italy we eat it only as a primo piatto – a first course, never a main course as in America. Over the centuries each region has developed its own type of pasta and sauce to go with it, and sometimes the same dishes will have different names in different regions, which can be very confusing – even for Italians!
            In this book, you’ll find a guide to the basic utensils and ingredients that you’ll need to make delicious fresh pasta at home, just as I do, my mother does, and her grandmother and ancestors did before her. As you turn the pages, you’ll see clear-cut instructions for making spaghetti, fettuccine, ravioli, tortellini, gnocchi and lasagne, and authentic recipes for traditional sauces like Napoletana, Bolognese, Aglio e Olio and Pesto.
            As each chapter unfolds, there will be other tempting and tantalizing ideas for serving all the great pasta you’re going to make – for meat lovers and veggies alike. And all along the way, you’ll find the trade secrets that most chefs don’t like to share – but I do.
            So roll up your sleeves, pour yourself a glass of good Italian wine, and join me for a culinary adventure. We’re going to create food and fragrances so amazing, you’ll feel as if you were eating with me at a table overlooking the blue Mediterranean, savoring the gentle winds in your hair and the sun on your face.
            Buon Appetito!
            - Carlo

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Imagine
• Date d'édition: 2015
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1623540461
• ISBN 13: 9781623540463
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 128
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
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