The best Italian Cooking, Food & Wine books: Reddit reviews

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

This book, which was written with the full knowledge and cooperation of Batali, contains several scenes of borderline or actual sexual harassment by Batali. And it’s always explained away as, that’s just how celebrity chefs are.

Reading that book when it first came out gave me a new respect for what a talented chef he is, while leaving me disgusted by what a shitty human he is.

Crazy to think that book was published just a decade ago.

I’m always on the lookout for new cocktails featuring amaro. Finding one that uses not one, but two is even better.

I haven’t picked up my copy of Amaro, by Brad Thomas Parsons in while, so tonight I dug in looking for something I hadn’t tried.

This is the San Francisco Treat, credited to Sam Levi of The Restaurant at Meadowood in Saint Helena, California.

• 1 oz Fernet Branca
• 1 oz Averna
• 1 oz Dolin Blanc Vermouth

Stir all ingredients together with ice. Strain into a rocks glass. Garnish with a flamed orange twist.

I really like this in the rocks glass, it forces you to shove your nose down in there when you take a sip.

You are immediately confronted by scorched orange oil, menthol from the Branca, and an incredibly well-balanced, dark, herbal sweetness.

Cheers!

Six day fermentation on the dough

Dough: Roberta’s

Sauce: Basil cream from Pizza Camp

Cheese: Polly-o mozzarella, mozzarella di bufala and parmesan to finish

Topped with proscuitto, finished with Alpeppo + black peppers and drizzle of balsamic (not pictured)

Baked in a Roccbox with preheat on high, dropped down to low to bake.

https://www.amazon.com/Sopranos-Family-Cookbook-Compiled-Artie/dp/0446530573/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?adgrpid=53519821582&dchild=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwiLGGBhAqEiwAgq3q_nffGBYKJC9eATjTtAvB1uhcH8dPgSfNyWsRNFCvP_4y4hIjtP4teRoCyJ0QAvD_BwE&hvadid=274735313...

You’re welcome!. The food prep was real. Additionally, Scorsese used to have his mother cook for the cast and crew occasionally during his shoots.

Hill also had restaurants in New York and New Jersey before he died, and an on-and-off substance abuse problem, that was part of the cause of his his heart failure. His legacy lives on in his recipes.

That guy in real life also published an interesting cookbook. It has some good anecdotes in it. Some of the recipes are "make do" and for ah...larger groups...I guess for when they had to "go to the mattresses" in a hideout or something.

The Wise Guy Cookbook.

I've had this book in my cart for a while, and easier to ship than a bottle: https://www.amazon.com/Amaro-Spirited-Bittersweet-Liqueurs-Cocktails/dp/1607747480/

Not a specific recipe, but a really great book.
A friend of mine owns it and he says he can only agree with the reviews on amazon. There are really nice recipes for "on-the-go"-cooking as well for greater occasions. Plus, you can find small pro-tips, which you'd otherwise only know through long cooking experience. According to him, 15$ is a steal for "the best italian cookbook ever."

It says this in the introduction: "Some mainland Italians scoff at Sicilian food - they call it "peasant" food. They're right. There were and still are lots of "peasants" in Sicily. The food has to be cheap, fill you up, and hopefully taste good. A lot of dishes can be made very fast if you want, or cooked all day if you're an at-home mom or out of a job. [...] The best sicilian food is very simple, usually made from a small number of ingredients. I think that's part of what makes it so good."

I went to order it off of Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Sopranos-Family-Cookbook-Compiled-Artie/dp/0446530573), and then I saw that the scumbag Henry Hill had also made a mob cookbook; https://www.amazon.com/Wise-Guy-Cookbook-Favorite-Goodfella/dp/0451207068/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=Q4NZQGNH0RHE11RJTM71

I have it too, it really is an awesome book

I have the Soprano cookbook

No. I would never. MAYBE Quebec, but I don't speak any French, so that's not really a possibility.

I would have to go like three generations back on my father's side to find someone not born in the United States and potentially four generations back on my mother's side.

The closest connection that I have to Italy is that I once purchased https://www.amazon.com/Silver-Spoon-New-Kitchen/dp/0714862568 because I find conversations about ethnic authenticity in food weird and problematic and I wanted to gain a better understanding of what people eat at home in other countries. Where I grew up in New Jersey, it's not uncommon for arguments to break out over which red sauce joint has the most authentic lasagna or some other inane dish and that always made me roll my eyes.

Ireland seems cool but I've never been and similarly, I think that a lot of the way Irish culture is celebrated in the United States is also problematic.

My paternal great-grandfather used to tell people he was Yugoslavian and when I learned about history, thought that was interesting because Yugoslavia wasn't a country when he was born and beyond that, not much is known and information can only really be inferred. I suspect that it's possible he identified as being Yugoslavian as a way to virtue signal, especially with tensions that occurred after WW1 and WW2. It's also possible that he believed his own ethnicity to be so mixed that he didn't feel a particular kinship with any particular ethnicity. I know that he attended an Orthodox church of some sort in the US (most likely the Serbian Orthodox Church). So, it's possible that he was Serbian but there was other evidence to suggest Austrian, Croatian, and Hungarian ethnic ties to. Nonetheless, I don't have any cultural connection there.

You either love her or you hate her, but Ina Garten's cookbooks are like that - as much a coffee table book as recipe book. I personally love them and look thru them often for inspiration when I don't know what to make.

My other guilty pleasure is the Silver Spoon, since I cook mostly Italian and Mediterranean style food. It is like growing the encyclopedia but I'm always learning something new!

His pizza book has my go-to pizza dough recipe. The 72-hour biga recipe really is amazing. I usually make mine in the oven, so it likely would do great in your dialed in Kettle.

Recently bought The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking and have been absolutely loving it so far. Most of the recipes are actually really easy, but taste fantastic. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes cooking and/or Italian food.

My first serious cookbook was Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, and I have given many many copies as gifts in the years since. I bought it when it was nearly new (mid 90s), and it's how I learned to make (among other things) a killer risotto.

The link above is, sadly, to Amazon. If you want a copy, I urge you instead to buy local, but I definitely DO suggest a hardcover copy. They tend to accumulate wrinkles and stains from use, and that's just part of the fun of a well-loved cookbook.

Ziti, which I now make regularly, & I even have the sopranos cook book

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sopranos-Family-Cookbook-Allen-Rucker/dp/0446530573/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?adgrpid=106206126871&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIkpaw3Li6-AIVj-vtCh33qwCXEAAYASAAEgI3D_D_BwE&hvadid=444680002730&hvdev=m&hvlocphy=9045630&hvnetw=...

You can get a translation of the same Silver Spoon that my Nonna says is used in Italian housewives' kitchens all over Italy. It's huge and very, very thorough. Highly recommended!

In case he doesn't already have one, there's always The Silver Spoon which is like the Bible of Italian cooking in Italy I'm told...

I bought the book called Pizza Bible by Tony Gemignani. It has a recipe for a Neapolitan style dough without a starter. The book is fantastic has so much information.

The Pizza Bible: The World's Favorite Pizza Styles, from Neapolitan, Deep-Dish, Wood-Fired, Sicilian, Calzones and Focaccia to New York, New Haven, Detroit, and More https://www.amazon.com/dp/1607746050/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_PBVFT97VE2JRK7FYQHDJ

Older one... Not from a TV show but sort of from a movie.. the movie Goodfellas.. it was based around the story of real life mobster Henry Hill and he came out with a cookbook called The Wiseguy Cookbook. Food and cooking are in several scenes in the movie and the recipes for most are in the book.

Here is the Amazon link

The Wise Guy Cookbook: My Favorite Recipes From My Life as a Goodfella to Cooking on the Run https://www.amazon.com/dp/0451207068/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_HFXQNE50VX4626QN4VQN?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Go to Italy. It’s worth it. And cheap(for Americans). I have and use this book for dishes or techniques I’m not familiar with: Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking https://www.amazon.com/dp/039458404X/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_navT_a_TG6FQMY0ARDS5PQRG4M0

I'll go one further - my dough recipe, from The Elements of Pizza, adds the salt to the warm water so it dissolves fully. Then I add the yeast, let it hydrate, and last I add the flour and mix it all up. Been using it for years with no problem. Never done a 72-hour ferment but I often let it go overnight in the fridge.

Kenji can help.

https://www.seriouseats.com/pizza-recipes-5117816

I also recommend The Elements of Pizza by Ken Forkish.

https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Pizza-Unlocking-Secrets-World-Class/dp/160774838X/ref=nodl_

In Italian cooking, there are other pasta sauces beyond the tomato-based red sauce you're used to:

• Garlic & oil - a simple sauce of fresh garlic, sautéed in some good quality olive oil, and tossed into the noodles with some of the pasta cooking water
• Creamy & cheesy - drain the pasta and toss with a cup of freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (sp?) cheese, maybe some butter and/or cream, again use the pasta cooking water to make it "saucy"
• Roasted vegetables - any veg you have left over can be roasted and tossed with the noodles and some Parm; try puréeing some of the veg to make it "saucy" and leaving the rest as chunks
• Pestos - usually made with basil, but delicious made with spinach, arugula, parsley, really anything green and leafy with a little bite to it. Mix them in the food processor with some Parm, some nuts (walnuts, pine nuts, etc.) and then drizzle in olive oil to make a sauce out of the herb paste.

These are just a couple of preparations off the top of my head. My go to resource is The Silver Spoon; I highly recommend it!

Some. I recommend:

Brad Parsons' Amaro: The Spirited World of Bittersweet, Herbal Liqueurs, with Cocktails, Recipes, and Formulas

It provides an entire look into maceration and infusion.

Holy shit I thought you all were joking, this is a real thing!

https://www.amazon.com/Sopranos-Family-Cookbook-Compiled-Artie/dp/0446530573/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?adgrpid=106822762696&dchild=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIu-PYq_Xq7wIVGYnICh1vvghJEAAYASAAEgKK1fD_BwE&hvadid=455567286369&hvdev=m&hvlocphy=900698...

Henry Hill (from Goodfellas)

wrote a cookbook.

​

https://www.amazon.com/Wise-Guy-Cookbook-Favorite-Goodfella/dp/0451207068

Once he entered Witness Protection, though, Hill found himself in places where prosciutto was impossible to get and gravy was something you put on mashed potatoes. So he learned to fake it when necessary (for example, Romano with white pepper took the place of real pecorino-siciliano cheese), and wherever he found himself, Hill managed to keep good Italian food on the table. He still brings this flair for improvisation to his cooking. No recipe is set in stone. And substitutions are listed in case you need them for these recipes and many more:

Mom’s Antipasto • Sunday Gravy (Meat Sauce) • Cheater’s Chicken Stock • Striped Bass for Paulie • Fat Larry’s Pizza Dough • Henry’s Kickback Antipasti Hero • Sicilian Easter Bread with Colored Eggs • Clams Casino • Osso Buco • Oven Penitentiary Sauce with Sausage • Michael’s Favorite Ziti with Meat Sauce

Besides videos like this, for anyone interested in exploring amari, I'd recommend this book: Amaro: The Spirited World of Bittersweet, Herbal Liqueurs, with Cocktails, Recipes, and Formulas

> Pasta water for edibly salty pasta should be maybe <1% salt.

The Silver Spoon (IIRC) prescribes 10g salt to 1 litre water which would be exactly 1%, so your math sounds good to me!