Mastering Pasta: The Art and Practice of Handmade Pasta, Gnocchi, and Risotto [A Cookbook] Hardcover – March 17, 2015

Wonderful book with lots of beautiful instructional photos, recipe photos, and some history as well. Not only is it interesting reading but has very visual instructions. This book reminds me of the YouTube series, "Pasta Grammar", where they show you how to make pasta and sauces.from scratch. There are easy pasta methods and recipes for beginner and experienced alike. While some ingredients are beyond my reach or cultural tastes, sauces for pasta are endless. I highly recommend this book. It will not disappoint.

This is more than just a cookbook. It is a good course in making various pasta and gives plenty of practical advice on the process. (Don't overwork gnocchi dough!) Basic recipes to fanciful and complicated dishes. It also restates some material regarding wheat and flour from Dan Barber's exploits in his book 'The Third Plate', also a good read.

Fantastic book! I bought this book before I tried making my first homemade pasta. After reading this I viewed making pasta dough in a complete different way than I would have if I would have just tried a recipe off Pinterest . It explains everything you need to know in detail. From different types of wheat, how and why they affect flavor and texture. The importance of fresh ground flour for flavor and nutrients. The different grinds of flour and flour protein amount, how they affect texture and chew. Also how whole eggs, egg yolks, and oils affect the pasta dough. He offers many recipes for many doughs. I found it very inspiring and was excited to go straight to the store and find different flours mentioned in the book to experiment with! Being an adventurous eater I just loved the recipes! They range from furmiliar to a bit exotic! For example. Some recipes include traditional bolognese, ricotta ravioli, spaghetti with tomato basil sauce, pappardelle with rabbit ragu, culurgiones with sweetbreads (veal brain). Unfortunately I live in a rural area far away from the ocean where I cannot get some things for the recipes such as peekytoe crab. It also covers flavoring pasta dough with things like squid ink or parsley. There are chapters on hand forming pasta, pasta sauces, gnocchi and risotto which were a pleasant surprise! I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in making pasta! It captures the history and tradition of Italy and pasta plus an incredible amount of technical information on making your pasta dough!

This pasta book is great for the beginner as well as the more seasoned pasta chef. There are plenty of pictures in the book. These pictures show not only the completed dishes of most recipes included but often pictures of the steps leading to that completed dish. The book contains detailed information on how to make several types of pasta as well as several different flavors of that fresh pasta. The extra information in this book is amazing!! The table of contents includes chapter titles as well as the names of each recipe within that chapter. Often recipes include short stories that enhance them. In the back of the book is a detailed set of pages which includes sources where the authors got their information for the book as well as what info was obtained from that source. Addresses of each source as well as websites and phone numbers are also provided!! Both authors gave their own personal acknowledgements. A detailed bibliography as well as a very detailed index is also provided. The quality of paper used for this recipe book is great. The paper is thick and seems as if it will be quite durable. The cover seems like it would be easy to keep clean by wiping off with a damp rag. It is a hard cover book. Pages easily stay open at the page where you opened the book and laid it flat on the counter.

This cookbook is very nicely written and broken up into different sections based on the type of pasta you may be cooking. He does a nice deep dive into the type of flour to use and the different properties of wheat and provides some great suggestions on how to source fresh milled grains. As a first-time pasta maker, I found his book easy to follow and learn. However, as nicely written and beautifully thought out, the recipes are in keeping with traditional Italian cooking; they're not very conventional for everyday cooking. Many recipes include items that are not staples in most grocery stores. For instance, octopus and sweetbread are common ingredients used in a few of his recipes. His recipes sound wonderful, but I wonder if I will make many of them for this reason unless it's for a special occasion. He did include some recipes for foundational sauces, which I can explore and pair with some of the pasta types he provides in his book.Overall, I think this is a very nice book if you want to step up your culinary skills. If you want more simplistic recipes with everyday ingredients, then I would recommend getting something different.

I have kitchen aid mixer and bought spaghetti pasta attachment so I bought the pasta book so I could learn great dough recipes, the book was a total success I was able to make a great dough and use my spaghetti pasta attachment with great success

This book was recommended to me by an Italian chef and vintner in a small town whose opinion of food and wine is always my "go to" when I'm looking for something new, out of the ordinary, or I'm struggling to be successful with a recipe (crediting Mario Patone, Patone Cellars, Landenberg, PA). Because of this, it's the second time I've purchased this very important book.There are a lot of words between the two covers, but you need to read them. If you're simply looking for an Italian cookbook, maybe this isn't for you. There are plenty of recipes - from simple to complicated - but it's the technique you'll learn from the book that will change the way you make pasta, and everything else!

The product is excellent but again Amazon did not properly package the book for safe shipment. There was no internal packing to protect the book from movement during the shipping process, therefore the package arrived opened on one end and the book was dented.