stapsreads

You're viewing

stapsreads's journal
Create a Dreamwidth Account Learn More

Reload page in style: light

I have no recollection of acquiring this. I can only assume that someone gave it to me before I went to or while I was at university. Certainly I used it there.

It's rather less useful than one might think given the presence of a confirmed bean-hater; however, I have managed to cook the following three recipes, which I don't think I'd tried before, from it:

- sausage croque monsieur: what it says on the tin. Unhealthy but tasty.

- tangy sausages and rice: I used brown rice, and it came out distressingly crunchy. I must try it again with white, because it would have been very nice otherwise.

- sausage and leek tortilla: now, to my mind the best sort of tortilla is española, with just potato and onions. This was a bit heavy (just as well; I was very hungry) but quite a good combination.

Keeper.

I have attempted three of these top one hundred pasta sauces, and can happily report that this book is a keeper. While it's a bit prescriptive and inclined to go on about what Proper Italian Housewives do, particularly in the cooking of the actual pasta, the recipes are good, clear and tasty. It's also old enough (1987) that the ingredients that were obscure when it was first published are now available at pretty much every supermarket (e.g. mozzarella, olives).

I made Spaghetti Vesuvio (a tomato sauce, not spicy at all - the vulcanicity is in the appearance, with melted mozzarella streaming forth like molten lava); Linguine con Peperoni - sweet peppers cooked long and slow and then put through a sieve; Conchiglie alla Burina - with sausages, tomato and peas. All good.