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Molto Italiano: 327 Simple Italian Recipes to Cook at Home (Hardcover)
by Mario Batali
| Category:
Italian cooking, Cookbook, Original books |
| Market price: ¥ 358.00
MSL price:
¥ 338.00
[ Shop incentives ]
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| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Batali's manic energy comes alive on every page of this book devoted to dishes for the home cook with over 300 recipes. Your new first choice among Italian cookbooks! |
| If you want us to help you with the right titles you're looking for, or to make reading recommendations based on your needs, please contact our consultants. |
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Author: Mario Batali
Publisher: Ecco
Pub. in: May, 2005
ISBN: 0060734922
Pages: 528
Measurements: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.4 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00961
Other information: ISBN-13: 9780060734923
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- Awards & Credential -
Mario is the Winner of numerous awards for his restaurants, and himself is the recipient of the 2005 James Beard All-Clad Outstanding Chef Award, the most prestigious cooking honor. This book ranks #1,999 out of millions on Amazon.com as of February 26, 2007. |
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- MSL Picks -
It takes a kind of genius - or obsessive personality - to open five successful restaurants, host two Food Network shows and write three cookbooks, and Batali's manic energy comes alive on every page of this fourth book devoted to dishes for the home cook. With over 300 recipes, the volume is an overstuffed celebration of the rustic local fare Batali loves, organized by course (antipasto, soup, pasta, fish, etc.).
- Antipasto, the largest chapter at 106 pages, divided into sections on vegetable, seafood, and meat dishes. This section is so large that this book can easily replace most books specializing in antipasti.
- Soup, Rice, and Polenta takes 38 pages with 29 recipes, including all the most familiar dishes such as Roman egg drop soup, Tuscan cabbage and bean soup, saffron risotto, and polenta with clams.
- Dried Pasta gets 24 pages with 20 recipes.
- Fresh Pasta chapter is over twice as long with 34 recipes, including a basic pasta dough and several gnocchi recipes.
- Fish is understandably a major chapter at 48 pages and 31 recipes, including calamari, shrimp, crabs, snails, sardines, bass, sole, snapper, mullet, salt cod, monkfish, eel, tuna, swordfish, and mackerel.
- Fowl is slightly smaller at 38 pages and 27 recipes with 10 chicken, 6 turkey, 5 duck, and 6 game bird recipes. This includes some classics such as hunter's style chicken and turkey meatballs.
- Meat occupies a sizable chapter, at 54 pages and 40 recipes, including several of my favorites such as veal Marsala, sausage and broccoli rabe, stuffed meat loaf, and two recipes for calves liver.
- Vegetables also get an appropriately sizable chapter with 34 pages and 34 recipes, including some with Mario's favorite ingredient, Guanciale.
- Sweets are in the last chapter of 42 pages and 32 recipes with items from the Austrian influenced Alps to Sicily. Mario goes so far as to recant his claim that Italians do not eat many sweets, revising his story to say that they don't eat many sweets at the end of big meals. Instead, they pack away the sugar with nibbles throughout the day.
Lots of familiar Italian dishes such as frittatas are here, but Mario doesn't waste precious room on bread that has been covered so well in other books. While Mario gives the Italian name for each and every recipe, the recipe names in the various section tables of contents are all in English. So this book is especially good for first timers to Italian cuisine.
All in all, the book tries to pack in too much; the two pasta sections would make a book in themselves. What the home cook really needs is more Mario... For Mario fans, put this under your pillow at night. Very Highly Recommended.
- From quoting Publishers Weekly and B. Marold
Target readers:
Food lovers, housewives, professional cooks, or hotel and restaurant managers.
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- Better with -
Better with
Weight Watchers Simply the Best Italian: More Than 250 Classic Recipes from the Kitchens of Italy
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Mario Batali is known to most people as both the star of the Food Network's Molto Mario and one of the Iron Chefs on Iron Chef America. Winner of numerous awards for his restaurants, Mario himself is the recipient of the 2005 James Beard All-Clad Outstanding Chef Award, the most prestigious cooking honor there is. Mario is also a huge NASCAR fan. Like many guys his age, Mario first discovered the thrill of stock car racing watching the ebullient Chris Economaki, in his Martian-style headphones, reporting live from the pit area at Daytona. Mario has been a more active racing fan these last few years, hosting prerace dinners at the track for the drivers. His restaurant Otto has become something of an unofficial hangout whenever NASCAR visits New York. He also enjoys prowling the infield to check out what die-hard racing fans like to cook on their grills, looking to pick up some down-home grilling tips.
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From the publisher
Easy to use and simple to read, many of these recipes come from ten years of Molto Mario television programs, including Mediterranean Mario, Mario Eats Italy, and Ciao America with Mario Batali. Batali's distinctive, often humorous, voice provides a historical and cultural perspective to demystify the more elaborate Italian dishes. He also shows ways to shorten or simplify everything from purchasing good ingredients to prepare-ahead tips. Informative headnotes offer up enticing bits about the provenance of the recipes as well as fascinating facts regarding Italy and its cuisines.
Molto Italiano features dishes from many of the twenty-one regions of Italy and many side dishes, each of which can be served as a light meal. With a section on desserts and a foundation of basic recipes, Molto Italiano is the only Italian cookbook a home cook's shelf needs.
Highlights from Molto Italiano:
- 67 antipasto recipes, with special sections for vegetable, seafood, and meat antipasti
- Informative sidebars, where Mario provides background color about the recipes, including the places, people, and history behind various dishes
- More than 50 pasta recipes, from classic comfort food like Baked Ziti to an elaborate Ricotta Gnocchi with Sausage and Fennel
- A wealth of seafood, fowl, and meat recipes, featuring simple everyday dishes and tasty regional specialties
- 34 vegetable recipes that can be served as either antipasti or side dishes
A comprehensive dessert section, filled with gelati, crumbly cakes, fruit tarts, pies, and more
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| View all 6 comments |
Tim Janson (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-26 00:00>
This is the first book I've read from Mario and I have to say he got me hooked. As a sporadic watcher of his show I admit to being somewhat intimidated by his recipes and never saw them as things I'd want to make at home. But I guess the simple in the title snared me and the title is true. These are simple and delicious recipes that anyone can make at home. The book features recipes various regions of Italy which I really liked since the food does tend to vary often greatly from region to region and all of them are very authentic.
Then the book is section by type including anti-pastas, soups, pasta, fish, chicken, beef, pork, vegetarian, etc... over 300 recipes in all. There are over 60 anti-pasta recipes and over 50 pasta recipes. The side dishes are rich enough that they can be light meals themselves. You'll find classic dishes like Baked Zita, lasagne, and Veal Marsala and wonderful soups. It's a beautiful looking book and you can tell that Mario has put a great amount of effort into the presentation. His enthusiasm is very much appreciated. |
A reader (MSL quote), Canada
<2007-02-26 00:00>
One of the things I've always liked about M Batali is his simplistic approach to cooking. This book exceeds my expectations with great graphic design, stunning food photography and simple, easy recipes. The only downside I can see right now is that some of the ingredients are a bit hard-to-come-by.
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E. D. Grover (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-26 00:00>
I got this book for Father's day last year and we've been cooking out of it every week since. Batali's recipes are simple - typically no more than two to four main ingredients each - and require standard kinds of prep, like dicing onions and parsley or simmering a sauce. There's not a lot of work to do, if you know how to let go and allow things to brown. The recipes are close to no-fail, and everything has been delicious. The deserts are excellent too.
I've learned as much as I can about cooking Italian food since my oldest daughter was born, studying everything from details anthropological studies of Italian cuisine to massive hotel cookbooks. The cuisine is simple and tasty, with easy-to-find ingredients, and there's so much regional variation I can cover virtually every dietary preference or season. This is a perfect addition to my library. First, its easy to use. Second, and more important, it makes the variations in regional cuisine clear without being heavy on the pedantry. Northern Italian cooking is heavy on the meat and the butter, for example, except for the Friuli area, but the further south you go the lighter the food, the more emphasis on tomato, fish and olive oil. You can find recipes in this book that match those variations, and its easy enough to translate that into menus that match seasonal or personal preferences. Its a good book to get kids involved with too: the recipes are simple enough that my three-year-old can be involved from start to finish.
Two quibbles, which I find in almost every modern cookbook I look at, including the good ones. First, there's no wine recommendations. Some of the regional dishes taste so much better with the matching wine (and Batali certainly knows which, given wine importing is one of his sidelines) that I'm often left wondering what would work, aside from the obvious. Second, there's no menus - there's the primi/secondi-contorni/dolce distinction, for sure, but no suggested sequences. What are his service suggestions? Maybe I have to go to one of his restaurants to get that level of detail, but the book would become a thorough classic - on the level of Olney's books - if he included some wine suggestions and possible menus.
But all in all, you can mine this book for dinner parties and Tuesday nights alike for years. |
Cat Sentz (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-26 00:00>
The recipes in this book are not only tasty, they are perfect for those nights when you're not sure what to make and relatively budget-friendly. I find that most of them draw on items that are already staples, so I don't feel that I am going out of my way to get ingredients that won't be used, with few exceptions. The book also includes helpful little sections for reference, such as the doneness temperatures for various meats. I really like to have this sort of support when venturing out into things I wouldn't normally prepare. What I really delight in are the bits that tell you how to do things like make your own guanciale, though until I get a bigger fridge I'd rather just order from Salumi.
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