Ultimate Pasta Machine Cookbook
Homemade pasta is easy, fast, and fun. It tastes better than boxed pastas from the store. And, while store-bought pastas do indeed come in a variety of shapes, they all have basically one bland and unexciting flavor; by contrast, as this wide-ranging and deliciously inventive book shows, making pasta by hand at home lets you create and enjoy dozens and dozens of different flavors of noodles.
In her previous books—on such subjects as searing, marinating, and cast-iron cooking—chef, cooking teacher, and food blogger Lucy Vaserfirer has earned a reputation for expertly and gently translating the methods of master chefs into simple-to-follow, step-by-step instructions that let home cooks cook like the pros. Here, Lucy does the same for pasta-making, showing you how easy it is to use the three main types of pasta machine—the sheeter, the extruder, and the cavatelli maker—to create tasty pastas that will please everyone from grown-up gourmands to picky kids who want pasta at nearly every meal.
Lucy shares in these pages:
- Terrific purees that you can make, using a blender or a mixing bowl, that you then can turn into all sorts of flavored pastas, from the familiar tomato or spinach pastas to noodles flavored with herbs like basil or chives, spices like pepper or saffron, and other flavors, such as beet, sweet potato, corn, and even, surprisingly enough, chocolate.
- How to make every kind of pasta shape with your pasta machine, including ones you can’t find in stores.
- Recipes for durum and semolina pastas, the most common kinds, as well as buckwheat and ancient-grain pastas.
- How to make Asian noodles, such as udon, soba, and ramen, with your pasta machine.
- Recipes for fillings for ravioli, tortellini, and other stuffed pastas, as well as a feast of sauces for finished pasta dishes.
Whether you are a first-time owner of a pasta maker or a seasoned pro looking for exciting new ideas, this book has more than 100 splendid recipes, plus loads of clever tips and tricks, that will make you love your pasta machine and use it often.
Chef, culinary educator, and food writer Lucy Vaserfirer is the author of Seared to Perfection, Marinades, Flavored Butters, Not Your Mother's Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook, and The Ultimate Pasta Machine Cookbook. She is the creator, writer, and photographer of the blog Hungry Cravings, an online resource that demystifies complex cooking and baking techniques and offers delicious, foolproof recipes. She is an Adjunct Instructor of Cooking at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, and at Mount Hood Community College in Gresham, Oregon, and she has taught both home cooks and professional chefs and bakers for many years. She holds Le Cordon Bleu associate degrees both in culinary arts and in patisserie & baking. She lives in Vancouver, Washington.