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The Silver Spoon Pasta
Following on from the international best-seller The Silver Spoon – the Italian cooking bible– the Silver Spoon Book of Pasta presents a collection of 350 definitive pasta recipes for all lovers of the iconic Italian dish. From spaghetti alla carbonara to orecchiette with broccoli, it combines classic pasta dishes from The Silver Spoon with a range of new recipes collected by the same team behind the Italian classic and published in English for the first time.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published September 14, 2009
About the author
Phaidon Press
282 books467 followersPhaidon Press is a global publisher of books on art, architecture, design, fashion, photography, and popular culture, as well as cookbooks, children's books, and travel books. The company is based in London and New York City, with additional offices in Paris and Berlin. -wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 8, 2021
I was lucky enough to find this book for $4 in a thrift store, adding to my large collection of Phaidon cookbooks, but I wouldn't hesitate to pay full price for it. If you're looking for your first and last comprehensive guide to pasta sauces, this is a strong candidate. It has most (if not all) of the best-known pasta recipes, and a vast number of more obscure but equally delightful combinations. For example, today I made pennette with gorgonzola and green pepper for lunch. If not for this book, I would never have discovered that those two ingredients work so perfectly together as a pasta sauce. Most of the recipes are very quick and easy to make, so this book has been on high rotation in my kitchen for delicious weekday meals which I can make while half-asleep. Highly recommended!
December 25, 2019
An indispensable pasta cookbook. Reading this makes you learn new recipes and pastas both common and uncommon. A must-have for pasta lovers. Well done!
May 4, 2012
Pasta. It's right for any occasion. A fast food, an elegant food, a handcrafted or ready prepared food, those noodles have it all. It is healthy and part of a good diet when portioned well with the right ingredients.
The Silver Spoon Pasta cookbook in this translation offers a wide variety of recipes and techniques for the preparation of this dining table staple. As a good cookbook should, it explains and illustrates recipes plus it offers historical information about pasta, certainly in Italy. The recipes are scalable and portion sizing abounds throughout this book. Not just a recipe serves six for example, but that to create six servings you cook 'this amount' of noodles and other ingredients. This is one of many marks of a better cookbook.
The recipes range from the most basic to favorites to ones that you have to have a great fishmonger to produce. Some of the ingredients are chancy for the landlocked or inexperienced cook. Mussels, squid ink and sea urchins to name but a few are not for everyone. Variation of traditional favorites including lasagna are included for all most any pasta dish or preparation imaginable.
Dry and Fresh pasta recipes are separated in this cookbook. The authors encourage the cook to careful check packages of dry pasta for the proper cooking instructions. Even the machine produced or artisan hand made pasteurized pasta will vary by many factors that a minute or two either way in cooking time can result in less than optimal results. This is important to the success of 'what is for dinner'!
Fresh pasta preparation directions are quite complete, for the most part, including a great photograph of the classic egg and flour volcano! If you don't know what that is, well check out p 162. Just be careful, these things go off and there is flour everywhere. Small jest, but it can be messy and it worth being prepared with an extra towel. We are talking lots of flour here! Included in these recipe/formulas are hints and tips including recipes for colored pasta including using beet juice to make red dough!
Special items include Angel Hair Soufflé, more than a dozen Lasagna dishes, lobster and asparagus ribbons (tagliatelle), and well too many worth naming! There is even chocolate (cocoa), as an ingredient. A very early entry in the book Spring Bavette (a linguine related pasta) is a current favorite with the availability of asparagus and fresh-shelled peas!
This cookbook won’t teach one to cook, but will expand a repertoire greatly. Cooking skill level requirement is not terribly high for most recipes. There are a few recipes with sauces that are not for a last minute meal. Some of the preparation times to make these dishes are a bit optimistic unless the cook makes fresh pasta frequently. There is an odd mix of traditional and translated names for noodle types. More direction or hints for successful use of a pasta machine would have been a great addition.
Is this worth the cover price for a cookbook for just Pasta? Probably if pasta is prepared as a dish once a week and variations from spaghetti and meatballs are desired. The photography is great and the book with the bound in bookmarks, heavy wipe able cover (everybody spills and splashes in the kitchen), and color-coded tagged section is a well thought out cookbook. It does need more space for notes. The binding may take a while to relax enough to lay flat and that will happen as it is used.
Certainly a reference work worth adding to any cooks ‘tools’.
Review of The Silver Spoon Pasta by Phaidon, ©2012 CD Price.
The Silver Spoon Pasta cookbook in this translation offers a wide variety of recipes and techniques for the preparation of this dining table staple. As a good cookbook should, it explains and illustrates recipes plus it offers historical information about pasta, certainly in Italy. The recipes are scalable and portion sizing abounds throughout this book. Not just a recipe serves six for example, but that to create six servings you cook 'this amount' of noodles and other ingredients. This is one of many marks of a better cookbook.
The recipes range from the most basic to favorites to ones that you have to have a great fishmonger to produce. Some of the ingredients are chancy for the landlocked or inexperienced cook. Mussels, squid ink and sea urchins to name but a few are not for everyone. Variation of traditional favorites including lasagna are included for all most any pasta dish or preparation imaginable.
Dry and Fresh pasta recipes are separated in this cookbook. The authors encourage the cook to careful check packages of dry pasta for the proper cooking instructions. Even the machine produced or artisan hand made pasteurized pasta will vary by many factors that a minute or two either way in cooking time can result in less than optimal results. This is important to the success of 'what is for dinner'!
Fresh pasta preparation directions are quite complete, for the most part, including a great photograph of the classic egg and flour volcano! If you don't know what that is, well check out p 162. Just be careful, these things go off and there is flour everywhere. Small jest, but it can be messy and it worth being prepared with an extra towel. We are talking lots of flour here! Included in these recipe/formulas are hints and tips including recipes for colored pasta including using beet juice to make red dough!
Special items include Angel Hair Soufflé, more than a dozen Lasagna dishes, lobster and asparagus ribbons (tagliatelle), and well too many worth naming! There is even chocolate (cocoa), as an ingredient. A very early entry in the book Spring Bavette (a linguine related pasta) is a current favorite with the availability of asparagus and fresh-shelled peas!
This cookbook won’t teach one to cook, but will expand a repertoire greatly. Cooking skill level requirement is not terribly high for most recipes. There are a few recipes with sauces that are not for a last minute meal. Some of the preparation times to make these dishes are a bit optimistic unless the cook makes fresh pasta frequently. There is an odd mix of traditional and translated names for noodle types. More direction or hints for successful use of a pasta machine would have been a great addition.
Is this worth the cover price for a cookbook for just Pasta? Probably if pasta is prepared as a dish once a week and variations from spaghetti and meatballs are desired. The photography is great and the book with the bound in bookmarks, heavy wipe able cover (everybody spills and splashes in the kitchen), and color-coded tagged section is a well thought out cookbook. It does need more space for notes. The binding may take a while to relax enough to lay flat and that will happen as it is used.
Certainly a reference work worth adding to any cooks ‘tools’.
Review of The Silver Spoon Pasta by Phaidon, ©2012 CD Price.
March 20, 2016
Good recipes, but somewhat short on production techniques. The abridged version uses the same recipes, but has more on making pasta.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews