Making Artisan Pasta: How to Make a World of Handmade Noodles, Stuffed Pasta, Dumplings, and More Flexibound – Illustrated, January 1, 2012

The media could not be loaded. I have a lot of cookbooks, anymore it takes a pretty special cookbook to get my heart thumping and inspires me to immediately take it in the kitchen and get to cooking. Making Artisan Pasta is just such a book. I have other pasta books, such as the joy of pasta, and usually they are maybe 25% actual pasta recipes, and the rest is sauce or soup or casseroles using the pasta. There is nothing wrong with that, but Making Artisan Pasta is a book about the pasta, about what ingredients to use, how to use them, how to make the pasta, form the pasta, and tons and tons of ideas and tips on making amazing pasta.The pictures are simply inspirational. From step by step photos of how to accomplish making the pasta, to beautiful and inspiring finished products. This book could be intimidating, working with dough and various ingredients and appliances and gadgets, making different shapes. But it's totally not, Aliza Green writes clear simple instructions that would make the most dough-frightened person feel enabled to make luscious pasta. Between her clear instructions and tips, and Steve Legato's amazingly clear instructional photos, this is a book to really give a person confidence and a can-do attitude.There are some pastas that simply call for special gadgets to make them, it's the nature of the pasta, but if you don't want to spend a penny on new fun equipment there are still plenty of pasta recipes you can easily make. The author gives several techniques on how to make pasta. She gives three ways of mixing (hand, stand mixer, food processor) and different ways to roll out the pasta- rolling pin, sheeter (hand cranked pasta machine) and the extruders. Through out the entire book there are variations so if you want to make ravioli you can buy a really cool ravioli pan thing, or she shows you how to simply put the filling on the bottom sheet and put the second sheet over and cut out the dough.The pasta I made was easy to work with and tasted delicious. I started simple, but can't wait to get into the variations like green pasta, or the one with the parsley leaves pressed in between the sheets.The book covers basic pastas, stuffed pasta, dumplings, pot stickers, gnocchi, pastas I haven't even heard of but can't wait to try! This is honestly a book that has me excited to get in the kitchen and start making pasta.

I love pasta dishes and I wanted to find a book that gave strong guidance on how to actually make the pasta itself, not just provide a series of recipes on how to use pasta in dishes. After doing a good bit of research I selected Making Artisan Pasta with high expectations. This book has not disappointed me.Many pasta books talk about making a couple of different types of pasta and then present a long list of sauce recipes, recipes for prepared pasta dishes like lasagna, the odd side salad and more. This book is not at all like that - this is a book just about pasta and nothing more. Do not look to this book if you want a recipe for a good tomato sauce or cream sauce as you won’t find it here. Furthermore, do not look to this book if all you want is a quick recipe on making egg pasta. This book goes into very deep detail on the process of making pasta doughs and describes how to choose ingredients, how to handle the doughs as you work the ingredients together, how to shape and press the different types of pasta and so much more. This is more of an in-depth course on the art of making pasta. It even goes into detail on flour grades, grinding your own wheat berries and more.To give you an idea of what to expect with this book, it presents making egg pasta dough - three times. It presents making the dough by hand, with a stand mixer and with a food processor. Each recipe is a full two pages and is presented with multiple full-color photographs describing each stage of the process. The discussion of each recipe is fairly exhaustive and tries to answer the large majority of questions that arise.Every single recipe in this book is accompanied by multiple full-color photographs and full discussion on the dough being presented. Not only is this book very thorough but it’s also beautiful. I enjoy leafing through the book just for the scenery as I do for finding recipes and getting ideas.My favorite recipe in the book [so far] is potato gnocchi. I have a number of other recipes earmarked for trying out but gnocchi is a favorite of mine and this recipe is better than average in my opinion.I wanted a book that was just about making pasta. I have plenty of other books that describe making spaghetti sauce and lasagna but precious few that describe in detail how to make more than just egg pasta. This book is exactly what I wanted and I could not be happier with it. If you want a good book on actually making pasta, look no further than this book.