Dec 13 2008
Every Night Italian – 120 Simple Delicious Recipes You Can Make in 45 Minutes or Less
Every Night Italian 120 Simple Delicious Recipes You Can Make in 45 Minutes or Less
A master teacher in his own right, Giuliano Hazan learned the art of Italian cooking from the authority on Italian cooking — his mother, Marcella Hazan. When his first bestseller The Classic Pasta Cookbook appeared, Newsday exclaimed: “What a good cook he is, and what a clear and useful book he has made. He learned his mother’s lessons well.”
In Every Night Italian, he writes for a new generation, addressing the concerns most often expressed by students in his cooking classes: how to make good, authentic Italian meals, with ingredients from the supermarket, when there’s not much time to spend in the kitchen. With a pantry of basic Italian ingredients and detailed line drawings of the essential techniques for cutting a pepper, trimming an artichoke, sharpening a knife, and more, Giuliano Hazan teaches home cooks to prepare real Italian food like never before: quickly and easily. The 120 recipes in this book — from appetizers to desserts — each take less than forty-five minutes to prepare.
In his chapter on menu suggestions — Simple Family Menus, Elegant Sit-Down Menus, Buffet and Picnic Menus — which groups complementary dishes, Hazan also teaches home cooks how to organize their time in the kitchen and how to prepare several dishes simultaneously, making it even easier to produce a satisfying and balanced Italian meal for any occasion.
Americans love Italian food because of its genuine flavors and fresh ingredients. Now with the help of Giuliano Hazan, they will be delighted to learn that it has another wonderful virtue: it can be very simple and quick to prepare.
* 50 drawings of essential techniques
* 16 color photographs of finished dishes
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars A cookbook you can use!
There is so much to love in this cookbook! The recipes are not difficult to follow, and the ingredients aren’t so exotic that they’re hard to find. You can use this cookbook for everything from family meals to dinner parties.
The book begins with an essential list of ingredients for the Italian pantry. This is a list of ingredients that should be easy to find at most grocery stores. Another nice feature that you’ll discover as you go through the book is that the author will give ideas for substitutions in case you don’t have something on hand.
A nice section of diagrams illustrate techniques for everything from cutting a pepper to deboning a chicken. There are even instructions for how to sharpen your knife.
There is a section of mouthwatering looking pictures clustered near the front of the book. I wish more cookbooks these days would illustrate each dish, but that’s a minor quibble here. The recipes are fairly straightforward, so you don’t really need a picture.
The cookbook is divided into the standard sections from appetizers through desserts. Everything sounds delicious! Reading through the dishes makes you want to get started cooking!
The book concludes with combinations for “Simple Family Menus,” “Elegant Sit Down Menus,” and “Buffet and Picnic Menus.”
This is a cookbook that is designed to be used often!
Highly recommended!
4 Stars Fast and Tasty and Dress to Impress!!
I bought this book because I was such a fan of his mother’s. At first glance I was slightly disappointed, since, compared to the Classics of Italian Cooking, it is a relatively thin volume with far fewer recipes. However, it is a great cookbook. I have tried out roughly 1/3 of the recipes, but every one of them has turned out great the first time. (His “Christmas Tree Salmon,” “Lamb Shoulder Braised with Tomatoes and Red Wine,” “Parmesan-Encrusted Rack of Lamb,” and “Pompano Fillets with Garlic and Rosemary”–made with mahi-mahi–have become tried-and-true household staples.) He is true to his word–he gives both the prep time and the time from start-to-finish, and I have found those estimates to be right on the money, particularly once you’ve made them more than once and already have the procedures down pretty well. Between this book and his mother’s Classics, one thing is true–pretty much every night IS Italian at my house! if for no other reason than that I have yet to find such simple yet delicious recipes anywhere else.
4 Stars Must Have Resource
This text is written with American equivelents so conversion and guessing quantities is not necessary. The recipes make delicious dishes and as advertised, in ” 45 minutes or less”. The cooking methiods and hand me down recipes are perfect to experience the freshness that is Italian in a short time frame of preparation. It is such a better option than the fast food take out routine! This is an abslolute must for a diversified culinary kitchen!
5 Stars My new favorite cookbook
I don’t think that I’ve ever written an Amazon review before, but I just had to chime in about this book. It’s simply fantastic, and everything IS really easy and straightforward to prepare. I love to cook but hate to fuss, and this is the perfect cookbook for me. The ingredients are all easy to find and there are always the right number (not a lot of extra ones that don’t make much of a difference). I can recommend this book unequivocally.
4 Stars Broadening My Horizons
I have been impressed with this cookbook so far, and I do recommend it. The reasons why:
1) I was sick of the same old stuff that I always make.
2) The recipes I have tried (10 or so now) have impressed me as far as taste.
3) I have learned some new cooking skills.
4) The author explains very well what to do, and since I am no culinary master, it has been very beneficial to me.
5) I like that the author writes a bit about each dish.
6) The prepared food keeps very well, in fact the flavors have enhanced after a day or two in some cases.
7) Even though Italians use a lot of olive oil, I feel like I am eating better because so many of the ingredients are so fresh. Vegetables obviously play a very large role in this style of cooking.
A few things I do not like about the actual book (the quality of the recipes is hard to argue):
1) I would like to see what my dish is supposed to look at, but very few things are pictured.
2) I do not live in a large city, and I have had a difficult time finding some ingredients, eg. veal, seafood selections, arugula, fresh mushrroms other than white or cremini, amaretti cookies. I have found some things after looking in several different stores. Italy obviously is going to have a lot of seafood available…inland U.S.? Not so much.
3) Several recipes use raw eggs, and with an immune deficiency in the family, this is not okay. Luckily, I have discovered pasteurized eggs, but they are not the easiest to find. Maybe using uncooked eggs is indicative of Italian cooking, but I don’t know.
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[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today on CookingNook.com’s Blog Blog Archive Every Night Italian is a quick excerpt I have tried out roughly 1/3 of the recipes, but every one of them has turned out great the first time. (His “Christmas Tree Salmon,” “Lamb Shoulder Braised with Tomatoes and Red Wine,” “Parmesan-Encrusted Rack of Lamb,” and “Pompano … [...]