Cook it al dente: Pasta should be cooked until it’s tender but still has a bit of bite.
Our most complete manual on making fresh pasta by hand. Chef Michele Gualtieri takes you from the flour on the board to the finished shape: 8 doughs, 5 fillings and 16 pasta shapes, 29 preparations in all, each one photographed step by step. 160 pages in English, with an alphabetical index so you can go straight to the pasta you want to make tonight.
There is a moment, when the flour and the eggs stop being two things and become one, that
no video can teach you. Rolling Pin Pasta Recipes is the book we wrote for that
moment: the most detailed manual we have made, born in our classrooms in Florence and put
on paper by chef Michele Gualtieri.
Whether you have never touched a rolling pin or you have been making pasta for years and
are looking for the doughs and the shapes you have not tried yet, this is the book that
stays open on your kitchen table, covered in flour.
Start from the classic egg dough, then move on to whole wheat for a rustic, bolder taste,
to the rich egg yolk dough, to semolina and the dough for pici. And when you want to
surprise someone at the table, there are the naturally coloured doughs: green, pink and
black, no artificial colouring involved.
Ricotta and spinach, pumpkin, potato alla mugellana, a classic meat filling and a classic
fish one. Each balanced in texture as well as in flavour, because a filling that is too wet
or too dry ruins a pasta that took you an hour to make.
Tagliatelle, tagliolini, pappardelle, capelli d’angelo, spaghetti alla chitarra, pici,
gnocchetti sardi. And then the filled ones: ravioli, mezze lune, bottoni, cappelletti,
cappellacci, agnolotti, tortellini. Up to striped coloured pasta and pasta stuffed with
edible flowers, for when you want the plate to be beautiful before it is good.
Every recipe opens with its details and ingredients, then follows the steps one by one,
each with its own photograph: you see the dough as it should look in your hands at that
exact moment. At the end, an alphabetical index takes you straight to the pasta you want to
make tonight.
Looking for the sauces too? Saucy & Shining Pasta collects the 10 most iconic
Italian sauces, and taking the two volumes together costs €50 instead of €54.
