Semplice: Real Italian Food : Ingredients and Recipes by Dino Joannides

Those of you that are kind enough to visit my blog will have noticed that over the last couple of years I have not posted as much as I used to.

On the rare occasions that I did post the subject matter tended to be about Italian Food or ingredients.

The main reason for the above is that I have been working on a book about Italian Food and I am pleased to tell you that it will be published on October 2nd by Random House.

Semplice: Real Italian Food : Ingredients and Recipes  is now available for pre order from all the usual online ,  and bricks and mortar book shops.

For those in the UK you can pre order here , in North America here in other parts of the world it should also be available online and in good book shops.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it !

#3rd vogole video : it is essential use bronze die/cut pasta

Here Francesco Mazzei explains the reason for using better quality bronze die/cut pasta.

The quality and choice of pasta is very important as it affects the pasta water needed to create the perfect "emulsione" and determine retention ratio of this almost creamy sauce.

Better quality and artisanal pasta have certain key advantages over the key industrial brands . Firtstly they extrude their pasta through bronze dies hat leave microstriations (ridges, grooves, etc.) to capture and hold the sauce.

Second, they dry the pasta at lower temperatures. While this takes longer, it preserves the fine flavors of the wheat.

And finally I also have the impression that the quality of the starch in the pasta water (essential in this dish) is far superior.

I use Garofalo one of the producers from Gragnano reputed to be the best areas for dry pasta making as well as Guiseppe Cocco from Abruzzo another highly rated area . The latter is available in Waitrose whilst most good delis will sell at least one brand of high quality pasta.