aj12754's Reviews
3 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 3Sort by: Title 
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Cook Like a Rock Star: 125 Recipes, Lessons, and Culinary Secrets
By Anne Burrell, Suzanne Lenzer, Mario Batali
Clarkson Potter - 2011
Baked Ricotta with Rosemary and Lemon : page 59
I have never given a zero to a recipe at this site, but this was just awful. I definitely play around with recipes when I don't have the necessary ingredients ... but I didn't play around with this at all. Maybe the problem was the "high-quality ricotta" called for in the recipe. I just used a whole-milk ricotta from the grocery store.
I have a couple of recipes for baked ricotta around that I've been wanting to try and I think I'll pull them out to see if the reason I didn't like this one is because the recipe is bad or because it's just not a dish I enjoy no matter how well made.
PS -- Mulling this over, I wonder if draining this ricotta for an hour or so in cheesecloth might have helped. And cutting the amount of lemon zest.
useful (1)
Pasta Fagioli : page 112
I knew this would be a fairly thick soup from the picture accompanying the recipe. For us it was a bit too thick so I ended up adding almost 2 cups of additional liquid (water since the recipe doesn't call for chicken stock) which naturally diluted the flavors. I did taste it before adding the additional water, and it was very nice.
To be fair to this recipe, I will say up front that I made some changes to use ingredients I had in the house, to wit:
1) I made a half recipe
2) using small white beans rather than cannellini beans,
3) bacon rather than pancetta,
4) and mini farfalle rather than ditalini (using two oz. less than a half-recipe called for since the mini-farfalle is a slightly larger pasta than ditalini).
I did find this to be a surprisingly fussy recipe (see below) given Anne's breezy persona. And I didn't think the additional fussiness was necessary to the improve the flavor or presentation.
She calls for putting the canned tomatoes through a food mill which gives you a smoother broth -- but why? It's a chunky soup anyway.
She also has you partially cook the pasta before adding it to the soup ... apparently to generate pasta water to add to the soup. But the pasta can cook just as readily in the liquid already in the soup, releasing its starches there just as readily as in a separate pot of water.
I think Marcella Hazan's version in Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking is probably the best recipe I have used, although Fine Cooking has a spicy version that is quick and delicious as well.
useful (1)
Wild Mushroom Ragout : page 107
Pasta with mushroom ragu is one of my favorite dishes and this is one of several versions I've tried. And it's fine although not my favorite. There is quite a bit of liquid in this recipe and it took a while for the liquid to reduce enough to move from a soupy to a sauce-like consistency.
I was only able to find fresh cremini and shiitakes qnd I'd like to try this recipe again with a greater varierty of mushrooms.
The recipe also uses dried porcini and this recipe includes a step I've never seen in any other mushroom ragu recipe -- after soaking the dried porcini in hot water, you squeeze the porcinis to get rid of excess water, then put them in a mini-food processor long with some of the soaking liquid, and process it until you get a paste. I did this but I would not say that what resulted was a paste. This is then added to the sauteed mushrooms along with the rest of the soaking liquid, and a cuo of chick stock.In the past I have just finely chopped the soaked porcinis and the paste approach didn't seem to make much difference --flavor or texture-wise in my opinion
useful (3)