Aliza Green

I had the pleasure of appearing on WMCN with Dawn Stensland to promote Making Artisan Pasta. See the video for a chance to see some of the brightly colored veggie pastas I love to make, including parsley, spinach, asparagus, beet, red pepper, and even chocolate pasta. I serve it for dessert with a sauce of crushed cocoa nibs, toasted hazelnuts, brown butter, a little brandy and honey. I top the pasta with grated “cheese”–actually white chocolate.

Any questions about fresh pasta, please send them to me on the Ask Aliza Tab and I’ll be sure to answer.

Happy Pasta Making!

hand-stretched rich egg-yolk pasta for tortellini

Fun, Easy and Delicious--Making Artisan Pasta

MAKING ARTISAN PASTA: How to Make a World of Handmade Noodles, Stuffed Pasta, Dumplings, and More

 Homemade rules in the kitchen, and everyone from artisan bakers to canners and picklers know it. Culinary enthusiasts are exploring classic skills again, and home cooks are making homemade, hand-shaped pasta faster than you can say tagliatelle.

With simple, fresh ingredients and easy-to-follow instructions, MAKING ARTISAN PASTA (Quarry Books) teaches you how make your own fettuccine, ravioli, lasagna, and dozens of other styles of pasta and noodles by hand. The fully illustrated, step-by-step tutorials will walk you through the entire tasty process, from mixing dough, rolling, and shaping pasta through cooking, serving, and storing. Artisan pasta is fun to make and fun to eat for everyone from kids to seniors. Colorful doughs flavored with red pepper, porcini mushrooms, and asparagus and flours like buckwheat, chestnut, and rye inspire the creative cook.

Going far beyond noodles, though, this book includes tutorials on gnocchi, Chinese pot stickers, pierogi, and dozens of other world pastas.

Inside you’ll find:

• History of pasta in China, Italy and modern day variations
• Clear explanations of  flour, eggs and other basic ingredients a pasta artisan might use
• Complete tutorial for making artisan-style hand-stretched pasta, the ultimate for flavor and texture
• Special kitchen tools and suggestions for using  tools you already have
• “Artisan Notes” providing special tips and tricks for every recipe
• Page after page of full-color photo diagrams showing techniques for successful results
• Comprehensive information on storage, freezing,  and more

Through author and chef Aliza Green’s expertise and encyclopedia knowledge of all things culinary, plus hundreds of gorgeous photos by acclaimed food photographer Steve Legato, MAKING ARTISAN PASTA will teach you everything there is to know about making fresh, delicious pasta in your home kitchen….and you’ll never look at the supermarket pasta aisle the same way again.

About the Author

ALIZA GREEN, author, consultant, and influential chef, has been a pasta fanatic ever since she spent a summer in Italy at age six. She studied with Marcella Hazan, from whom she learned to make fresh pasta for the Bolognese-inspired Ristorante DiLullo, where she served as Executive Chef. She studied Italian to read cookbooks and culinary publications and to work with chefs and food producers in Italy. With the help of the restaurant’s three pasta artisans, Green prepared enough fresh pasta to serve hundreds of customers daily, all cooked to order—a formidable task in a restaurant that seated more than 200. Green is the James Beard Award–winning author of ten suc­cessful food guides and cookbooks including The Fishmonger’s Apprentice (Quarry Books, 2010), Starting with Ingredients: Baking (Running Press, 2008) and Starting with Ingredients (Running Press, 2006), four Field Guides to food (Quirk, 2004-2007), Beans: More than 200 Delicious, Wholesome Recipes from Around the World (Running Press, 2004). To learn more about Green or to ask a culinary question, visit her website, www.alizagreen.com.

• • •

 MAKING ARTISAN PASTA

How to Make a World of Handmade Noodles, Stuffed Pasta, Dumplings, and More

by Aliza Green

Quarry Books

$24.99 US / $27.99 CAN

ISBN-13: 978-1-59253-732-7

Starting with Ingredients: Baking

(Running Press)
by Aliza Green

Starting with Ingredients: Baking is chef-author Aliza Green’s tenth book and a comprehensive sequel to her masterful, 1,000+page Starting with Ingredients (Running Press, 2006). Green’s books have garnered national attention and a devoted following, and her innovative structure – literally “starting with ingredients” – organizes the more than 350 recipes, so that readers understand the most important baking ingredients, their origins, how they’re used, and how they work. Starting with Ingredients: Baking and Green’s highly acclaimed books have established her reputation as a culinary expert, and she brings that expertise to bear here in her signature, approachable fashion.

Buy Now – amazon.com

Field Guide to Seafood

(Quirk Books)
by Aliza Green

There’s more to seafood than lobster tails and fried calamari. Today’s supermarkets are stocked with a bounty of delicious and delightful choices—everything from salmon and snow crabs to oysters, barnacles, and even sea cucumbers! But you don’t need a degree in marine biology to make sense of it all—just the Field Guide to Seafood. Award-winning chef Aliza Green explains everything you need to know about different kinds of seafood, fish, and prepared fish: how to select them, prepare them, serve them, and more, with a recipe for every one. Beautiful full-color photography depicts carp, catfish, clams, eel, squid, and more than 100 other swimmers. Don’t buy seafood without it!

Buy Now – amazon.com

Starting with Ingredients

(Running Press)
by Aliza Green

The revolutionary approach of Starting with Ingredients will transform the way we shop, prepare, cook, and even think about food.

Each chapter focuses on a single ingredient. The accompanying recipes in Chef Aliza Green’s culinary tour de force demonstrate the broad range of possibilities for each ingredient, utilizing a variety of cooking methods, flavors, and ethnic inspirations.

This innovative work is the product of Green’s ceaseless culinary curiosity and in-depth knowledge of ingredients. With these tools, she has created hundreds of clear and imaginative recipes that will enable experienced and fledgling home chefs to recognize how foods should look and behave, their fragrance and feel, their seasonal changes, how they are transformed by different cooking methods, and their flavor affinities. Extensive sidebars satisfy the most curious epicure.

Buy Now – amazon.com

Field Guide to Herbs & Spices

(Quirk Books)
by Aliza Green

Herbs and spices make everything taste better—but can you tell your thyme from your sage? Do you know the difference between dill and rosemary? Where can you find hyssop or rose geranium? Field Guide to Herbs & Spices is here to help. With color photographs of more than 200 different international seasonings, you’ll soon be flavoring your dishes like a pro. Award-winning chef Aliza Green shows the basic history of these spices (saffron used to be worth more than gold!), its season (if applicable), names in other languages, a recipe featuring the seasoning, and much more. This handy field guide will make all of your meals complete!

Buy Now – ecokbooks.com

Field Guide to Meat

(Quirk Books)
by Aliza Green

What’s the difference between pork sirloin and pork tenderloin? Are Spanish chorizo and Mexican chorizo the same thing? Do quail and pheasant really taste just like chicken? Whether you’re a casual griller or a haute foodie, you need the latest volume in our popular Field Guide series – Field Guide to Meat. With engaging text from award-winning chef Aliza Green, this illustrated guide shows how to identify and prepare more than 100 different kinds of meat, from beef and pork to lamb, poultry, wild game, sausages, and more. Featuring detailed descriptions, selection tips, and full-color photographs for easy identification, Field Guide to Meat is every carnivore’s one-stop reference book.

Buy Now – amazon.com

(Running Press)
by Aliza Green

Now you can master the art and joy of bean cookery with this definitive guide to identifying, selecting, prepping, and cooking a wide range of fresh and dried beans. Aliza Grean has created a virtual renaissance in bean cuisine, where cooks can discover the variety of dishes that can be made with the different flavors, textures and color that beans have to offer. This completely revised, updated edition of Beans, which features full-color photographs and new recipes, is a great source not only for extraordinary recipes but also for cooking tips, culinary history and legume lore. Scrupulously researched, Beans contains descriptions and useful information about more than 100 bean varieties. A comprehensive primer on the basics of preparing and cooking beans explains all you need to know to ensure your bean dishes will come out just right every time.

Buy Now – amazon.com

Field Guide to Produce

(Quirk Books)
by Aliza Green

Produce: It’s not just apples and oranges anymore. Today’s supermarket shelves are stocked with strange, exotic, and delightful items such as quince, jicama, kumquats, amaranth, yuzus, and wing beans. But you don’t need a degree in botany to make sense of it all — just carry along Field Guide to Produce! This practical guide to the world’s most popular fruits and vegetables features more than 200 full-color photographs — plus detailed descriptions, selection tips, and guidelines on peeling, blanching, cooking, and eating. Award-winning chef Aliza Green describes everything you’re likely to find at your local grocery store and farmer’s market — from common cabbages and coconuts to more adventurous fare like chayote and cherimoya. Grocery shopping — and dinner — will never be the same again!

Buy Now – Amazon.com