Cucina Fresca: Italian Food, Simply Prepared

This and Cucina Rustica are among my favorite all time cookbooks. Simple but amazing. These books use very little ingredients but rather they take a core set of Italian ingredients in varying combinations to create straightforward food with lots of flavor. Highly recommended! No pictures, frills or fluffs just text and when reading it, it does better than pictures ever could.

This is a great cookbook for simple fresh food which can be prepared ahead of time. The recipes are easy with few steps. The dishes can often be served at room temperature. Recipes have few ingredients and prep work is minimal.I use it a lot and my family loves it.

I have not had the chance to cook out o his yet, but the recipes seem amazing. The only reason I gave it 4 stars is because I am a visual person. I like to see picture of the recipes I'm about to cook. But that's just my preference. Otherwise very happy.

This book is a longtime favorite of mine and it was purchased as a gift for a young chef. The recipes are simple and the results are delicious. Cucina Fresca should be in any cooks library.

the book itself is good, but does not have pictures of the dishes. If you love to see pictures of the recipes you should try another book.

Easy, tasty, and usually quick and simple.

Worth a place on your cookbook shelf. I enjoy all types of food, but especially Italian. I am glad I purchased this book.

I made 5 dishes from this book last night. The 2 dishes that got rave reviews were the 2 that were NOT from this book.Two general complaints: some ingredient amounts are wildly off, and many cooking times/temperatures are also wildly off.The grilled mushroom recipe calls for "2 bunches" of thyme. I HATE recipes that use ambiguous measurements like this. I used about 2/3 of one "bunch" of thyme, and it was still way way too much. And I adore thyme and usually use more than recipes call for.The sage potatoes recipe says to slice the potatoes into 1" thick chunks, then expects them to be steamed soft in 10-15 minutes on low heat (covered). Yeah. Right.But the worst of all was the arista (pork roast) recipe. Cook it to an internal temp of *170F*!? Are you kidding me? Barbara Kafka says 140. Mario Batali says 145-150. So does Bruce Aidell. I cooked the roast to 150F and there was not even a hint of a trace of pink left after it had rested, and it was dry as hell. If I had followed the recipe it would have been a hockey puck.As the title suggests, I am not impressed with this cookbook. I only gave it 2 stars instead of 1 because the basic ideas are good for some inspiration/starting points. Do NOT follow any recipe in this book slavishly, or you will pay the price.

The sub-title to the book is 'Italian Food, Simply Prepared' and that sums up the book perfectly. The authors are both Americans and met when they worked at the first Tuscan restaurant in LA in the early 1980's. The book is conventionally laid out. Apart from a couple of introductory chapters covering the basics and menu suggestions, you start with soups, then salads, pasta & rice, cheese & eggs, savoury tarts, vegetables, fish & seafood, meat & poultry and finish with desserts.There are recipes which appear in virtually every Italian cook book, for example panzanella, Russian salad, salad caprese, but there are more unusual recipes, and all with the benefit of being quick to prepare. Among the salads, there is a very refreshing orange, onion & mint salad; a winter salad of lettuce, walnuts, celery & parmesan; fennel, green bean & olive; white (cannellini) bean, red onion & tomato salad; a coloured pasta salad with a tomato & roasted pepper mix flavoured with mint. There is a number of frittata recipes plus various tarts including a rather nice, if carbohydrate heavy tortellini tart, and an unusual veal-stuffed quail tart which is more time-consuming.There are plenty of recipes for vegetable accompaniments too such as asparagus with tomatoes & pine nuts, white beans with sage (so simple, but I love it), broccoli in lemon & chilli pepper, roasted red onions in balsamic vinegar. The fish chapter includes mackerel, prawns, salmon, tuna & more. In the meat chapter there is again a range of meats including things like stuffed veal breast, pork roast with fennel, lots of chicken. Desserts are all fruit-based: cherries in chianti, various fig dishes, peaches (for example peaches stuffed with amaretti, almonds & chocolate), and pears with gorgonzola & goats cheese.One word of warning, the ingredient lists, not unexpectedly, follow American terminology, so that you will find references to arugula and mâche (rocket & lamb's lettuce respectively. I have so many American cookbooks that this doesn't bother me and if you are unsure there are 'translation' sites on the internet. Another thing to note is that there aren't any photos.