Easy Pasta from Osteria 16

A quick post for pasta cooks. I recently purchased two cookbooks from Kitchen Arts & Letters in New York City: Osteria 16 Cookbook by Emil Alsbo and Morten Kaltoft (2026) and Easy Pasta (2025) put out by Osteria 16.

Osteria 16 is an Italian restaurant in Copenhagen. The Osteria 16 Cookbook has a great collection of 18 pasta recipes.  To my mind, however, the stand-alone Easy Pasta cookbook knocks the ball out of the park.

Easy Pasta’s colophon attributes the book’s 36 recipes to Morten Kaltoft and Annemette Aakjaer. Easy and simple recipes, in this case, produce outstanding pasta. I’ve cooked a handful of recipes so far and, in each case, the results have wowed.

Last night I made their recipe for pasta with porcini and ricotta: super easy, very simple and extraordinarily delicious. First, soak dried porcini mushrooms in hot water for 30 minutes. Next, heat olive oil in a large frying pan, add garlic, butter, and bay leaves. Put the soaked mushrooms and some of the mushroom soaking water into the pan. Turn off the heat and wait for your dried pasta to cook. When the pasta nears ready, put the sauce back on heat and tip in the cooked pasta. Simmer for 1 to 2 minutes. Take the pan off heat and add a 50-50 mixture of ricotta and parmesan. Stir well into the pasta to make a creamy sauce. If the sauce looks a little dry, add some of the leftover pasta water to the pan. Squeeze in a little fresh lemon juice and you’re done. 

I highly recommend Easy Pasta. Yes, it’s a slender and pricey $50 paperback import. (Recipes are in Danish and English.) But honestly, I think it’s one of the best pasta cookbooks I’ve come across in years. If you like most of the cookbooks I’ve featured in the past, I’m confident you will enjoy this excellent little pasta cookbook.

Mousse au Chocolat Rapide

After purchasing Aleksandra Crapanzano’s Gâteau in 2022, I eagerly awaited her next new cookbook. Chocolat: Parisian Desserts and Other Delights arrived in 2025 and, in my opinion, equals Gâteau. One recipe in Chocolat—Mousse au Chocolat Rapide—has become one of my go-to desserts. The mousse comes together really fast—it isn’t called rapide for nothing—and holds for up to 36 hours in the refrigerator. Crapanzano writes “I couldn’t possibly count the number of times I’ve turned to this improbably terrific recipe...it can easily be made one morning and served the next day.” 

For this recipe Crapanzano suggests using chocolate with a cacao percentage between 55% and 62% to achieve its perfect texture. She recommends Valrhona Équatoriale 55% or Oriado 60%. Valrhona chocolate isn’t cheap and can be hard to find. However, having made the mousse with other more affordable brands (i.e., Guittard and Scharffen Berger), I agree that Valrhona is worth the splurge if your budget allows. I bought my 1kg bag of Équatoriale directly from Valrhona’s website.

The following recipe serves 6. The parentheticals are mine because I prefer to scale certain ingredients.

200 grams / 7 ounces dark chocolate, between 55% and 62% cacao, broken into pieces

The grated zest of half an organic orange

1/8 teaspoon (.25 grams) freshly ground black pepper

1/3 cup (80 grams) whole milk

2 tablespoons (25 grams) granulated sugar

2 tablespoons (25 grams) buttery extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons Grand Marnier

1 cup (240 grams) heavy cream or crème fraiche, or a mixture of the two

Maldon flaky sea salt, optional

Blitz the chocolate in a food processor until finely ground. Add the orange zest and black pepper and process to combine.

Bring the milk and sugar to a lively simmer in a small saucepan. Turn the food processer on and, with the motor running, pour in the hot milk through the chute. It will take about 20 seconds to melt the chocolate. With the motor still running, pour in the olive oil and Grand Marnier. Once the mixture is smooth, turn off the machine and let the chocolate mixture sit for 10 minutes to cool slightly.

In a stand mixer or using electric beaters, whip the cream until it just starts to hold a soft shape. Scoop out about a quarter of the whipped cream, add it to the chocolate mixture and pulse until combined. Then, using a silicone spatula, very gently fold the chocolate mixture into the whipped cream until just incorporated; use a light touch.

Spoon the mousse into six ramekins, teacups or coupe glasses. Refrigerate for at least an hour, and up to 36 hours.

Sprinkle with a pinch of flaky sea salt, if so desired.

I add the sea salt because it adds a nice textural contrast. Crapanzano writes that “rum, bourbon, Cognac or simply a spoonful of espresso can stand in for the Grand Marnier and zest.” I like to use coconut rum—and keep the orange zest—because I love its flavor. I finely chop the chocolate before adding it to the food processor. Processing pieces of chocolate, even if broken up, makes a disconcerting racket.

A small 50ml ladle works like a charm when transferring the mousse into its individual serving vessels. I usually put the mousse into small glass pudding cups or Japanese soba cups.

I hope you enjoy this mousse as much as I do. I highly recommend all of Aleksandra Crapanzano’s cookbooks. She writes clear, concise recipes. Check out her The London Cookbook (2016) and Eat. Cook L.A. (2019). Both books are exceptional.

Lasagna

The lasagna recipe in this post draws inspiration from two lasagne recipes in Giuliano Bugialli’s classic Bugialli on Pasta (1988). One version hails from Naples and the other from Calabria.

Bugialli introduces the Neapolitan form:

“The well-known and very popular Lasagne imbottite, using long lasagne strips alternating layers of pasta with manifold ingredients, such as Napolitan ragù, tiny meatballs, sausage pieces, slices of mozzarella and hard-boiled egg (sic), ricotta, and grated Parmigiano is Naple’s version of the elaborate baked pasta made for the festivities of Carnival time. Such festival dishes once had a special meaning and were really made just at one time of year. Not only Carnival but each holiday season and even each saint’s day had its special dishes that were for just such an occasion, and they varied among the different regions and towns. But now one finds Lasagne imbottite on menus all over and at most times of the year, since the special meaning of such dishes has faded.”

Bugialli next turns to the Calabrian version:

“The Lasagne imbottite from neighboring Calabria is different. The fresh pasta is made with rougher semolina flour, whereas the Neapolitan is made with normal all-purpose flour; the little meat balls are made with pork rather than beef; the grated cheese is more likely to be pecorino; there is a simple tomato sauce rather than the Neapolitan ragù; and along with mozzarella, ricotta, and hard-boiled eggs is a special vegetable stuffing including dried porcini, artichokes, peas, and aromatic vegetables flavored with bay. A grand dish to celebrate Carnival, it is called in dialect form by the name, Sagne chine.”

The lasagna featured in this post borrows certain elements from both the Neapolitan and Calabrian dishes but more resembles the latter version (albeit simplier). I make a fresh egg pasta using 00 flour but add semolina to the dough. I form tiny pork meatballs that I poach in a simple tomato sauce. For cheese, I employ fresh homemade ricotta and heaps of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. I often sauté sliced mushrooms in butter to join the polpettine, tomato sauce and cheese in a six-layer lasagna. I omit the mozzarella and hard-boiled eggs favored by both the Neapolitans and Calabrians.

Here’s a little more detail if you want to try my take. I include links to previous posts to truncate these instructions.

For the Pork Meatballs

15 grams panko flakes, finely ground

50 grams whole milk

1.5 grams fennel seed, roughly ground

30 grams white onion, finely minced

12 grams butter

.35 gram fennel pollen

5 grams grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

4.5 grams kosher salt

5 grams sugar

1 gram freshly ground black pepper

5 grams tomato paste

1 gram toasted onion powder (I use Burlap & Barrel brand)

.5 gram garlic powder (Again, Burlap & Barrel brand)

225 grams ground pork

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, hydrate panko in milk. In a small pan, sauté minced onions in butter until onions are translucent and soft. Put cooked onions on a small tray and place the tray in the freezer to quicky cool. Add the remaining ingredients to the panko/milk mixture, remembering to add the cooled sautéed onions placed in the freezer. Mix the meatball ingredients together. (I usually fry a bit of the meat mixture to see if I need to adjust for salt and/or sugar.) Using wet hands, form approximately 40 tiny meatballs weighing between 5 to 7 grams each and measuring about 1-inch in diameter. Place meatballs on parchment paper-lined tray, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until use.

For the tomato sauce

½ white onion, diced

28 ounces whole peeled tomatoes (I use Bianco DiNapoli brand), crushed by hand or cut into small pieces with kitchen scissors

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

In a 26cm enameled cast iron Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add diced onions, salt and pepper to taste. Sauté onions until translucent and soft. Add tomatoes and remaining tomato liquid in can to the pot. Simmer tomato sauce, covered with lid slightly ajar, for 10 minutes. Add uncooked meatballs and shake pot to settle meatballs into the tomato sauce. Bring tomato sauce back to an low simmer, cover with lid lightly ajar, and cook for another 8 to 10 minutes. Use a kitchen thermometer to verify the meatballs are cooked (160°F). Cool sauce to room temperature and refrigerate, covered, a day or two until assembling the lasagna.

For the Ricotta

See recipe for fresh ricotta (here). I use around 275 grams of ricotta when I make this lasagna. Refrigerate ricotta until assembling the lasagna.

For the Pasta

165 grams Central Milling Organic Type 00 Normal Flour 

35 grams Giusto’s Gourmet Semolina Flour

2.3 grams sea salt

107 grams of an egg mixture (about 1 large egg and 2 egg yolks)

For this lasagna, I follow the pasta dough recipe in Andreas Papadakis’s Tipo 00 (here). I use my Imperia R220 Manual Pasta Machine to laminate and roll per Papadakis’s instructions. I stop rolling when reaching my machine’s No. 2.5 setting. This produces a pasta sheet approximately 1.5mm thick. The rollers on the R220 are a little over 8-inches wide. I cut the pasta sheet into six 8-inch by 8-inch squares.

For the Mushrooms

Using a damp towel, clean approximately a dozen Cremini mushrooms. Towel dry and slice off the end of each mushroom stem. Slice the mushrooms and sauté in 4 tablespoons of butter. Add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. (I often add shiitake mushroom power (here) while sautéing the mushrooms.)

For Parmigiano-Reggiano

Using the fine-shred side of a box grater, grate 300 grams of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.

Assembling the Lasagna

I usually make the lasagna’s ricotta, meatballs poached in tomato sauce and mushrooms a day or two in advance. I assemble the lasagna the day before baking and serving. 

With the ricotta, meatballs/tomato sauce, mushrooms, and Parmigiano-Reggiano ready, here’s my process.

1. Bring a pot of well-salted water to a boil. Fill a wide mixing bowl with cold water and ice cubes to shock the par-boiled pasta sheets. Cook each pasta sheet for approximately 1 minute. Using a spider strainer, transfer the pasta to the ice water bath. Remove the parboiled pasta from the ice water and lay it on a kitchen towel and pat dry. Repeat with remaining pasta sheets.

2. Butter a deep, square baking dish with interior dimensions of 8” x 8” x 2”. (I use an Emile Henry Modern Classics Square Baker with a 2-quart capacity.) Spoon enough tomato sauce to lightly cover the bottom of the baking dish. Keep in mind you need enough tomato sauce for each layer and the top of the lasagna.)

3. Place a parboiled pasta sheet on top of the tomato sauce. Spoon another thin layer of tomato sauce on the pasta. Scatter meatballs—five or six—over the pasta sheet, dot with ricotta, add some of the cooked mushrooms and dust with a handful of Parmigiano-Reggiano. Place a sheet of pasta on top of the base layer and evenly press down on the pasta sheet.

4. Repeat using the remaining ingredients. Top the final layer with tomato sauce and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Dot with small pieces of butter. At this point I usually slice the lasagna into 6 to 8 portions. This makes serving easier after baking. Cover the assembled lasagna with aluminum foil and refrigerate until ready to bake.

5. A couple of hours before baking, take the lasagna out of the refrigerator. When ready to bake, put oven rack in middle position and pre-heat the oven to 375°F. Bake the lasagna, covered with aluminum foil, for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake the lasagna for another 30 minutes. Let lasagna rest after baking for 10 minutes.

Making a lasagna from scratch takes time. But prepping components early and assembling your lasagna a day in advance pays dividends on serving day: feeding friends and family becomes less hectic.

I frequently play around with some of the lasagna’s ingredients. Sometimes I use wide strips of homemade pasta in place of large sheets. I might use Pecorino Romano instead of Parmigiano-Reggiano (or even a mixture of the two cheeses). I often swap out the mushrooms for thick slices of artichoke hearts poached in a rich chicken stock until the slices are almost soft. Sometimes I even make things even easier by using store-bought ricotta and replacing the homemade meatballs with chucks of sausage squeezed out of its casing. Easier is often just as delicious! Enjoy!

Best Cookbooks of 2025

I think 2025 a very, very good year for new cookbooks. Whittling down my list to only five titles took time. Reflecting upon these standout books, I see a number of authors that appear in my Best Of lists of years past. In alphabetical order, I share my picks for the five best cookbooks of 2025.

Chocolat: Parisian Desserts and Other Delights by Aleksandra Crapanzano (Scribner)

 

Mokonuts by Moko Hirayama and Omar Koreitem (Phaidon)

 

On Meat by Jeremy Fox (Phaidon)

 

Rome: A Culinary History, Cookbook, and Field Guide to the Flavors that Built a City by Katie Parla (Parla Publishing)

 

The Talisman of Happiness by Ada Boni (Voracious / Little Brown)

 

Chocolat Crapanzano follows up her Gâteau (2022) with a comprehensive collection of recipes of Parisian desserts starring chocolate. Crapanzano writes clear, concise recipes that offer helpful hints and delivers delicious results. I particularly enjoy her chapter entitled Mousse and More. I made her recipe for Mousse au Chocolat Rapide for Christmas dinner. So good and easy! Crapanzano’s recipe calls for Grand Marnier and orange zest, but she writes “[r]um, bourbon, Cognac or simply a spoonful of espresso can stand in....” I opted for coconut rum. Sorry, Mary, but the coconut and chocolate tasted delicious together. I cannot wait to see what Crapanzano writes next.

 

Mokonuts This excellent cookbook presents recipes from a small restaurant called Mokonuts in Paris’s 11^tharrondissement run by Moko Hirayama and Omar Koreitem. The chef/authors divide their cookbook into two parts: Part 1 features Koreitem’s savory fare. Some dishes sound fancy (e.g., Asparagus, Scallop Skirt Emulsion, and Broccoli Sprouts) while others simple (e.g., Tomato Salad and Lamb Shoulder Tagine). His careful, appealing recipes evidence his fine dining credentials. To date, I’ve spent more time cooking from the book’s Part 2 – Breakfast and Sweet. Hirayama shares recipes for very good English Muffins and Coconut Milk Blancmange, which tastes wonderful. But, like many others who own this book, it’s hard not to do a deep dive into the cookie recipes. The Mokotecao is a special, easy-to-make cookie that has absolutely no business being as delicious as it is. Hirayama ends Part 2 with a couple of family recipes I want to try in 2026: Mom’s Super Juicy Orange Cake and Dad’s Legendary Curry. If I had to buy only one cookbook this year, Mokonuts might be the one.

 

On Meat Fox’s follow-up to his On Vegetables (2017) begins with a Forward written by Paul Bertolli, author of some of the greatest modern cookbooks. Fox and Bertolli both write unique, inspiring prose: Bertolli more formal while Fox casual and, well, funny. For example, here’s Fox’s introduction to his recipe for Meatloaf & Mash which he tops with crispy shallots: “I’m just gonna throw this out there: fried shallots are insanely tasty. The amount listed here [in the recipe] is enough for this dish. But it doesn’t cover the snacking tax. Or the “I wish I had more of those” regrets. Maybe quadruple the amount. Or perhaps pentuple. That means five times. I had to look it up. You can also say quintuple, but pentuple just sounds cool. The point stands. More is more and that is better.”

 

A Fox On Meat recipe reads like the chef is there at your side offering counsel while you prep and cook. Highlights in this wonderful cookbook include: Spanish Tortilla but Like a Reuben; Pickle Chick; Chicken Paprikash with Board-Cut Spaetzle; and, last but not least, Manresa Staff Gumbo “Ya Ya” by David Kinch. This is a great cookbook!

 

Rome I own a lot of excellent cookbooks on the food of Rome. Yet...although the recipes in Parla’s latest effort ring quite familiar, there’s just something about this cookbook/travel guide that really appeals to me. I mean, it’s fun! It has a recipe for Uova Sode (Hard-Boilded Eggs). Stinky hard-boiled eggs! Where you actually aim for that eggy “sulfurous funk” as Parla writes. But even if the recipes represent variations on familiar Roman recipes, the book’s design and writing and pictures are all, well, really fun! I cannot wait until next summer to try her recipe for Zucchine Ripiene Alla Romana (Meat Filled Zucchini) cooked in tomato passata. I happily add Parla’s latest to my Italian cookbook collection.

 

The Talisman of Happiness Last, but by no means least, a true (and now complete) classic becomes available to English readers. From the Forward by Lidia Bastianich and—here she is again—Katie Parla, I glean that The Talisman of Happiness represents for Italians what The Joy of Cooking is to Americans: a trusted tome when looking for cooking guidance and a sound recipe to make a time-honored dish. I flip to any given page and I find something I want to cook. Turn to page 214 and find a recipe for Riso in Timballo con Polpettine (Rice Timbale with Meatballs). Now, I may not want to follow the recipe exactly as written—I might jettison the Cognac—but Boni gives the cook enough to work with to create the dish they want to make. Turn to Page 708 and find Boni’s recipe for Zucchine Ripiene di Carne Alla Romana. (It’s fun to compare this recipe to Parla’s.) The Talisman of Happiness is a great reference cookbook and, with 1,680 recipes, a tremendous value. If you love to cook Italian food, check it out.

 

Because I limit my Best Of lists to five cookbooks, I like to end these posts by highlighting a number of other cookbooks that I purchased and enjoy. In no particular order for 2025: Sunny Days Taco Nights by Enrique Olvera with Alonso Ruvalcaba (Phaidon); Homemade Ramen by Sho Spaeth (Norton); Recipes from the American South by Michael W. Twitty (Phaidon); and Korean Temple Cooking: The Life and Work of Jeongkwan Snim by Hoo Nam Seelmann (Hardie Grant).

 

Finally, I like to focus on the positive, but one cookbook I purchased that I thought I couldn’t do without was Phaidon’s Franco Pepe: Pizza Chef. I ordered it sight unseen from Pegasus Books, a local bookshop in Berkeley. If you’re thinking about buying this book, definitely try to preview a copy in your local bookstore or library. It failed to meet my admittedly high expectations, but maybe it will be your cup of tea.

 

Happy New Year to All!

Ricotta Cavatelli

In my previous post (here), I shared a recipe for homemade ricotta. Let’s now use fresh ricotta to make cavatelli with a BeeBo cavatelli maker.

I own two hand-cranked cavatelli machines: a vintage BeeBo and a Demetra. In my opinion, the BeeBo bests the Demetra. The Demetra features a sturdy build but, in my experience, its suction cup foot often fails to secure the machine even to a clean and flat stainless-steel work counter.

My BeeBo came with a small recipe booklet. I didn’t pay attention to it for years. However, while researching ricotta cavatelli recipes, I learned that a number of talented chefs swear by the BeeBo’s ricotta dough recipe.  Frank Falcinelli and Frank Castronovo in their The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual (2010) write “[o]ur [ricotta] cavatelli recipe—which we learned from the pamphlet in the BeeBo box—is on page 100.”

In Pasta By Hand (2015), Jenn Louis introduces her ricotta cavatelli recipe as follows:

“This Italian dumpling is one of the first I learned how to make. One year, my husband bought me a hand-crank cavatelli machine for my birthday. We now use that machine at Lincoln, and it has been repaired and rewelded twice because it gets so much use! The recipe for ricotta cavatelli in the booklet that was included with the machine yields perfectly tender and flavorful dumplings.”

Here’s Louis’s take on the BeeBo ricotta cavatelli recipe.  I include her instructions for using a stand mixer and I offer some BeeBo-specific recommendations. 

500 g / 3½ cups + 1 tbsp all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

1 tsp kosher salt

480 g / 2 cups whole-milk ricotta cheese, homemade or store-bought

55 g / ¼ cup whole milk

1 egg

Sauce of your choice (suggestions follow)

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment, combine the flour, salt, ricotta, milk, and egg. Knead on medium speed for 10 minutes, until fully combined and the dough is mostly smooth. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and dust with flour.

Uncover the dough and place it on a work surface lightly dusted with flour. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough to approximately ¼-inch thickness. As best you can, square off the sides of the dough sheet to form a rectangle. Cut the dough into strips approximately ½-inch wide.

Attach your cavatelli machine to a sturdy work surface. Feed the dough strips into the machine by cranking the machine’s handle. Cavatelli will fall out of the machine’s round head onto your work surface. Put the cavatelli on the prepared baking sheets and shape the remaining dough. Make sure that the cavatelli don’t touch or they will stick together. After processing all of the dough, Louis writes that you should have enough ricotta cavatelli to serve 8.

To store, refrigerate on the baking sheets, covered with plastic wrap, for up to 2 days, or freeze on the baking sheets and transfer to an airtight container. Use within 1 month. Do not thaw before cooking.

To cook, bring a large pot filled with generously salted water to a simmer over medium-high heat. Add the cavatelli and simmer until they float to the surface, 1 to 3 minutes. Remove immediately with a slotted spoon and finish with your choice of sauce. Serve right away.

Louis recommends pairing ricotta cavatelli with these traditional sauces (recipes that Louis shares in Cooking By Hand): pesto; tomato sauce; guanciale, tomato, and red onion; brown butter with sage; fonduta; gorgonzola cream sauce; liver, pancetta, and porcini ragú; rabbit ragú; lamb ragú; or beef ragú. 

I frequently sauce ricotta cavatelli with leftover meat and braising liquid from a previous meal. A favorite combination includes chopped meat from chicken thighs braised in stock with sliced artichoke hearts and porcini mushrooms.

Making cavatelli with a BeeBo is so easy. Through experience I found that the key to crafting perfectly formed cavatelli with a BeeBo is rolling and cutting the strips of dough to just the right thickness and width. I find that the sweet spot is a dough strip that is approximately ¼-inch thick and ½-inch wide. But, don’t worry, even misshaped cavatelli taste great.

A couple of final notes. The BeeBo ricotta cavatelli recipe easily scales up and down. I often halve Louis’s recipe to feed 4. And I find that a stacking set of gyoza trays work really well when storing pasta. Three of these trays easily accommodates over one pound of cavatelli.

Homemade Ricotta

In the Encyclopedia of Pasta (2009), Oretta Zanini De Vita writes about cavatelli:

“[t]hese small masterpieces of pasta sculpture, which resemble little hats, immediately evoke Puglia, even if now they are typical of all the regions of the south, where they have acquired different names and are treated to different sauces. Their name derives from the curious shape obtained with skilled hands from a dough always made from durum wheat.” 

Today pasta makers use a broad range of wheat flour—from weak to strong—to craft cavatelli. Recently I mixed fine cloth-bolted pastry flour from Anson Mills with 00 flour with the aim of making a soft textured cavatelli. I have combined stoneground Sonora, a soft white winter flour, with extra fancy (aka fine) durum to create a chewier cavatelli. But the cavatelli dough that I run through my BeeBo cavatelli machine the most—at least lately—blends homemade ricotta and all-purpose flour. This post covers how I make ricotta. A follow-up post will share how I make ricotta cavatelli using a BeeBo cavatelli machine.

Homemade Ricotta

Making ricotta at home can be fast and easy. I employ a very simple method that takes around ½ hour to produce a cream-rich ricotta. I learned the technique during a pasta making course that I took back in 2011 from Thomas McNaughton, the chef/owner of flour + water in San Francisco’s Mission District. I’ve since tweaked his class recipe based upon a 2015 San Francisco Chronicle article about McNaughton’s ricotta. 

8 cups whole milk

1 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon kosher salt

¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

Place a colander inside a larger bowl, line the colander with cheesecloth, and set aside. Slowly bring the milk, cream, and salt to simmer in a heavy 6-quart pot over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes.

When the milk barely begins to simmer (about 180 to 200°F), add the lemon juice. Stir constantly until the mixture starts to curdle, about 4 more minutes.

Remove the pot from the heat. Do not simmer the milk after the curds begin to separate or the curds will become dense and dry. Allow the curds to rest for 10 minutes.

Pour the milk mixture into the lined colander to strain. The milk will have already formed hard curds — ricotta cheese. You can use it after 5 minutes because not much more moisture will be extracted by further draining.

An instant thermometer tells you when to combine the lemon juice and dairy. I add the lemon juice—or whatever acidic mixture I decide to use—when the dairy reaches 195°F.

I make another slight deviation from McNaughton’s recipe: instead of pouring the mixture into the colander, I lift the curds out of the pot with a stainless-steel spider strainer and place them in the cheesecloth-lined colander to drain for about 20 minutes.

I have a Breville/PolyScience Induction Range that I like to use when I make ricotta. The induction range uses its probe’s temperature reading to heat the milk and cream to exactly 195°F. I select the machine’s low intensity heat setting with probe control and insert the probe into the dairy mixture. The machine sounds when the dairy reaches 195°F and I stir in my acid. In my experience, the curds form very quickly.

My notes from McNaughton’s class read that any clear acid—lemon juice, white wine vinegar, even white wine—will work to make ricotta. Once I even tried powdered citric acid mixed with a splash of water. Typically, however, I use a mixture of almost 4 tablespoons lemon juice with a splash of champagne vinegar.

The method I use is by no means the only way to make ricotta at home. Other techniques, even though more involved, also work to produce different textures of ricotta.

In Classic Techniques of Italian Cooking (1982), Giuliano Bugialli’s recipe stirs lemon juice into milk, lets the mixture stand for 36 hours in a cool place, then adds yogurt. Bring the contents to a boil for 1 minute. Pour the product into a colander lined with heavy cheesecloth to drain for 1 hour. He writes: “[t]his is the authentically dry unsalted ricotta which is to be used as a binding ingredient. It does not have a rich flavor in itself.”

In The Splendid Table (1992), Lynne Rossetto Kasper presents another method to make a creamier ricotta. Her recipe warms milk, cream and lemon juice to 170°F over medium-low heat. This, she writes, can take 40 minutes. Then turn up the heat to medium to bring the mixture to 205° to 208°F. Turn off the heat, let rest for 10 minutes then turn the mixture into a cheesecloth-lined colander to drain for 15 minutes.

Cardamom Doughnut-ish Tea Cakes

Let’s end 2024 with an easy recipe for a delicious little tea cake. In Everything I Want to Eat (Abrams, 2016), Jessica Koslow, who owns Sqirl in Los Angeles, introduces her restaurant’s recipe for Cardamom Doughnut-ish Tea Cakes like this: “I know there are a lot of challenging recipes in this book. Here’s one that’s not. But don’t be fooled by how straight forward it is. These tea cakes are one of our biggest crowd-pleasers.” I tried this recipe because I wanted an easy donut recipe. The following fits the bill if you are okay a doughnut’s kissing cousin.

For the Tea Cakes

150 g unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the muffin tin

255 g all-purpose flour

135 g sugar

2½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

¾ teaspoon fine sea salt

1 large egg

240 ml whole milk

For the Cinnamon-Sugar Topping

65 g sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground cardamom

Pinch of fine sea salt

Unsalted butter, melted

Make the Tea Cakes

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Butter just the bottom surface (not the sides) of a 12-well muffin tin.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom, and salt.

In another bowl, crack the egg and whisk to break it up. Gradually whisk in the melted butter and milk.

Pour into the flour mixture, stirring just until combined. (If the batter looks lumpy and slightly undermixed, it’s perfect.)

Scoop the batter into each well of the muffin tin, filling them only three-quarters full. Bake until the tops are very light golden and spring back when you press on them, about 25 minutes. Let cool for a few minutes in the tins.

Meanwhile, Make the Cinnamon-Sugar Topping

Stir together the sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, and salt. Once the tea cakes have cooled off a little, turn them out of the tins. Dip the tops into the melted butter, then into the cinnamon sugar. Any bald patches can be brushed with melted butter and dipped into the sugar again.

These are best eaten immediately, but can be stored, covered, overnight.

With a pleasing springy texture and delicious cardamom aroma and flavor, I think these little cakes make the perfect holiday treat. Added bonus: washing-up after baking is as easy as making the cakes.

Best Cookbooks of 2024

One of the best parts of writing A Serious Bunburyist comes yearend when I choose my five favorite cookbooks of the year. I generally gravitate to single subject, professional chef, and restaurant books; this year is no different. In alphabetical order, I share my picks for the five best cookbooks of 2024.

Café Cecilia Cookbook by Max Rocha (Phaidon)

The Four Horsemen: Food + Wine for Good Times by Nick Curtola with Gabe Ulla + James Murphy, Notes on Wine by Justin Chearno (Abrams)

Konbini: Cult Recipes, Stories and Adventures from Japan’s Iconic Convenience Stores by Brendan Liew and Caryn Ng (Smith Street Books)

The Turkey Book: A Chef’s Journal of Hunting and Cooking America’s Bird by Jesse Griffiths (St. John Press)

Very Good Bread: The Science of Dough and the Art of Making Bread at Home by Melissa Weller (Knopf)

Here’s why I selected these titles.

Café Cecilia Cookbook Rocha shares recipes to make simple food (think Richard Olney’s Simple French Food (here) and Fergus Henderson’s fare (here), for whom Rocha worked for at St. John in London).  Café Cecilia’s elegant book design feels both modern and handsomely retro. I baked Rocha’s Guinness Bread using a locally made stout from Original Pattern in Oakland, CA, and the result tasted delicious. The book has a strong pasta section, probably because Rocha worked at The River Café. I plan to make his recipe for Odette’s Pork Pasta over the holidays. Again: a beautiful, handsome cookbook with great photographs by Matthieu Lavanchy.

The Four Horsemen This cookbook drew my interest when I learned that Nick Curtola, the chef at The Four Horsemen restaurant in New York City, worked for Russell Moore and Allison Hopelain at Camino in Oakland, CA. Sadly, Camino closed its doors in 2018, but, fortunately, Russ and Allison first penned an outstanding cookbook in 2015 entitled This is Camino (here). With Curtola’s Camino ties, I wondered what his recipes might offer. I see Camino’s ethos of simplicity in Curtola’s offerings: Grilled Flatbread; Sugar Snap Peas with Calabrian Chile, Mint, and Ricotta Salata; Little Gems with Green Goddess, Radishes, and Fried Croutons. But clearly Curtola’s food for The Four Horsemen is his own. With the restaurant’s wine credentials—it won a James Beard Award for the best wine program in the United State—most of the cookbook’s dishes pair well with wine. If you like cookbooks that tell a story, then enjoy this tale of how a bunch of profoundly naïve folks thought they could open a restaurant in NYC without any real experience to speak of. Well...they did and it’s an unexpected Cinderella story. We are now the happy recipients of its talented chef’s recipes in The Four Horsemen.

Konbini This unique book gets my nod for the most enjoyable cookbook of 2024. One of the surprising highlights of my trip to Japan in 2018 was the pleasure and excitement experienced each time I turned into a Japanese 7-Eleven konbini. The story of how a US-born convenience store traveled overseas to Japan and blossomed comes to life in Brendan Liew and Caryn Ng’s Konbini. I enjoyed reading the history of Japan’s 7-Eleven, Family Mart and Lawson convenience stores. I learned about these konbini’s seasonal offerings and regional variations. Liew and Ng offer a generous helping of elevated recipes that help you to recreate classic konbini food offerings in the comfort of your own kitchen. Some dishes, like onigiri, barely need a recipe, but the book provides useful process photographs that show how to form these delicious Japanese rice balls. I look forward to trying out some of Konbini’s chicken recipes: fried chicken, karaage and roast chicken. Kudos to the book’s designer, Evi-O.Studio, and photographer, Gorta Yuuki. Both contribute mightily to Konbini’s overall success.

The Turkey Book I wrote about this single subject cookbook earlier this year (here). In summary: The Turkey Book is a generous, interesting and well-written book on the art of hunting and cooking turkey. Expect strong recipes from a James Beard winning cookbook author and talented chef.

Very Good Bread Melissa Weller, together with Carolynn Carreño, penned one of my favorite baking books, A Good Bake (2020). This year Weller follows up her modern classic with Very Good Bread. I wish I had this book when I began baking! Clear, concise recipes give the baker all the information necessary to produce outstanding results. I’m particularly looking forward to making Weller’s recipe for M’smen, a laminated flatbread from Morocco. Very Good Bread contains an extensive section on making bagels. Weller is a real pro—she served as the head baker at Thomas Keller’s Per Se restaurant in NYC—and her latest book should more than satisfy both the beginning and experienced baker.

If I do not get around to writing another post by year’s end, wishing you Season’s Greetings and a Healthy, Sane 2025.

Pasta Day 2024

Here in the United States, 17 October's National Pasta Day has come and gone. However, it’s not too late to commemorate World Pasta Day on 25 October 2024. The good folks at Emiliomiti are offering 20% off all standard pasta dies. This sale ends on 27 October, so if you are in the market for a new pasta die, check out https://pastabiz.com.

To mark Pasta Day(s), I am sharing a list of my go-to pasta-related books, both reference and culinary. These titles hold pride of place in my collection. If you dig around this site, you will see that I frequently reference many of these books.

To keep this post short, I will not cover the “why” behind my list other than to say each enriches my understanding of pasta cookery.

An A-Z of Pasta by Rachel Roddy, Fig Tree / Penguin, 2021.

American Sfoglino by Evan Funke with Katie Parla, Chronicle Books, 2019.

Bugialli on Pasta by Giuliano Bugialli, Simon & Schuster, 1988.

Cooking By Hand by Paul Bertolli, Clarkson Potter, 2003.

Encyclopedia of Pasta by Oretta Zanini De Vita, translated by Maureen B. Fant, University of California Press, 2009.

The Geometry of Pasta by Caz Hildebrand & Jacob Kenedy, Quirk Books, 2010.

Pasta by Missy Robbins and Talia Baiocchi, Ten Speed Press, 2021.

The Pasta Codex by Vincenzo Buonassisi, Rizzoli, 2020.

Pasta Grannies by Vicky Bennison, Books One and Two, Hardie Grant, 2019 & 2022.

Sauces & Shapes by Oretta Zanini De Vita and Maureen B. Fant, W. W. Norton, 2013.

Happy Pasta Day, everyone!