RIVER CAFE COOKBOOK EASY
BY ROSE GRAY AND RUTH ROGERS

Review by

River Cafe Cookbook Easy
(Ebury Press) ISBN 978-0091925321 0091925320

Italian cooking is easy and delicious, according to authors Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers. Their 270-page Italian cookbook features Italian recipes for appetizers, main courses and desserts from the River Café restaurant in London, England.

Dishes for each Italian meal course

The simple Italian recipes from River Café are easy to prepare, with straightforward instructions.

Unless accustomed to European measurements, in grams and milliliters, and oven temperatures in gas marks, North American cooks may have problems with ingredient quantities in River Cafe Cookbook Easy recipes.

Chapters begin with introductions to each Italian meal course — bruschetta, antipasti, seafood, meat (chicken, fowl, veal, beef), vegetables, desserts (biscuits, chocolate and almond cakes), fruit and ice creams (tartufo and sorbets).

How to make gnocchi

Several River Cafe recipes include comments about ingredients, cooking techniques and equipment. For example, Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers recommend serving their porcini, sage and orange dish as a vegetarian risotto. They also advise cooks not to pre-chop rosemary or it will turn black.

Delicious and almost edible full-page color photos by Martyn Thompson and other photographers depict most finished dishes in River Cafe Cookbook Easy. Step-by-step photos illustrate how to make gnocchi and other Italian dishes.

Italian sauces

The Sauces and Basics chapter provides recipes for horseradish sauce, salsa verde, salsa rossa piccante, aioli, borlotti and cannellini, used in many Italian dishes. It also describes techniques, like how to clean salted anchovies.

Bruschetta is more than grilled bread with chopped tomatoes, garlic and olive oil, according to River Cafe Cookbook Easy. Twenty-four bruschetta recipes, with photos, range from asparagus Parmesan to roast zucchini.

It is not always easy to find recipes for game. Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers include recipes for guinea fowl with fennel, grouse with bruschetta, spiced pigeon, pheasant with potatoes, grilled partridge and roast quail with sage.

Sample River Cafe restaurant recipes

Ricotta red chilli bruschetta. Porcini and Parmesan antipasta. Beef fillet with thyme carpaccio. Zucchini and cannellini bean soup. Pumpkin crostini soup. Penne with arrabbiata sauce. Zucchini flowers stuffed with ricotta. Porcini, sage and orange risotto. Grilled tuna with fennel seeds. Zucchini fritters. Pistachio almond cake. Walnut and brandy chocolate cake.

River Cafe Cookbook Easy

Contents

Introduction Italian store cupboard
Suppliers
Index

Authors

Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers have written nine other River Cafe cookbooks.

Other River Cafe books:

River Cafe Pocket Books - Fish & Shellfish

River Cafe Pocket Books - Pasta and Ravioli


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