Product Description

Award-winning chef Rick Tramonto shows home cooks how to recreate the simple, flavorful Italian dishes he serves at his wildly popular Osteria di Tramonto.

Osteria means “tavern” in Italian. It is always a casual place, usually family-owned, where simple country cooking is served to accompany the local wine. In 2006, acclaimed chef Rick Tramonto opened Osteria di Tramonto on Chicago’s north shore. In this spectacular restaurant, he serves the kind of earthy, hearty fare so beloved by Italians—and Americans.

Now, Rick has written a cookbook showcasing the food from his osteria, with recipes ideally suited for the home cook. Osterias tend to be open all day, so Rick’s book features recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as well as for little snacks in between.

Breakfast and brunch recipes include omelets, frittatas, pancakes, crepes, and smoothies. Lunch includes salads, soups, pizzas, and simple pasta and meat dishes. Dinner offers everything from bruschetta and antipasto to fish, meat, and braised dishes, pasta, and desserts. There are small plates, too, and numerous antipasti, panini, and crostini.

Blood Orange Crepes with Vanilla Mascarpone, Roman-Style Omelets, Rick’s Mother’s Lasagna, Capellini with Six Summer Tomatoes, Wood-Roasted Mussels in White Wine Sauce, Braised Pork Shanks with Borlotti Beans, Lamb Porterhouse with Salsa Verde, Goat Cheese Scalloped Potatoes, and Italian Chocolate Pudding are just some of the more than 150 intensely flavorful dishes. This is an irresistible collection no true lover of good eating will want to pass up.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #111748 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-14
• Released on: 2008-10-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780767927710
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Tramonto, a partner in five Chicago restaurants, and author of Fantastico!, Amuse Bouche and Tru, returns to the food of his childhood in this homage to the osterias so common in Italy. Osterias, or taverns, offer simple and straightforward dishes designed to accompany the wine. Tramonto and coauthor Goodbody stay true to this tradition, including wine recommendations for most recipes. In addition to the usual categories, the authors include sections on breakfast, sandwiches, pizza, cheese, and side dishes. Recipes are hearty and by no means simplistic. Panettone French Toast and Sicilian Tuna Sandwiches whet the appetite, while Asparagus with Fried Egg Salad and Pecorino, and Roast Chicken Piccata-Style offer new twists to everyday ingredients. Sidebars on salmon, aged balsamic vinegar and how to cook pasta highlight ingredients and techniques to aid in the kitchen and help the cook make better purchasing decisions. A handsome and lavishly photographed collection, this will appeal to Tramonto fans and earn him an even larger following. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Tramonto has established his credentials as a celebrity chef, and his innovative, high-end cuisine has earned national kudos. Now he has turned his attention away from haute cuisine to the simple, homey delights of an Italian trattoria. Americans’ tastes in Italian food have grown much more sophisticated and demanding, and Tramonto addresses just such an audience. His version of fried calamari features extracrunchy cornmeal and semolina coating. Vegetarians will revel in the many vegetable dishes including asparagus, red beets, squash, and zucchini. Plenty of mascarpone enriches creamed chard. Tramonto clearly favors long-braised meats, from veal cheeks to both lamb and pork shanks, all fragrant with herbs. Although Italians favor simple breakfasts, Tramonto concocts some complex egg dishes that could star at any brunch. Tramonto appreciates the savor of real Parmigiano-Reggiano, but instead of grating it over his creations, he prefers shards of it shaved onto the top. --Mark Knoblauch

Review
"Warm your kitchen and your soul with straightforward food from Rick Tramonto’s Osteria. It will surely make your kitchen smell like home."
—Emeril Lagasse


“A wonderful compilation of osteria-style recipes! This book captures the soul of family-style, ‘smart casual,’ Italian cooking.”
—Alfred Portale

"Rick's books never fail to deliver delicious flavors and techniques that are perfect for the home cook and savvy enough for chefs. Osteria is a cookbook you can take real comfort in when you are good and hungry!"
—Chef Cat Cora, first and only female Iron Chef on FOOD Network's Iron Chef America

"For the last decade, I've been traveling in and out of Chicago several times a year and I'm always amazed at what a true culinary destination the city has become. And without a doubt, Rick Tramonto is as integral to the flavor of Chicagoland as anybody. With this book, all of that simple, yet delicious, Italian fare with which Rick embraces his restaurant customers everyday is beautifully laid out for us all to take home and enjoy with our own friends and family."
—Tyler Florence


From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews

Needs an editor
The photography is great and many of the recipes quite tasty. But on more than one occasion while I cooked from this book, some instructional step was either missing entirely or glossed over (insufficient detail). After a couple of times of this, the topper was the lasagna recipe, which not only failed to tell me to cover it (as just about every other lasagna recipe in the world tells you to do -- I failed to honor my instincts and of course, the lasagne burned), but it also didn't tell me what to do with the tomato mixture it asked me to prepare. I winged it and figured it out -- after all, this is not rocket scient -- but it would have been nice to have better instructions.

Hopefully the author will get another pair of eyes to read his recipes and actually cook them before he publishes another book. I have officially retired this book and won't be cooking anything new from it -- cooking can be frustrating enough without a poorly edited cookbook to add to the problems.

Best Italian Cookbook EVER!
I had to comment on this cookbook because it's absolutely fabulous, it's truly beautiful, and the recipes are surprisingly doable for the average cook who wants to be able to make a beautiful gourmet meal. I actually bought this to send to my daughter and son in law, but I'm going to have to order another one for them because there's no WAY I'm letting this one get away from me after having sat and read all of the recipes. Some are, I'll admit, a little expensive to make, but not all by any means, and once in a while it won't hurt you to splurge--that's my motto anyhow. The gourmet pizza recipes alone are worth the price of the book. Every great Italian dish I've ever heard of as well as some I've never heard of are in this book and I'm sure I can make every one of them and have them turn out right. If you only buy one Italian cookbook, make it this one.

Real Italian Cooking
Osteria is Italian for tavern, and the dishes served at them are simple, hearty country cooking, often designed to accent the local wines served along-side. Rick Tramonto is a high-profile chef in Chicago(the James Beard Foundation named him 2002's Best Chef in the Midwest), chef and partner in five restaurants known for their innovative styles. Here, Tramonto revisits the family-style foods of his childhood. Th ere are more than 150 recipes, covering the entire day, breakfasts to dinners, antipasti to desserts. These are the dishes in their original native state,before so many recipes tried to simplify down to five or six ingredients and 30 minutes or less. They require an attention to detail, be it in getting the proper, fresh ingredients, or making sure to follow the steps. Tramonto includes wine suggestions, and in the latest trend, provides not only commentary about each recipe, but also side bar information on finding or making the different elements, from balsamic vinegar to polenta and cornmeal.