The Rose Pistola Cookbook: 140 Italian Recipes from San Francisco's Favorite North Beach Restaurant - Hardcover

Hearon, Reed; Knickerbocker, Peggy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0767902505 ISBN 13: 9780767902502

Publisher: Broadway, 1999

Synopsis

When award-winning chef Reed Hearon decided to open his third restaurant in the historic North Beach section of San Francisco, he wanted to pay tribute to the cuisine of the Italian immigrants who settled there. He was immediately intrigued by a hardworking, hard-drinking barkeep named Rose Pistola who had been featured in journalist Peggy Knickerbocker's recently published article on the great cooks, or "Old Stoves," of North Beach. He asked Rose if he could name his new restaurant after her, to which she replied, "What's in it for me?" Reed's answer? A table anytime.

Now tables are hard to come by at Reed's wildly successful Rose Pistola restaurant. Hailed as "the best Italian restaurant in San Francisco" by the San Francisco Chronicle, Rose Pistola took the country by storm, winning the 1997 James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant, while Bon Appetit named it "One of the Year's Best New Restaurants."

The Rose Pistola Cookbook features 140 of this beloved restaurant's best dishes, which combine Old-World Italian spirit and innovative California cuisine. Each recipe has been simplified for the home cook, emphasizing readily available ingredients and straightforward step-by-step instructions. Only the freshest seasonal fruits, vegetables, and seafood are used in ingredient-driven dishes that simply burst with flavor: Shaved Artichokes with Fava Beans and Parmesan. Roasted Beets with Ricotta Salata and Arugula. Wood-Oven Baked Goat Cheese and Roasted Pepper Pizza. Skillet-Roasted Mussels. Crisp Salmon with Fennel and Tapenade. Lamb Shanks with Peas and Potatoes. Rustic Nectarine and Berry Tart.

Striking black-and-white photographs of North Beach's farmers, fishermen, and other local residents accompany personal interviews, historical trivia, and colorful anecdotes about this exciting region. With gorgeous full-color food photographs and detailed information on techniques and ingredients, The Rose Pistola Cookbook brings the evocative flavors of North Beach into your kitchen.

About this title

Review

When Reed Hearon, one of San Francisco's most popular chefs, opened an Italian restaurant with a wood-burning oven, he decided to focus on simple, carefully prepared, traditional dishes. His biggest coup was getting Rose Pistola to lend the restaurant her name, adding memories of the beloved North Beach saloon where this gritty, colorful woman, also known for her Old-country cooking, held court for decades.

At Rose Pistola, Hearon focuses mostly on Ligurian cuisine, made using the best local ingredients. This book, written with native San Franciscan and knowledgeable Italian cook Peggy Knickerbocker, introduces you to more than 140 of these Northern Italian dishes, including Trofie, dumpling-like pasta, served with pungent basil pesto, and with Farinata, pizza-like chickpea crusts served topped with tuna and sun-dried tomatoes or fresh sage leaves, tiny olives, and onions slowly melted in olive oil until they caramelize. Hearon explains how home cooks should make his Roasted Fish with Potatoes and Artichokes, punctuated with tiny olives and a splash of white wine, and satisfying antipasti like Baked Ricotta, served with garlic-laden arugula purée and grilled or toasted country bread. Instructions for making ricotta cheese from milk, slowly oven-baking white beans, and preparing fresh, lemon-zested Basilade for finishing dishes, will enlarge any cook's repertoire.

Hearon offers a bountiful Cioppino, the aromatic, brothy stew native to the Golden Gate city. Like most Italian and Californian cooks, Hearon relies heavily on the quality of what is local. He also makes a brilliant Braised Chicken with Turnips, Potatoes, and Carrots, easy for almost anyone, anywhere to reproduce. Desserts feature fresh berries and other fruit, but chocoholics will adore the Budino, an alluringly butter-rich baked chocolate pudding enrobed in creamy ganache and covered in a layer of cake. As Hearon suggests, though, you can be in heaven serving the pudding unadorned and cut into slices.

Historic black-and-white photos and yummy-looking color photos of the food give this book a lively sense of history and make you yearn to eat at the trendy Rose Pistola, selected as Best New Restaurant in the United States in 1997 by the James Beard Foundation. --Dana Jacobi

From the Back Cover

"But the real triumph of Rose Pistola is the cioppino--a huge silver pot of San Francisco's famous seafood stew, rich with crab, mussels, rockfish, and calamari. Ladled into beautiful blue bowls, it is how the stuff at Fisherman's Wharf longs to taste."
--Ruth Reichl, New York Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Broadway
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0767902505
• ISBN 13: 9780767902502
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288