Simple Recipes from the London River Cafe Deliciously simple, delightfully sophisticated London’s hot-spot River Cafe has been seducing guests with its completely irresistible renderings of authentic regional Italian food for almost twenty years. Now, cofounders Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, bestselling authors of the River Cafe cookbook series, present Italian Two Easy , a follow-up to their immensely popular Italian Easy , sharing 150 additional quick and easy recipes for everyone who loves Italian food but does not want to spend ages preparing it. With just a small number of fresh ingredients and minimal effort, you can re-create the flavors of Italy in your home kitchen with recipes such as cucumber salad with mint and mascarpone, linguine with clams and white asparagus, beef tenderloin with red wine and horseradish, zucchini scapece, and hazelnut truffle cake. Organized into fourteen chapters, including Really Easy Soups, Salads, Tomato Pastas, Roast Meat, Italian Vegetables, and Chocolate & Coffee, the recipes are designed to save home cooks time at the end of a busy day without ever sacrificing flavor. From a dozen ways to highlight fresh mozzarella—most ready in a matter of minutes—to instructions for perfect, simply grilled fish, meats, and vegetables, Gray and Rogers’s Italian Two Easy will help bring your weeknight Italian meals to a new level. Featuring 100 stunning full-color photographs illustrating the artistry that goes into each dish, Italian Two Easy makes it simpler than ever to achieve enviable results with the greatest of ease. Chefs Gray and Rogers have produced yet another volume of easy recipes from their popular London restaurant, River Cafe. Relying on fresh, often seasonal ingredients, the chefs combine them in ways traditional and novel. Broccoli rabe, garlic, and red wine produce the simplest of soups. Ripe tomatoes, onion, and basil make a spare yet tasty sauce for spaghetti when each of the ingredients is at the peak of the season. Lemon, garlic, and sage perfume a combination of wine and milk to sauce a slowly cooked pork shoulder. Poultry recipes stretch far beyond chicken and turkey to include guinea hen, pheasant, and quail. Vegetable recipes abound, pairing everyday green beans and potatoes or roasting together celeriac, fennel, and squash. Desserts call for many different baked fruits, but there are a few chocolate cakes to add richness. Most of these recipes make getting a meal on the table after a day's work less burdensome and require only a modicum of planning and shopping. Mark Knoblauch Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers are the chefs of London’s enormously successful River Cafe, which they founded in 1987. Their five previous books, London River Cafe Cookbook (U.K.: The River Cafe Cookbook ), The Cafe Cookbook (U.K.: River Cafe Cookbook Two ), River Cafe Italian Kitchen , River Cafe Cookbook Green , and Italian Easy (U.K.: River Cafe Cookbook Easy ), have all been bestsellers. The authors are also the hosts of a twelve-part television series. Visit them at rivercafe.co.uk. Cucumber, mint, mascarpone • 1 1/2 English cucumbers • 2 tbsp of mint leaves • 1 fresh hot red chile • 1 lemon • 1 cup mascarpone • 5 tbsp crème fraîche • Extra virgin olive oil to prepare Look for cucumbers that are unwaxed. They should be firm and rounded to the ends. Avoid any with withered, shriveled tips or ones that bulge in the middle, because they are likely to be filled with large seeds. Peel the cucumbers, cut in half lengthwise, and remove the seeds. Cut in half again and then into 2-inch lengths. Chop the mint. Wash the chile and finely slice on the diagonal. Squeeze the juice from the lemon. Combine the mascarpone and crème fraîche; season well. Combine the cucumber and mint with the lemon juice and three times its volume of olive oil. Season. Serve with the mascarpone and the chile sprinkled over.