Cookbook Review: Anything’s Pastable by Dan Pashman

I haven’t posted a cookbook review this month and we are nearing the halfway point of 2024. (My goal is to review some of the “best of 2024” cookbooks. You can check out other posts here.) Anthing’s Pastable was a good read with lots of inventive recipes.

About the book:

The innovative James Beard Award–winning podcaster who changed the way you think about pasta shapes with his invention of the viral sensation cascatelli now does the same for pasta sauces in this fun and charmingly obsessive cookbook, which includes a foreword from bestselling author J. Kenji López-Alt.

When Sporkful podcast host Dan Pashman launched cascatelli, a new pasta shape he invented that he designed to hold tons of sauce, stay on the fork, and be incredibly satisfying to bite into, it went viral and was named one of TIME Magazine’s Best Inventions of the Year. VICE called him “a modern pasta legend.”

But as Dan was flooded with pictures of what people were making with his pasta, he was disappointed to see how limited the dishes were: tomato sauce, meat sauce, mac and cheese, over and over. A few party animals made pesto.

So Dan set out to revolutionize people’s conceptions of pasta sauces, just as he did with pasta shapes. He traveled across Italy and worked with an all-star team of recipe developers in the US to create a new kind of pasta sauce cookbook for people bored with the old standbys. That’s why there’s no 3-hour marinara recipe or fresh pasta made from scratch in this book. No photos of nonnas caked in flour or the hills of Tuscany. Instead it’s time to show the world—Anything’s Pastable.

Here you’ll enjoy dishes inspired by a range of ingredients and cuisines:

• Kimchi Carbonara
• Cacio e Pepe e Chili Crisp
• Keema Bolognese
• Mapo Tofu Cascatelli
• Shakshuka and Shells
• Smoked Cheddar and Chicken Manicotti “Enchiladas”
• Linguine with Miso Clam Sauce
• Shrimp and Andouille Mac and Cheese

Lesser-known Italian pasta dishes with a twist:

• Spaghetti all’Assassina (spicy pasta pan fried until charred and crispy crunchy)
• Ciceri e Tria (chewy fresh pasta with crispy fried pasta in a light chickpea broth)
• Cavatelli with Roasted Artichokes and Preserved Lemon
• Creste di Gallo with Fava Beans and Dandelion Greens
• Pasta Frittata

Fun and delicious concoctions that may—or may not—be how they do it in Italy:

• Spinach Artichoke Dip Lasagna Pinwheels
• Pasta Pizza (the “crust” is fettucine fused together)
• Roman Cafeteria Hot Dog Pasta Salad with Canned Veggies

With an incredible array of recipes, Dan showcases the limitless pastabilities when you really know how to use your noodle.

What I thought…

Pashman is a “food-obsessed weirdo” (1) that promotes idiosyncratic and creative ways of eating. According to him, one should eat NY style pizza folded but with the outside out. One should put cheese on the bottom of a burger, protecting the bottom bun from getting soggy. (It also puts the cheese closer to the tongue.)

Cascatelli (from https://www.sfoglini.com/)

He’s so food-obsessed that he created a new dried pasta—cascatelli, a hearty, forkful, pasta perfect for sauces.

This is a cool book and it’s full of inventive, eclectic and nuevo-traditional recipes. Early on, he states you won’t find recipes for fresh pasta in his book. You will find lots of delicious recipes.  (See the blurb above.)

Throughout there’s lots of good tips like using enough salt, that “black pepper will change your life if you let it” (8), and a treatise on grated cheese.  (He buys his already shredded which was a shock.)

I loved his variations on pangrattato: Lime-Corn Nut, Furikake, Ritz Cracker and Chive, Za’atar, Garlic Bread, Lemon-Herb, and Everything spice.

He’s a fun guy and not above using jarred tomato sauces, too.

I had an eggplant from the farm bag that needed used and I’ve always wanted to try a timapano (ever since Big Night). I decided to try to tackle his Eggplant Timpano recipe (253-257).

I can appreciate the author wanting to save steps in the kitchen, but I was a little appalled when the directions stated to save the boiling egg water to cook the pasta. Maybe it’s just me, but I use farm fresh eggs which come sometimes with a little straw and down on them. Yes, I wash them, but I did not follow his instructions here. I used a new pot and clean water to cook my pasta.

I don’t like to reprint recipes from cookbooks but know that Pashman coats his pan with butter and breadcrumbs, lines the outside with sliced eggplant, cooks another eggplant (diced) and adds it along with frozen peas to the pasta.

My timpano dish turned out to be a totally “based-on” recipe. First, I couldn’t find anelllini (a round pasta meant for baking). Instead I used fettuccini that I broke into random 3-4 inch pieces. I only had one eggplant, I sliced it wrong, and I could not get smoked mozzarella in our grocery either.  I also had a handful of pepperoni that I threw in at the last minute. To spice things up, I cooked my eggplant in a spicy chile oil.

It came out more than decent. (As The Hubs would say, “I don’t hate it.”) The leftovers were delicious as well.

While I probably won’t try to tackle a timpano again, I will refer to the “Recipes by Category” section in the back of the book: 45 Minutes or Less, 5 Ingredients or Fewer, Make Ahead, and Vegetarian.

This is another book that I checked out of the library and that was totally overdue by the time I was done. I am going to try some other of his recipes that I copied out.

I’m linking up with Foodies Read for May.