Anna Stockwell has built a career around making good cooking feel both elegant and achievable. A food stylist, recipe developer, writer, and video host, she honed her skills through years in the test-kitchen orbit of Bon Appetit and Epicurious and then later from her home kitchen in Hurley. Released in March, Stockwell’s latest cookbook, The Butter Book sets its sights on the golden ingredient, “celebrating all the ways that butter makes life better,” as she writes in the intro. Take, for example, the grown-up buttered pasta recipe below, which adds anchovies and white wine to give the childhood classic a spin suitable for adult palates.
The Butter Book goes over this key ingredient’s culinary history as well as its many techniques and its uniquely persuasive ability to make just about anything better. butter. Stockwell calls butter “a building block, alchemical catalyst, and flavor multiplier.”
The below pasta dish is one of 10 recipes in the book, alongside sections on how to make your own butter—classic, whipped, clarified; tips for buying butter based on use case; a guide to butter accessories; and even how-tos for upping your presentation game (butter sculptures, anyone?). Stockwell’s new cookbook is a must-have for any butter lover, not to mention the adorable and clever packaging.
Grown-Up Buttered Pasta
Ingredients
Method
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the pasta to al dente according to the package instructions. Drain the pasta, reserving 2 cups [475 ml] of the pasta cooking water.
- While the pasta is cooking, in a large, deep skillet over medium heat, melt 2 Tbsp of the butter with the olive oil. Add the garlic and anchovies and cook for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the anchovies are mostly melted and the garlic is beginning to lightly brown. Pour in the wine, increase the heat to medium-high, and scrape up any browned bits on the bottom of the skillet into the wine. Continue to cook until the wine is reduced by half, about 2 minutes. Reduce the heat to low, add a few cubes of the butter, and stir until a smooth sauce begins to form.
- Add the cooked pasta to the garlic butter sauce along with ½ cup [120 ml] of the pasta cooking water and a few more cubes of butter. Stir until the butter is melted, then stir in more butter and more pasta cooking water, adding both in small doses until all the butter has been added and your pasta is coated with a smooth and rich sauce. (I just add splashes of the pasta water, but if you want to measure, use ¼ cup [60 ml] at a time.) You may not use all the pasta cooking water, but you’ll need at least 1½ cups [180 ml] to achieve your glossiest sauce.
- Season with salt and pepper. Divide the pasta among bowls and serve with Parmesan sprinkled on top. Garnish with a few basil leaves (if you wish).
Notes
Recipe and images from The Butter Book by Anna Stockwell, © 2026. Published by Chronicle Books. Photography © 2026 by Kate Jordan
