Posts filed under 'cooking school'
NB: I had to change the name of the dessert because I copied myself.
What did we eat? I’ve not forgotten! Yummy foods from the South — or in Italian il Meridionale.
Antipasto was burrata, which may be the single most luxurious cheese made in any country. A firm exterior of mozzarella di bufala surrounds a center packed with fresh cream. How could that be bad? It was sliced and drizzled with a little oil and sprinkled with fine chiffonade of fresh basil leaves.
The primo was Pepata di Cozze con tagliatelle
, and this is when I discover that Alberta does not eat mussels. But you should because they are delicious, cheap and good for you. Buy farmed ones if you aren’t positive that the wild ones come from clean waters.
The secondo was Agnello con Piselli, or lamb with peas. I promise you that unless you have eaten this in southern Italy, it is nothing like you expect. It’s very good, too. Unfortunately for Alberta, she also doesn’t eat lamb.
Dolce was Crostata della stagione, named by me to reflect that the torte is made the same every time, but then you pile on the fruit of the season. This time it was strawberries, and quite nice ones, in spite of the cool and cloudy days we’re experiencing.
Agnello con piselli
Lamb with peas
Ingredients for 4
I onion
80 g pancetta in small cubes
800 g pieces of lamb, cubes
500 g frozen or shelled fresh peas
salt
1 coffee cup of hot broth– about 3 ounces
a large handful of grated Pecorino (or Parmigiano Reggiano) cheese, about 1 ounce
2 eggs
1 tablespoon grated Pecorino cheese
pepper
Method:
Thinly slice the onion and gently brown it with the little cubes of pancetta. When it is well browned, add the lamb and continue to brown well. Add the peas and the cup of boiling broth, correcting the salt and pepper. Cover it and leave it to cook. When it is cooked to your taste, which for us took about 35 minutes, add the two beaten eggs, which will have been beaten with a tablespoon of grated pecorino. Stir it in to thicken the sauce and then serve immediately.
To make it easier to time the courses of the meal, we cooked this to almost done then removed it from the heat. When the first course was over, we brought it back to a simmer, stirred in the cheese and then the eggs and finished it. It would easily have served six of us in this multi course meal.
Corstata della Stagione
for six people
Pasta Brisee for one torta
80 - 100 g of fresh, soft goat cheese
the finely grated rind of a lemon
1 tablespoon sugar
about 400 g of prepared fresh fruit
2 tablespoons sugar
First, make pasta brisee using any recipe you like. Here is a good recipe which you can half if you are making this crostata.
Pasta Brisee
2 1/2 cups (350 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (4 grams) salt
1 tablespoon (14 grams) granulated white sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) (226 grams) unsalted butter, chilled, and cut into 1 inch (2.54 cm) pieces
1/4 to 1/2 cup (60 - 120 ml) ice water
In a food processor, place the flour, salt, and sugar and process until combined. Add the butter and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal (about 15 seconds). Pour 1/4 cup (60 ml) water in a slow, steady stream, through the feed tube until the dough just holds together when pinched. Add remaining water, if necessary. Do not process more than 30 seconds.
Alternately, you can make a pile of the flour, salt and sugar on a work surface, then put the cut up butter in the center and using your fingers, mix it until it looks like coarse meal. Then add some of the water, kneading it in, adding only as much as it takes to form a ball, which you should wrap and chill for a few minutes before rolling it out to make the crostata shell.
Turn the dough out onto your work surface and gather it into a ball. Divide the dough into *two equal pieces, flatten each portion into a disk, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes to one hour before using. This will chill the butter and allow the gluten in the flour to relax. At this point you can also freeze the dough for later use.
*unless you have halved the recipe as mentioned above.
For each disk of pastry, on a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry to fit into a 8 or 9 inch (20 to 23 cm) tart pan. To prevent the pastry from sticking to the counter and to ensure uniform thickness, keep lifting up and turning the pastry a quarter turn as you roll (always roll from the center of the pastry outwards to get uniform thickness). To make sure it is the right size, take your tart pan, flip it over, and place it on the rolled out pastry. The pastry should be about an inch larger than your pan.
When the pastry is rolled to the desired size, lightly roll pastry around your rolling pin, dusting off any excess flour as you roll. Unroll onto the top of your tart pan. Never pull the pastry or you will get shrinkage (shrinkage is caused by too much pulling of the pastry when placing it in the pan). Gently lay in pan and with a small floured piece of pastry, lightly press pastry into bottom and up sides of pan. Roll your rolling pin over top of pan to get rid of excess pastry. With a thumb up movement, again press dough into pan. Roll rolling pin over top again to get rid of any extra pastry. Prick bottom of dough (this will prevent the dough from puffing up as it bakes). Cover and refrigerate for 20 minutes to chill the butter and to rest the gluten.
To pre-bake the shell: Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven. Line the unbaked pastry shell with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Fill tart pan with pie weights or beans. I use beans and I keep them in the pantry wrapped in the foil I re-use many times. Bake crust for 20 to 25 minutes or until the crust is dry and lightly browned. Remove weights and cool crust on wire rack.
While the crust is still warm, spread the goat cheese over the bottom of it with a silicon spatula, being gentle, then grate the lemon rind over it, and then sprinkle the first tablespoon of sugar over that.
Arrange the clean and prepared fruit to cover the crostata completely. That means pit and half plums, peel, pit and slice peaches, etc. Berries just need to be clean and possibly hulled. Sprinkle the 2 tablespoons of sugar over the fruit.
You may want to serve this with lightly whipped and lightly sweetened cream, or you can make a pool of cream or sour cream on the plate and serve the slice of crostata on top of that. We garnished it with mint sprigs from my garden.
I personally could have eaten this entire crostata by myself. Only the fact that I liked the student and I need to lose weight prevented that happening. It is a very good thing that I have no fresh fruit in the house at the moment, because I could otherwise whip this up again in no time flat!
June 2nd, 2008
When people come to visit from Australia, they are getting something like an endless summer. Right now it’s more like endless spring, however. May continues cool and wet. The roses are hanging back and the peonies have become so heavy with water that they’ve hit the ground. A thirty foot tall plum tree has bowed completely over in the kitchen garden, which will make it very easy to pick the plums should there come enough sun to ripen them.
Thursday’s cookery included:
Crostini of summer truffle
Risotto with porcini mushrooms
Scallops of turkey with asparagus and mozzarella
Fried zucchini blossoms led with mozzarella
Layered pudding of vanilla cream, chocolate and alkermes.
The recipes which are not already published here follow.
Risotto with Porcini mushrooms
45 minutes prep which includes soaking the dried mushrooms
45 minutes cooking
Ingredients for 4
350 g fresh white mushrooms, sliced very thinly or cut into thin spears
100 g of dried porcini mushrooms
350 g carnaroli rice (or vialone nero or arborio)
2.5 deciliters broth, either chicken or vegetable
I medium white onion, peeled and chopped fine
1 wineglass of dry white wine
parsley, minced very finely
150 g grated hard cheese
2 slices of meltable process cheese (we used Bel Paese, but the recipe actually asks for something like Kraft Singles)
1 piece of butter the size of a walnut
1 pinch of mint
salt
Prepare the broth ahead of time, your choice whether your risotto will be vegetarian or not. Put the dried porcini in a little hot water for 45 minutes.
Once those two items which take a bit of time are done, you are ready to prepare the risotto. Make sure your broth is simmering by the time you need it in about 15 minutes.
In a pan, non-stick is suggested (?) heat a piece of butter the size of a walnut and an equal amount of oil together. Cook the onion and the fresh mushroom slices as well as the re-hydrated mushrooms with a little of their water, until lightly golden.
Add the rice and cook it, stirring, until it is toasted, for 3-4 minutes on medium heat. The rice starts to look chalky. Then add the wine and raise the heat to maximum to evaporate the wine. Once the wine is evaporated, turn off the flame and let the rice rest for about 10 minutes. Relight the flame to medium, and start cooking the rice, adding a ladle of boiling broth, stirring until it is almost absorbed and then adding more. Stir frequently.
When the rice is cooked but al dente, remove it from the flame and add the grated cheese and the two slices of processed cheese, stirring in, then cover the pan and leave it to rest 5-7 minutes, then serve the risotto dusted with the chopped parsley.
Scaloppe di tacchino agli asparagi
Turkey scallops with asparagus
This takes about 15 minutes to prepare and 15 minutes to cook, but you can partially prepare it and then finish it at the last moment so that you aren’t separated from your guests.
Ingredients for 4
4 slices of turkey breast
4 slices of mozzarella (if you use the highest quality of mozzarella, the cheese is smaller so you need more slices.)
24 asparagus tips freshly cooked
40 g butter
½ wineglass of dry white wine
flour as needed
broth as needed
Beat the turkey slices until flat, then flour them lightly and fry them until lightly golden on both sides in the butter (or oil.)
Add the white wine and let it evaporate, Salt and pepper the dish and add a little broth.
A few minutes before serving, add a slice of mozzarella to each turkey scallop and 6 asparagus tips. Cover and hold it on a low heat until the cheese is melted, or you can run it under a grill.
Plate the scallops and serve them immediately with some of the pan juices over them.
Crema dolce ai savoiardi
Alkermes is a liqueur which is widely used in Italy, largely for its ruby red color. I have never heard of anyone drinking it, although it’s possible. Savoiardi are elongated dry cookies that are used in making Tiramisu, sort of the Italian version of a ladyfinger, except crunchy.
Make a vanilla pudding. Make a thick mixture by mixing cocoa into leftover espresso coffee. It should be almost spreadable. Make a small amount of fresh Italian coffee.
Use glass dishes to show the colored layers. Place a layer of the vanilla cream in it, then layer on the cocoa/coffee cream, then drizzle with Alkermes. Break a Savoiardo in half and dip the halves into the fresh coffee, then press them onto pudding. Repeat the layers, using a spoon to drizzle on the cocoa cream artistically this time. Stand a Savoiardo up in the layered pudding. Chill in the fridge until wanted.
May 31st, 2008
My first dinner is next week and I am very happy. The calendar has rolled around again, tourists arrive, there were tour buses in the parking lots this morning when I went to market. The biggest thing, however, was combing through the lists of dishes in my mind and in my magic purple book to make menus again.
A tramp through the market shows me what’s in season for sure– the strawberries are still from Spain– but I found things like duck and goose eggs, more artichokes than most people will ever have seen in one place, and the first of the tiny baking potatoes for antipasto. I can’t bring myself to buy the live hens and pigeons that the vendor will kill to order. If I were rich I might buy them all and set them free. I’d be arrested because Città di Castello may have a swan park, but they do not encourage poultry in the streets.
Inside the wall my herb lady sold me not only a gorgeous oregano plant but perhaps the most glamorous cauliflower ever. I shall make a portrait of her when the sun is shining.
A trip to my butcher proved that in her opinion, at least, pork is better than veal still a while. She tried to talk me into turkey and again I had to explain how mundane turkey usually seems to Americans, even though at €13 per kilo it wouldn’t seem mundane to me. That’s about $10 or £5 per pound — although the British are used to horrific prices and may not find this shocking in the least.
Now begins a time when most of my cookery posts depend on classes or chef jobs and I don’t have to eat everything. Time to diet off the pounds gained from quitting smoking. Time to wander the specialty shops and come up with new ways to use the old things and invent dishes with new things. Time to ask about wines and honeys and time to toast nuts and snip herbs and prune the rosemary and the sages.
I think the Romans had it right when they made the year begin with spring. What wrong-headed power monger changed that?
Here is a hint at things to come. 
April 5th, 2008
I am experiencing a small problem with the cooking school/lessons for which I need advice. I will so appreciate comments expressing your genuine opinion.
We do not set up the subject of a lesson until someone has signed up for it. That person then gets to say what he/she would like to learn, based on seasonal availability of course, and excluding things that must cook longer than class time. Maybe it’s just one thing, and we build the rest of the menu around that, or sometimes someone says, “Anything but that!” when they have food hates or sensitivities. Lately, however, we have had more people want us to say what they should learn. (Of course, if they are the second or the third to sign up, that’s already been done for them, probably.) With some discussion that may seem like social work, I can probably suggest things. It makes no sense to teach people to cook things they’ll never find where they live. Some dishes are unique, and so learning to make them will not open the doors to many other parts of Italian cuisine. I like to teach things that lead to other things, in essence you should leave class prepared to make judgments about so-called Italian recipes you run across, or be able to remove ingredients that just shouldn’t be in a real Italian recipe. It is meant to be the most durable souvenir ever– the ability to choose, to cook and to judge Italian cookery forever (plus some printed recipes that you made, etc.)
This means that I feel like I have designed the policy and whatever you want you can have within that policy. That’s why lessons at the school start with shopping, because shopping right is very important in Italian cookery. So we could teach you to make genuine Italian dishes from whatever you found in the pantry and the fridge– after all, 50% of Italians are going to do that at lunch today– but we think figuring out what ought to be in that pantry and fridge is important.
So the question is this: is it better to offer an unformed and customizable class? Or is it better to design classes and then let the people who want that class sign up for it? Since almost all the students are travelers, should that be instead: “This is what we can teach any day, you choose which one.” Which would mean dividing the information up into a few offerings.
Although my pleasure at teaching is certainly key for me, suiting just me is not what I want to do. I like being able to teach food of the north one day, food of the south another, food from the center on a third. I like being able to do one meat Wednesday, a different one Saturday and vegetarian Friday. But it might be easier for travelers to know that, for example, every Friday was vegetarian, or every Thursday was southern food.
In trying to be as flexible as we can be, we may have made ourselves too formless so that those with little experience don’t know where to start?
What would you prefer and why? What would make your experience of a day or two in an Umbrian kitchen just perfect?
March 13th, 2008
December 10th is the kickoff — hey! That’s today!
So how about jumping into this picture? Look at that speed, the refined movements, the smiles.
Or this one?
Then, of course, we eat it all up.
The prize I am offering, code EU19, is a cooking class for one at our school, or if you’d rather, a cooking class at your place in reachable central Italy for two. The values are €175-€170. Take a chance on me!
If you choose the school, we’ll go marketing and learn about the ingredients and how to choose them, then get into the kitchen and whip them into an Italian shape. What we’ll cook will be what we decide from what’s the best Umbria has to offer.
If you want to learn in your own rental kitchen, I’ll arrive with the food and off to the kitchen we’ll go. What’s not to love about that?
I plan to really spoil the winner…. really. I promise you’ll walk away with some splendid dishes conquered, the recipes for them and the great feeling that your Italian souvenir will last forever.
The money raised from the raffle tickets all goes to feed the hungry. This and many, many other prizes will be listed around the internet over the next weeks. You can buy tickets right THERE.
Menu for Hope was begun by that peripatetic eater, Pim and if you don’t know Pim, you just have to go over there and meet her and get a load of how she eats. At Chez Pim, you can read all about how international food bloggers get together and give of themselves to feed those who can’t feed themselves. Read the whole article, because it’s amazing how little of the money goes to the expenses of collecting the money. On her site is also the enormous total international list of prizes available around the world.
The winners of all the prizes will be announced on January 9, 2008 at Chez Pim.
My boss is Fanny Zanotti of foodbeam, because she’s the European coordinator. If you click over there, you can see what Europe has to offer. The variety is stunning. I’m shooting for a couple of real dream prizes, myself.
Be a sport, the tickets are only US $10.00. Aim high and win something you might never otherwise have a chance at. Like me!
Actually, love me or love me not (and what are you doing here if you love me not?), love yourself and what you can accomplish by buying a few $10 tickets that can save lives and change yours. There are bound to be 10 prizes on that list you’d love to have. Me too.
December 10th, 2007
There’s a really good scale and a really good sale on for US residents at ekitchens.
They are selling at least one high quality scale that tares and switches from metric to ounces. The good price is even better when you enter the word FALL into the checkout coupon area– 5% off in addition.
You need a scale.
November 4th, 2007
Look here to read an account of a cooking job as executed by a couple who write a blog I read everyday. You will never read accounts of cookery so completely and generously open about the new ideas they develop and the new ways with food they have.
Their blog is deceptively titled Ideas in Food. You and I have ideas in food. Alex and Aki dedicate the larger part of their lives to making food into forms and flavors that rival nature in their diversity.
We know that I am never going to cook like that. Just the investment in equipment would be insuperable. Working alone couldn’t be that yeasty and productive. Occasionally, when they fool around with something Italian, I find myself talking to the computer. But I read it and I’m fascinated. It was therefore irresistible to read the account of a meal they were hired to create for a small group of foodies. Read it. You will be astounded.
November 2nd, 2007
The peach mostarda from this summer: you must break open the chilies before cooking, enough to release the flavor. Just crack them before putting them into the peaches.
Smoked pecorino from Sardegna: it is not called Fiore Sardo. The website where I got that information is incorrect. Fiore Sardo is a great cheese, but not smoked. Ask for smoked Sardegnan (Sardinian) pecorino, or Pecorino affumicato Sardo. I just bought 700 grams of it at the Mercato Centrale at Florence, so now I can try to copy some of the recipes I ate at Terra Terra.
The sloppy dough bread was made twice. Both times were different. The secrets seem to be 1) making it wetter than regular bread dough, 2) allowing it to rise very slowly, cool, many hours and 3) cooking the bread in a heavy, covered pot for the first half hour, then uncovering it to finish. Rather than translate the recipe measures, I just used Italian measures, because the yeast comes in packets that raise 500 grams of flour. Both versions worked, and that’s the important part.
I am off to a town near Rome today for an expat gathering, and will post something new when I get back… so see you later.
October 20th, 2007
When classes are forming, I will post openings here.
April 19th, 2008 we have up to four openings. Pasta plus. Five course meal.
These are all at the school itself in the countryside just outside Città di Castello.
September 11th, 2007
This is a dessert that was adapted from a fig tart to use those slim, blue, frosted prune plums you find at the end of summer. You can make the pastry, which here is pasta brisé, or buy it at the grocery store or a bakery.
Pastry for a tart pan, fitted into the pan, trimmed to 3/4″ larger than the pan, then folded under and fluted.
soft goat cheese– not the ripened one with crust, but the fresh one you can spread. In Italy look in the fridge for “di Capra”
grated rind of 1 lemon
fresh blue prune plums about a pound, but who’s counting– eat the ones you have leftover
sugar
heavy cream
Preheat the oven to 180°C or 375°F.
Spread the goat cheese onto the bottom of the pastry you’ve arranged in the tart pan. It will be less than 1/4″ thick.
Sprinkle the grated lemon rind over the cheese layer.
Cut the plums in half, remove the stone, and place them in a pattern on the goat cheese, cut side down.
Sprinkle lightly with sugar.
Put it into the hot oven and cook for about 25 Minutes or until the plums have softened. Cool to just warm, and before cutting pour a little fresh cream over it so that it pools a bit around the plums. Serve with a little pitcher with more fresh cream.
This is great for weight gaining diets.
August 31st, 2007
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