This morning we got a little bit of a later start to go to our Italian cooking clsss! We arrived and met Chef Andrea, as well as the other participants for the class. We all sat around and ate a little breakfast, croissants and these little almond cookies. After about a half hour, Chdf Andrea came in to talk to us about local Roman cuisine. We went over typical dishes for this region, such as carbanara, and then he told us our menu. We would be making a four course lunch!
At this point, we all donned our aprons, and headed into the kitchen. Set on the counter, there were probably 20 fresh ingredients (fruits, vegetables, spices, meats, cheeses) for us to use in our cooking. Chef goes to the market early in the morning and shops for the class so everything is super fresh. We of course took tons of pictures with the ingredients before we got our first cooking assignments. One by one, Chef Andrea handed out ingredients to start prepping for the different dishes. Dad was required to blanch and peel tomatoes, Allie was cutting celery, carrots, and onions for the tomato sauce, mom was skinning and cutting peaches, and I was cutting mozzarella. I even got to taste a piece and boy, was it delicious! My job didn't take very long, so I also cut eggplant and zucchini to stuff the zucchini blossoms. Once I finished cutting everything, I worked with a couple of other people to stuff the zucchini blossoms. We made two kinds: prosciutto and mozzarella and eggplant, zucchini, and mozzarella.
After the zucchini blossoms were stuffed, we worked on making the beer batter to fry the zucchini blossoms. We talked about the importance of yeast and why it needs to be completely dissolved. We set that out to rise before using it for frying.
We finished that and then it was time to make the pasta dough. Chef Andrea talked to us about the different kinds of flour and that what makes pasta al dente is the kind of flour used to make the pasta. You must use semolina flour to get pasta al dente. However, some pastas, such as fettuccine, are not supposed to be al dente because it is made using white flour. We definitely all learned something new. The gluten in the flour and the protein is what is important and helps make the dough strong. The stronger the flour, the more al dente your pasta will be. He put the egg in the center of the flour and the yolk was orange! I've never seen an egg like that before. We worked together to fold the egg and flour together to make the dough. We wrapped it in plastic so that it would not dry out from the heat of the kitchen.
We all continued working together to strain the tomato sauce, fry the chicken (that was Dad's job), make the lemon custard and peaches, and Chef Andrea fried the zucchini blossoms.
At this point, it was time to make the spaghetti. Wow, there were so many tools to use!! First, you break the large dough ball into smaller pieces. Then you run the small piece of dough through the pasta machine several times to make the dough smooth. Next, you put the dough through a smaller setting in the pasta machine to make it long and thin. You cut that into smaller sections, dust with flour, and then put it on this machine that has strings like a guitar. You role over the strings with a rolling pin and then strum the strings to make the pasta fall through! Just like that, you have spaghetti noodles. Then, you lay them on a rack to dry. We all took turns with the different jobs. It was a lot of fun, but hard work!
Once this operation was finished, it was time to eat!!! We all grabbed a plate and a small dish of a yummy pesto sauce to bring to the table for the appetizer course. I grabbed both kinds of fried zucchini blossoms to try. Mom, Dad, and I all opted for the wine pairing, which we thought was a tasting, but ended up being four full glasses of wine! The zucchini blossoms were delicious! The ones with the eggplant and zucchini inside ended up being my favorite. For the first course, we had our delicious spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce and cheese. It was unlike any pasta I've ever had before! I savored every bite and was actually sad when I had finished it. Our second course was chicken with peppers and a side dish of rosemary potatoes. That was also delicious! For dessert, we had the lemon custard and peaches in a martini glass. On the plate, Chef Andrea had piped "cooking class" with our names. It was beautiful and yummy, and I don't even like peaches!! All of the wine we had was perfectly paired and very good! It might have been some of my favorite we had while in Italy. We ended with a shot of lemoncello and then were in need of a good walk!
We walked over to Campo di Fiore, which ended up being kind of a dirty square with a bunch of restaurants, so we continued walking on to Piazza Navona, which had beautiful buildings and fountains. Allie and I stopped to watch a magic show, which wasn't very good. I had heard about the beautiful view of Rome from the Aventine Hill, so we walked closer to 40 minutes to get there. On the walk there we actually walked through the Jewish quarter and saw the beautiful synagogue. The view was pretty, though I don't know if it was worth the walk. While we were there, we saw 5 brides and grooms come to take pictures in that spot. We attempted to take a taxi back to the hotel, but we couldn't get one and ended up having to walk all the way back. My family was cursing me a bit on the way back. We took some time to rest, and then went back out for our last gelato. I got Oreo cookie and stracciatella. It was yummy!
Though I am sad that our trip has come to an end, I am ready to go home! We have made memories to last a lifetime and I am so grateful we got the opportunity to do this together as a family! Ciao, Italy!!
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