Italy Puglia cooking classes and wine tours

Zeppole are pastries that in Puglia we traditionally eat on March 19th to celebrate Saint Joseph day. You can only find these delicious zeppole patries in March. Therefore if you are in Puglia and you miss them….you’ll have to come back next year!

I and Marika have always loved Saint Joseph day. March 19th is our father’s anniversary (whose name is Giuseppe or Joseph) and is also Father’s day in Italy. So lots of things to celebrate on this day. Since we were young, every year on March 19th our father’s friends have given him big trays with huge zeppole pastries. And when we say huge….we mean it!

Because of their size, it is always very tricky to eat zeppole without getting some lemon cream all over the face!

Zeppole are made of a baked or deep fried dough, topped with lemon pastry cream and chocolate cream. Usually they are 2.1 inches in diameter! You can also find a smaller version, but given that they are only made once per year, you’d rather have the huge ones!

Do you celebrate Saint Joseph day? what do you do?

For more information about our cooking classes in Puglia contact us at info.stile@gmail.com or subscribe to the Cooking School in Puglia Newsletter.

We are back from three fantastic days in Milan where we attended an International Culinary Conference with some of the most important Italian, French and International chefs, such as Alain Ducasse, Moreno Cedroni, Andrea Berton, Frank Cerutti, just to mention a few.
I and Marika now have only one certainty! There is not a unique way to cook pasta. Each acclaimed Italian chef has his own theory on what the best way to cook pasta is.
Alain Ducasse even said that his restaurant in Tuscany will be the only one in Italy, because Italians have too many different views on how to cook pasta!!

Of course there are some features all Italian chefs agree on:
- sea salt must be added to water before the pasta;
- it must be coarse sea salt;
- olive oil must not be added to water when cooking dry durum wheat pasta!
- Italian pasta must be eaten “Al dente“.

However, there are as many ways to make an Al dente pasta as the number of acclaimed Italian chefs!
It is not just a question of “gnocchi and pasta with eggs” versus “dry pasta without eggs”.

Within the dry pasta category, there are so many theories on how long pasta should be cooked for, how to drain it, what to do before putting it on the plate and serving it.

Even a simple “Spaghetti with tomato sauce” requires so much consideration, care and thought …if you want to reach the most delicious and tasty result.

And you, how do you make the “al dente” pasta? how long do you cook spaghetti pasta for? what do you do before serving on the plate and bringing on the table?

Our guests attending our cooking classes in Puglia are always surprised at the fact that in the Pugliese cuisine we use garlic in a very delicate way.

Subscribe to the Stile Mediterraneo Cooking and Wine School Puglia Newsletter

One of the most typical fish from the Mediterranean sea is the Dorade.

INGREDIENTS
2 servings
1 lb 3 oz dorade
coarse rock salt (as necessary)

 

BUON APPETITO!

For more information about Stile Mediterraneo cooking classes and wine tours in Puglia Italy please write at info.stile@gmail.com

INGREDIENTS

6 servings

For the chick peas:

1 pound dried chick peas

pinch baking soda
2 lt water
1 garlic clove
1 small red onion
1 carrot
2 bay leaves
1 stalk celery, chopped
3 cherry tomatoes
1 tsp sea salt

For the tagliatelle pasta:

1 pound durum wheat flour
2/3 cup warm water
1 tsp sea salt
Extra virgin olive oil (for deep frying)
Red hot chili pepper
Parsley, chopped

Soak the chick peas overnight (8-12 hours), with a pinch of salt and a pinch of baking soda.

When the chick peas are ready, deep fry some of the tagliatelle in extra virgin olive oil until they get crunchy and brown. Dry them with paper towels.

Remove the bay leaves from the chick peas, add more water if necessary and raise the flame. Cook the other tagliatelle al dente and then add to the chick peas, with a pinch of chili pepper. Reduce the flame to the minimum, add the chopped parsley and the fried pasta and keep stirring for a minute.

For more information about Puglia cuisine and about our cooking classes and wine tours in Puglia Italy please write at info.stile@gmail.com

Also, our favorite meat is the bombetta,which is a sort of roll made of pork meat, stuffed with sea salt, back pepper, parsley and cheese. Bombette and sausages are delicious when grilled.

This is the perfect recipe for figs lovers!

This is the recipe:

INGREDIENTS
fresh figs
almonds
bay leaves
lemon zest

PREPARATION
Cut the figs in half, without breaking them and let them dry in the sun on a wooden board for about 10 days. Turn them upside down very often.

For more information about Puglia cuisine, our cooking classes and wine tours in Puglia Italy please write at info.stile@gmail.com

Puglia is the perfect place for those who love capers! We produce tons of capers. Apart from sweets, almost all recipes from the traditional cuisine of Puglia, require capers…from fish, to meat, vegetables and pasta. In Puglia, we certainly use more capers than garlic or other herbs.
Yesterday, I went to the market with a specific mission. I wanted to buy a caper plant and try producing capers….once more! I might have tried 20 times already….always with no success!
It’s really difficult to grow capers. They prefer to grow wild only where they decide to grow! They require just the right sun exposure, the right soil or rock, the perfect climate.
I always wondered how they can get to grow so well on top of the most dangerous sea cliffs…and not in my chalky garden with all my care and love!
When you drive along the Adriatic coast from Otranto down to Santa Maria di Leuca you will see lots of people with bags climbing the sea cliffs: they will be picking capers…and of course the best capers are the smallest ones, the most difficult to pick. May be that’s why they are the most expensive ones!
In the next months, I will keep you posted about what happens to this lovely caper plant!
Just to make sure I and Marika had enough capers for the summer, I also bought some freshly picked capers.
Of course, I and Marika like buying the smallest capers: they are so tasty compared to the big ones.


The recipe to prepare the fresh capers is the following:

1kg freshly picked capers (the smallest)
1kg sea salt
White wine vinegar (as necessary)

Wash the capers, put them in a jar and mix them with sea salt. Leave them with sea salt for at least 10 days.
We use salt to remove capers’ bitterness. Please consider that it is very important you use “sea” salt since it helps preserving the capers’ flavor and taste.
As you may already know, salt preserves food: therefore capers with salt can last for many months or years.
After the first 10 days, put them in another jar, add other sea salt and leave them for other 10 days.

Now they are ready to be eaten. Remove the sea salt, put them in a jar, cover them with white wine vinegar and close the jar with the lid.
Leave them with vinegar for about 5 days. After 5 days, remove the vinegar and cover them with other white wine vinegar. After 10 days, repeat this step once more. Leave them with vinegar for other 15 days, at least, before using them.

For more info please email at: info.stile@gmail.com

One thing that I and Marika certainly love about the cuisine of Puglia is the fact that even though our recipes are very simple to prepare, the resulting dishes are extremely delicious. Tomato sauce is the recipe that best represents the simplicity of our cuisine. We use only these ingredients: fresh and ripe tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil, basil leaves and onion. Nothing else! We promise the resulting tomato sauce will be unforgettable.

To make a good tomato sauce the quality of the tomatoes you use is very important as well as the extra virgin olive oil you add on top at the end.
Contrary to what people normally think, Italian cuisine does not use as much garlic as other cuisines (i.e. Spanish). Therefore to make the tomato sauce in Puglia we tend to prefer onion to garlic. Also, in Puglia we don’t cover the taste of the main ingredients we are using: if we make a tomato sauce we want to taste the tomatoes and not the onion. Therefore we don’t use too much onion.
As for the extra virgin olive oil, we prefer to add it at the end when the tomato sauce is ready and not in advance. This is because once cooked, the extra virgin olive oil loses all the health properties and flavors. Whereas if you add it raw it still has all its flavors.

To remove the acidity our grandmother always told us to cook the tomato sauce at least for two hours. If you don’t have that much time, you can use a sliced carrot that helps removing the acidity, instead of using sugar.

RECIPE
6 servings

Ingredients:
2 kg of fresh and ripe tomatoes
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
½ red onion
1 tsp sea salt
Basil leaves
Red pepper flakes

Preparation:
Soften the onion with a few drops of extra virgin olive oil. Cook the tomatoes for about two hours. Blend them with a food processor and cook them again at very low flame so that the sauce reduces more. Add basil, sea salt, red pepper and extra virgin olive oil.

For more info please email at: info.stile@gmail.com