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.

If you have ever had breakfast in Italy, you may already know that the typical Italian breakfast includes a cappuccino with something sweet: a croissant or a pastry or some biscuits. That’s a must in Italy, no matter where you go: from Milan to Rome, down to Puglia. Very rarely you will see an Italian person have breakfast with those fantastic scrumbled eggs that I used to enjoy when I was living in the US (so good!).

I and Marika love breakfast! It’s really our favorite moment of the day: we love waking up with our fantastic Italian espresso coffee and we like eating a big breakfast. However, we cannot have anything sweet right after we wake up (just give us a couple of hours and we’ll be ready for it!). We need something savory and lots of fruit of course.

So this is our favorite breakfast: pecorino sheep cheese and our home made jam, with some Pugliese bread.
The pecorino sheep cheese comes from a fantastic local cheese maker who has his own sheeps and goats and makes very limited production (just for the family and few loyal customers). I and Marika love supporting him!
For the jam, we hope our guests who attended our cooking classes in Puglia still remember what we are talking about!

Juts out of curiosity: 20 minutes after the above picture was taken, the pecorino cheese was almost gone!!

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

It has been several months now since we started our “What’s special at the market in Puglia” section, where we write about seasonal and special products we find at the market in Puglia.

We have to admit that we were never happier to host our market section than today! This morning we finally found some fresh fava beans at the market and this means that the Spring has finally arrived!

The fava beans are still a bit small and so we have to wait a few days more, before we can make our delicious pasta with fresh fava beans, onions and mint.

However, when the fava beans are so small and tender they are perfect to be eaten raw in a salad, with the fresh pecorino sheep cheese, some Pugliese bread topped with good quality extra virgin olive oil!

It’s a fantastic starter!

What’s your favorite recipe with fresh fava beans?

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

There is one thing that you should certainly not miss when you come to Lecce in Puglia: the delicious Pasticciotto Leccese! There is no other place in Puglia or in Italy where you can have it! People from other places in Puglia come to Lecce on purpose to eat the pasticciotto.

Pasticciotto is a pasta frolla (sweet pastry) tart filled with lemon cream. Pasticciotto is the typical pastry that people in Lecce have for breakfast. If you want to do what the locals do in Lecce that’s what you should order, together with the espressino coffee, while enjoying the sun in the Santo Oronzo Square in Lecce.

In Lecce almost every coffee bar will serve the pasticciotto. However if you want to eat one of the best, you should go to Ascalone in Galatina (on the way South to Gallipoli).

I and Marika were recently interviewed by Sharon Sanders for a beautiful article she wrote about our Stile Mediterraneo Cooking School in Puglia and which was published in the Dream of Italy newsletter. In this article we share our secrets and travel recommendations for Puglia. We tell Sharon the story that when Cinzia lived in Milan, Ascalone refused to sell her a tray of pasticciotti to be taken back to the North with her. The baker wanted the pasticciotti to be enjoyed warm! Read the Dream of Italy Newsletter to find out more!

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

There is no better way to start the day than to wake up and find out that the weather outside is beautiful and sunny (65° F!) even if we are still in February!

So  I and Marika went to closest beach in Lecce, where the Sunday farmers market takes place. It was a real feast with all those colorful and fresh vegetables and fruit. Even if it’s still February, we already found fresh green fava beans, strawberries, early tomatoes, chicories!

I and Marika usually buy our vegetables from our favorite farmer, who only sells what he produces and what’s in season. Now it’s broccoli rabe (or turnips) season, so today he was selling his super fresh broccoli rabe. While in Lecce we eat orecchiette with tomato sauce, in the Bari area broccoli rabe are used to prepare the traditional orecchiette pasta, along with anchovies, garlic and chilly pepper (please don’t put any cheese!!).
So today we prepared the orecchiette the Bari way. This dish is called: orecchiette with cime di rapa!

The broccoli rabe belong to the broccoli family, but they are different in taste and a little but more bitter.

It is very important to know that medical research demonstrated that broccoli rabe are very powerful against stomach, lung, and colon cancers, and promising research hints at protective effects against breast and prostate cancers as well.

As usual, I and Marika got excited and bought way too many broccoli rabe for our Sunday lunch!

RECIPE:
4 servings

10oz orecchiette pasta
1lb 10oz broccoli rabe (or turnips)
1 garlic clove
chilly pepper
2 anchovy fillets
1 tbsp breadcrumbs
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

PREPARATION

Clean the fresh broccoli rabe (turnips) and cook them in boiling water for about 8 minutes. Then add fresh orecchiette pasta to the water with broccoli and cook all together for other 5 minutes until the pasta is al dente (or 10 minutes if the orecchiette are dry).

In a saucepan put the olive oil and sautè the garlic clove, the chilly pepper and the anchovies (cut in small pieces) just for 2 minutes.

Drain the pasta and broccoli rabe and add them to the saucepan. Add the breadcrumbs on top and sautè the pasta for about 2 minutes. Because of the anchovies in Puglia we don’t add any cheese. Serve when still warm!

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

Bordered by the Adriatic sea to the East and the Ionian sea to the West and with a landscape with millions olive trees and vineyards, Puglia is an ideal location for a gourmet holiday.

The local Mediterranean cuisine has an emphasis on durum wheat pasta, seafood, vegetables, cheese and extra virgin olive oil. Recipes are simple, but still very tasty because based on fresh ingredients.

Puglia wines are made from indigenous grapes and taste the equilibrium between the sun, the wind, the sea and the soil.

Please join our 2010 cooking and wine workshops in Puglia

• June (12-19) & October (2-9): cooking workshops in a 17th century castle in Puglia
• April-December: 1 day, 4 day and 7 day cooking classes in Puglia
• April-December: wine tours and olive oil tastings in Puglia

For more information visit our calendar or contact us at: info.stile@gmail.com. 

Subscribe to the Cooking School newsletter.

We have a way of saying in Italy that states: “on special occasions women don’t ask for a gift, but they still expect it!”. Saint Valentine is certainly one of those occasions when this applies.  To all men reading our blog: “don’t event dare taking out your girlfriend, wife or partner for dinner tonight, without giving her a gift!”

If you need a suggestion for a guaranteed gift (i.e. a gift that we guarantee all women will like) then give her some dark chocolate truffles.

You will make her happy but also very healthy!

In 2009, the European Heart Journal published an article about the beneficial effects of cocoa on cardiovascular risk.

Cocoa (as well as red wine, tea and certain fruits and vegetables) seems to be rich in flavanols which have important cardiovascular effects. Of course these flavanols may not be found in the average bar of chocolate, but only in chocolate with a high cocoa content.

This is something researchers have been studying for twenty years, since Prof. Hollenberg from Harvard found out that Kuna Indians (a remote population living on islands off the coast of Panama) have a lower than average blood pressure.

It has been raining for all the past week in Puglia. This is not very exciting, since in Puglia we are sun-dependent, being able to enjoy a sunny weather most of the year!

Yesterday I, Marika, our Mom and our two cuisines went to visit our Nonna.
Of course the whole conversation was about the rainy weather.

It was getting a bit depressing! We were the 6 of us sitting around the kitchen table and by the big fireplace, complaining about the fact we never had such a rainy Carnival in Italy before.

Suddendly, our Mom stood up and said: “dai su! è Carnevale, facciamo le chiacchiere!” (it’s Carnival time, let’s make the chiacchiere pastries!”). 
She did not have to say twice. I and Marika started assembling the ingredients. Our Grandmother (who is usually a bit deaf) got really excited (she loves sweets!).
It was the most wonderful day! 

The chiacchiere never tasted like this before!  Of course the secret ingredient was the fun we had hand-making those pastries all together!

INGREDIENTS
500 gr flour
80 gr sugar
2 whole eggs
pinch of sea salt
3 tbsp liquor
1 grated orange zest
40 gr extra virgin olive oil
icing sugar (to decorate)

PREPARATION
Mix all the ingredients together with your hands as if you were making fresh pasta.
Let the dough rest for at least 1/2 hour. Make several rectangular sheets of dough. Use a pasta machine to make the sheets very thin.
Cut them into strips or small rectangular using pasta cutters (or a knife).

Deep fry in extra virgin olive oil (or bake in pre-heated oven at 350°F for about 15-20 min).
Sprinkle icing sugar on top.

There are many different recipes to make the Chiacchiere. Do you have any to share?

Enjoy the Carnival in Puglia!

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