Italy Cooking Classes | Italy Puglia cooking classes and wine tours

Ducasse says Italians have too many views on how to cook the Al Dente Pasta! 0

Posted on February 03, 2010 by Stile Mediterraneo

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?

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Tags: cooking schools Italy handmade pasta Italian cuisine Italy Cooking classes Pasta & Rice
Category Cooking tip, Hand-made pasta

Should Italian food taste like garlic? 0

Posted on January 14, 2010 by Stile Mediterraneo

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.

Our guests’ usual comment after the first bite is: “mmmh…but I don’t taste garlic in my food!“. And we use to reply that if it did taste like garlic, than it would not be authentic Italian food (at least not from Puglia!).

I and Marika are big fans of garlic! We like it because of its flavor and most of all, its health benefits. During our cooking classes Marika loves explaining how good and healthy garlic is for cholestorol, blood pressure, digestion etc.
We use it in many successful recipes. However, it is true that we use it in a very delicate way, without letting garlic cover our food.

Most of the times we sweat a whole garlic clove in olive oil and then we remove it after a few minutes before adding the other ingredients.

Very rarely we use garlic, if we are already using onion in a recipe.

Lastly, if we need to use garlic (as in our famous veal meatballs), we prefer to chop it with a knife instead of crushing it.

And you, do you like the garlic taste? How much garlic do you use?

What was your favorite food with garlic you had in Italy?

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Tags: Cooking tip Italy cooking Italy Cooking classes mediterranean cuisine Puglia cooking classes Puglia cuisine
Category Cooking tip, Mediterranean Healthy food, cuisine, traditions

Lucky lentils with orzo and Happy New Year! 0

Posted on January 01, 2010 by Stile Mediterraneo

There is one dish that cannot miss on Italian tables at midnight on December 31st.

This is the Lentil soup! Because they resembled coins, in the past they were thought to bring financial prosperity in the year to come. Nowadays, we associate them to general good luck, in any field. I and Marika had lentils for three days in a raw….just to be sure!

Usually lentils are prepared with cotechino (pork).

Instead, I and Marika prepared a much healthier recipe with lentils, orzo and extra virgin olive oil.
Really easy and really delicious!

INGREDIENTS
1 lb lentils (the very small)
1 lb orzo
2 carrots
parsley
extra virgin olive oil
sea salt
chilly pepper

RECIPE
Soak the lentils overnight and then rinse them. Put in a pan with the orzo and cover with water. Add the sliced carrots and cook at low flame for 1 hour and half while stirring and adding water if necessary. Add sea salt and chilly pepper.
When ready switch them off and add parsley and extra virgin olive oil.

The extra virgin olive oil is the key ingredients for the success of this recipe. It must be intense fruity and bitter.

During our cooking classes in Puglia we teach in more details how to taste the extra virgin olive oil and how to pair it with food.

What are your New Year’s culinary traditions?

WE WISH A WONDERFUL 2010 AND NEW DECADE TO ALL OUR READERS!

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Tags: cooking schools Puglia Italy Cooking classes legumes mediterranean cuisine Puglia cooking classes Puglia cuisine
Category Favorites, Italy Cooking classes, Mediterranean Healthy food, Pasta & Rice, Puglia Extra virgin olive oil, Recipes, Vegetables & Legumes, cuisine

Sweet and sour peppers: summer is back in Puglia! 0

Posted on December 05, 2009 by Stile Mediterraneo

It’s unbelievable! We are in December and we are still enjoying a fantastic mild weather in Puglia. Even at the market we can still find summer vegetables, which are not imported but produced by the local farmers.

Today I and Marika decided to take advantage of this fantastic weather and prepared one of our favorite summer dishes: the sweet and sour peppers (peperoni in agrodolce).

This recipe testifies the Arabic influence in the Pugliese cuisine.

INGREDIENTS:

4 servings

4 bell peppers (a combination of red, yellow and green) seeded and cut into strips

1 tbsp (15 ml) extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp (15 ml) sugar

1 tbsp (15 ml) wine vinegar

1 tbsp (15 ml) capers

1 tbsp (15 ml) black olives, pitted

1 tbsp (15 ml) bread crumbs

parsley

salt, to taste

PREPARATION:

Place the olive oil and sugar in a pan over medium-low heat and cook gently for one or two minutes.

Add the pepper strips, cover the pan and simmer until the peppers are softened, but still firm, about 20 minutes.
Add vinegar, capers, olives and keep cooking another 10 minutes over low heat. Remove from heat and add bread crumbs and parsley.

Allow to cool before serving.

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

Tags: cooking schools Puglia food markets Italy Italy Cooking classes mediterranean cuisine Puglia cooking classes Puglia cuisine vegetables
Category Recipes, Vegetables & Legumes, cuisine

Hand made orecchiette from Puglia 2

Posted on November 01, 2009 by Stile Mediterraneo

What a fun day today! I and Marika made orecchiette fresh pasta with our Nonna and Mamma! Orecchiette pasta is the typical pasta course we have on a Sunday lunch. Usually our Grandmother prepares orecchiette. Because today was a special holiday (we celebrate the All Saints day) and all our family was getting together, I, Marika and our Mom went to help our Nonna.

We started making the orecchiette at 9am so that the pasta had enough time to dry before lunch (usually our Nonna starts making pasta at 7am!!…but it would have been a bit too early for us).

In Italian, “orecchietta” means little ear.
There is no other way to make the authentic orecchiette pasta, than by using a blunt-ended knife, a wooden board and….. your thumb! No machine please!! and no other sort of kitchen tools to make the typical “hat” shape.

The shape of the orecchiette pasta is completely different depending on if you are in the North (Bari area) or in the South (Lecce area) of Puglia.

In the Lecce area, we eat the orecchiette with the tomato sauce (made with basil) and the cacioricotta cheese (either goat or sheep). Therefore the orecchiette look like hats, because we want to collect as much tomato sauce as we can! And people who took our cooking classes know how good our tomato sauce can be!!

In the Bari area, orecchiette are eaten with Rape (which look like Broccoli, but are a bit more bitter) and anchovies. Therefore, orecchiette are flatter.

The size of the orecchiette pasta is completely different from town to town, even 3 km apart!

Of course, the traditional hand made orecchiette are made with durum wheat mixed with some rye flour. The dough is a little bit harder to work, but the resulting pasta has so much more flavor and a fantastic texture!!

The fact that eating durum wheat pasta is so healthy (Marika, as a Cardiologist, confirms!), ….did not make us feel guilty when we served big portions of orecchiette today at lunch.

BUON APPETITO!

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

Tags: cacioricotta cheese handmade pasta Italian cuisine Italian pasta Italy Cooking classes orecchiette Puglia cooking classes Puglia cuisine tomato sauce
Category Cooking tip, Favorites, Hand-made pasta, Italy Cooking classes, Mediterranean Healthy food, Pasta & Rice, Puglia, Vegetables & Legumes, cuisine

Home made tagliatelle with chick peas 2

Posted on September 17, 2009 by Stile Mediterraneo

Lots of people have asked us for the Ciceri and Tria recipe. This is one of the most typical and traditional dish you can eat in Lecce, where the cuisine is based on lots of fresh pasta, legumes, vegetables. Legumes are rich in proteins and so all the legumes are at the core of this paesant cuisine. The main ingredients to prepare this recipe are: durum wheat semolina to make the pasta and the chick peas. The best herb for this plate is the bay leaf.

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.

Next day, drain the chick peas and place them in a deep pan. Cover with two liters fresh water and add the garlic clove, the red onion, the chopped carrot, the bay leaves, the cherry tomatoes and celery. Then, add the salt, cover the pan and lower the flame to the minimum. Cook for about three hours until the chick peas become very tender.

While the chick peas cook, make the handmade pasta. The best pasta for this recipe are the tagliatelle. You can make them with the machine or by hand. Let the tagliatelle dry for a few hours.

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

Tags: ciceri and tria cooking Italy fresh pasta handmade pasta Italy Cooking classes legumes Puglia cuisine
Category Cooking tip, Hand-made pasta, Pasta & Rice, Puglia, Puglia Extra virgin olive oil, Recipes, Vegetables & Legumes, cuisine, traditions

Frisella dry bread from Puglia! 0

Posted on July 25, 2009 by Stile Mediterraneo

Everybody knows the many different types of bread from Puglia: bread from Altamura, Matera, bread made with durum wheat, barley, rye, semolina etc. All these types of bread are made with different flours and in different shapes and size.

There is a very typical bread from Puglia that is a bit less famous, but that all the locals would have in their homes and eat regularly: the frisella dry bread!

Frisella is made with exactly the same ingredients used to make bread. However, frisella bread is baked twice in the oven, instead of just once. Because it is dry, you have to soak it in the water just for one or two minutes before eating it. The frisella can last for many months.

The best frisellas are made of rye flour, but you can also find made of durum wheat semolina.

To prepare the frisella, just soak the dry bread in water for one or two minutes. Dress it with cherry tomatoes, wild rocket, oregano a pinch of sea salt and a very intense extra virgin olive oil!

You need to eat right away and using your hands.

Please let us know if you ever try it! The best is the one you can have on the beach with a glass of good Negroamaro wine!

For more information on our culinary tours please write at info.stile@gmail.com

Tags: bread Italy cooking schools Italy Italy Cooking classes mediterranean cuisine Mediterranean Healthy food Puglia cuisine vegetables
Category Focaccia & Bread, Mediterranean Healthy food, Puglia Extra virgin olive oil, Recipes, cuisine

Back from our memorable cookery tour! 0

Posted on May 09, 2009 by Stile Mediterraneo

(Savory Strawberries)
I and Marika are back from our cooking and wine tour.
It was a memorable week: we cooked, ate, drank and … laughed a lot! Some guests even complained that the food was TOO GOOD and the wines too delicious!
After sharing so many memorable experiences, it is very sad when our guests (now new friends) go back to their homes…even though they left with the promise to be back in Puglia again (but only after following a strict diet!!).
The best part of a culinary tour is to meet so many interesting people who enjoy traveling and getting to know a place through its food, culture and the local people they meet.
These are just a few highlights of our week.
A good start of the day with one of the best Italian ice creams at the local seller:

Visit of a village which was ready for the Saint Patron celebration:

Lots of poppies and olive trees in the countryside:

We meet our fishermen friends in Gallipoli:

One of the fishermen invited us to his house to show us his collections. This was an experience that all our guests enjoyed a lot, since it was totally unexpected…and since no tourist guide books even mention it!
Collection of big shells caught in the sea and old nets used to fish:

Collection of other ancient instruments used in the house:

Collection of 12 little characters (below the Saint frame). Each character represents an old profession in the village. Starting from the left, we have: the fisherman, the carpenter, the builder, the shoemaker, the taylor etc. Every year, on the Holy Friday, local people wander around the village wearing the colored gouns and hoods.

We think this sort of little unexpected surprises makes our tours unique! Click here for more pictures about sea and beach in Puglia.