Italy Puglia cooking classes and wine tours

If you travel around Italy, you will certainly notice that food and recipes change completely from region to region and most of the times also from town to town. Even pasta, which is always thought of as the typical Italian food, is made with different ingredients depending on whether you are in the South or North of Italy.

Pizza is certainly one of the few national Italian dishes. Pizza was first made in Naples, but now you find it anywhere in Italy. The pizza dough is always made with the same ingredients: water, yeast, flour, salt, extra virgin olive oil.
What changes from region to region is the thickness of the dough or may be the topping variety.

We are putting together a list of some of the best pizza places in Italy. Please tell us where in Italy you had your best pizza!

For more information please contact us at info.stile@gmail.com
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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.

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One of the many things we love about the summer in Italy is that, because of the hot weather, we have more excuses to eat lots of ice cream.
We love trying different ice cream artisans and for sure there are many we will be happy to recommend in Lecce.
Lemon granita is what we use as our benchmark to understand how good an ice cream artisan!
Many people think that Lemon Granita is similar to a Lemon sorbet.
There is a main difference which is the fact that Lemon Granita has no eggs, no milk and no cream in it. Just lemon juice, lemon zest, water and sugar!
On a very hot day, (today we are expecting 40° C!), I and Marika like going around Lecce and have a granita for breakfast, aperitif, lunch and as an after siesta drink.
Our favorite Lemon Granita is the one made with little sugar and a grated lemon zest in it!
For breakfast we would have a Coffee Granita with a croissant (the Sicilian way); for aperitif the Lemon Granita; after the siesta the almond granita.
There are many flavors you can choose: lemon, mint, coffee, strawberry, almond, kiwi, mandarin, prickly pears.

This is the recipe to make the Lemon Granita:

Ingredients:
300 grams of sugar
1/2 Litre of water
2 glasses of lemon juice
1 grated lemon zest

Preparation:
Boil the sugar and water for 5 minutes. Then cool it and add the lemon juice and grated lemon zest. Boil everything again for 2 minutes. Let it cool down again and put it in the freezer in a metallic container. Turn the mixture while it is freezing every 20 minutes. The Granita will be ready after 3-4 hours.

Don’t forget to try if you come to Puglia!

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

Since I became a professional extra virgin olive oil taster I had a chance to taste many olive oils from different producers. I am very pleased to find out that more and more producers are focusing on making very high quality extra virgin olive oils.

Puglia is the biggest producer of olives and olive oil in Italy. Out of the total Italian market, the region produces 37% of the whole olive production and almost 40% of the whole olive oil production (vs Tuscany which makes 2,9% of the whole olive production and about 3,2% of the whole olive oil production).
For years Pugliese olive oil producers have been focusing just on quantity selling their olives to Tuscany or other northern Italian regions.

Local producers are finally realizing that quality is more important than quantity, in a region that has been producing olive oil for centuries and that counts 40 millions olive trees, of which 40% are more than 1000 years old. This millenary history and important culture is testified by the many frantoi ipogei, underground and ancient olive oil presses that you find in Puglia.
The beauty of Pugliese olive oil is the fact that we have so many different varieties: Leccino, Coratina, Frantoio, Ogliarola, Peranzana, Rotondella, Garganica, Gentile…just to name a few.
The two varieties Bella di Cerignola and Termite di Bitetto are used as table olives.
All these olives have different colors and shape and result in olive oils with different flavors and taste.

In Puglia, we use extra virgin olive oil almost for everything, even to make homemade desserts and cakes. Very rarely we use butter at home…may be to make a cake for a guest or for very specific recipes.

What I find fascinating is how different and how better a dish can taste when we pair it with the right extra virgin olive oil (just as when you pair food and wine).
So many times, I go to a restaurant, order the best food and then I cannot enjoy it because the olive oil used is not extra virgin or it is not the right one for that dish. A bad olive oil can ruin your food. The right extra virgin olive oil can enhance the flavors and freshness of the ingredients.
Of course, I and Marika, we belong to the school that says that extra virgin olive oil should be used raw: when you cook it, you destroy all the flavors and healthy benefits.
For more information about our extra olive oil tastings and tours 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

4– 8 servings
- 1000 grams mussels
- 1 carrot
- 1 garlic clove
- pinch red chili
- 10 cherry tomatoes, halved
- leaves of parsley, chopped
- 2 tbs white wine
- 1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
- 500 grams of hand made tagliatelle

Do you have any other recipe with mussels? Please share it.

To contact us write at info.stile@gmail.com 

 
What a wonderful joy for me and Marika to wake up this morning!

This is our recipe:

- 1/2 glass freshly squeezed orange juice;

- 500 grams of flour;
- 250 whole grain flour;
- baking yeast (natural is better);

- 6 eggs;
- 1 yolk;
- 1 tsp sugar;
- 2 tsp sea salt;
- 1 lemon zest;
- 1/2 glass extra virgin olive oil;

For more information, please contact us at: info@stilemediterraneo.it

It’s finally “primavera” Spring in Puglia, Southern Italy!
So we can finally have all the delicious vegetables that we only find in April: the marvellous fresh fava (broad) beans, the sweet little green peas and the tasty asparagus!! For our Easter menu, in addition to the tradional baked lamb with rosmarin and roasted potatoes, we are going to have a fresh Fava (broad) bean cream for appetizer. The recipe includes (for 4 servings): 400 grams fresh fava/broad beans; 100 grams fresh green peas; 50 grams small potatoes; 30 grams leek; half litre clear broth; 1 tea spoon salt; a pinch black pepper; 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil; 100 grams asparagus; 50 grams fresh fava/broad beans (for decoration).

For the fava cream: slice the leek and soften it in a pan with a few drops of extra virgin olive oil, for a few minutes. Add the fresh fava beans, the green peas and the potatoes. Stir and let them cook for a few minutes while adding some clear broth. Add the salt and pepper and keep stirring. Cook for about 30minutes and them mix everything with a blender until you get a very smooth cream. Add 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, (it is better to add it raw at the end of your cooking, so you keep all the olive oil flavors!!).

For the asparagus decoration: in another pan cook the asparagus reduced in cubes, the 50 grams of fava beans and a table spoon of extra virgin olive oil. Serve the fava bean cream warm, in a bowl. Decorate with the asparagus.

For more information contact us at:info@stilemediterraneo.it

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And you, what’s going to be your Easter menu? Share with us your recipes and menu.