Puglia Cuisine | Italy Puglia cooking classes and wine tours

What to do on a rainy day in Puglia! 0

Posted on February 10, 2010 by Stile Mediterraneo

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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Tags: Cooking holidays Italy Puglia cuisine Puglia recipes Things to do in Puglia
Category Cakes & Desserts, things to do in Puglia, traditions

Tell us about your favorite pizza in Italy 2

Posted on January 18, 2010 by Stile Mediterraneo

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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Tags: bread Italy focaccia Italian cuisine Italy cooking pizza Puglia cuisine
Category Focaccia & Bread, Mediterranean Healthy food, Reviews, cuisine

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

Almond Fish: traditional Christmas sweet from Puglia 0

Posted on December 26, 2009 by Stile Mediterraneo

I and Marika don’t eat lots of sweets (apart from tons of the famous hazelnut ice cream from Lecce we already wrote about!).

However, we love the traditional Christmas sweets, just because they are really specific to this festivity and so we make them in Puglia only once per year. And this has been the same since always.
Our favorite Christmas sweet is a fish made of almond. In many families and countries it is a tradition to eat fish at Christmas time. In Puglia we also have fish as a dessert!

This sweet is very simple to prepare. We make the dough with sugar, almond and chocolate. Then we stuff the fish with Marika’s pear jam, biscuits and liquor. We decorate the fish eye with a coffee bean.
However, as for many other almond sweets we prepare during our cooking classes in Puglia, the almonds we use are what make the difference.

The fish we made for our family’s Christmas lunch weighed 1 kg. We understood that everybody liked it since there was none left.

And you, what are your favorite Christmas culinary traditions?

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Tags: cooking schools Italy cooking schools Puglia Italian cuisine Italian recipes Puglia cooking classes Puglia cuisine Puglia traditions
Category Cakes & Desserts, Favorites, cuisine, traditions

Delicious dorade in sea salt crust! 2

Posted on December 19, 2009 by Stile Mediterraneo

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

If you come to Puglia, this is something you should not miss. Our favorite place where to eat is in Otranto, just by the Adriatic sea.

A dorade can be prepared in so many different ways.

I and Marika love the dorade baked in sea salt crust: this recipe allows us to appreciate the freshness of this fish and its particular taste.

We don’t add any flavor, herbs, lemon or olive oil.

The only ingredients we use are: dorade and coarse sea salt.

As always the most important thing is the quality of the ingredients we are using.

It is extremely important that the dorade is freshly caught and most of all that it is coming from the sea (and not farmed).

During our cooking classes we will teach how to recognize whether the dorade is coming from the sea or is farmed.

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

PREPARATION

Preheat the oven at 200 °C.
Clean the fish.
Place a layer of sea salt on the bottom of a large baking pan.
Lay the fish on top of the salt and cover it with sea salt.
Cook for about 25 minutes.

For more information about our Mediterranean cooking classes please contact us at info.stile@gmail.com or visit our Classes Calendar Page
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Tags: cooking schools Puglia Italian cuisine Italian recipes mediterranean cuisine Puglia cooking classes Puglia cuisine Puglia recipes
Category Cooking tip, Favorites, Fish & Meat, Mediterranean Healthy food, 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

Typical Cardoncello mushrooms from Puglia! 0

Posted on November 28, 2009 by Stile Mediterraneo

The cardoncello mushroom is something you should not miss in Puglia if you love mushrooms! The cardoncello is a typical mushroom from Southern Italy. However, it is in the Puglia and Basilicata area that you find the best!

The most important thing about this mushroom is that it has such an elegant taste, that it does not cover but enhances the other ingredients it is cooked with.

We also like the fact the cardoncello mushroom does not change its texture once cooked.

I and Marika prepare the cardoncello in many different ways: raw, grilled, breaded (fantastic!), with pasta or baked with fish (delicious!) and meat.
Today I and Marika tried a very simple recipe: baked cardoncello mushrooms with potatotes.

INGREDIENTS:

4 servings

4 potatoes

10 ½ oz (300 grams) cardoncelli mushrooms

Chopped parsley

3 ½ oz (100 grams) grated Parmigiano cheese

4 cherry tomatoes, in small cubes

1 ¾ oz (50 grams) breadcrumbs

black pepper

extra virgin olive oil

pinch of sea salt

PREPARATION:

Peel and slice the potatoes. Cut the mushrooms in small pieces.
In a little bowl add half of the parsley, the tomatoes, half of the Parmigiano cheese, 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil, black pepper, sea salt and some water. Stir everything together.
In a baking pan pour a few drops of extra virgin olive oil and place a first layer of potatoes. Add on top the mushrooms. Then add the parsley with the tomatoes and parmigiano cheese.
Cover everything with another layer of potatoes.
Sprinkle on top with the remaining parsley, parmigiano, breadcrumbs, a few drops of extra virgin olive oil and black pepper.
Place the potatoes and mushrooms in the preheated oven and bake at 350 °F (180 °C) for about 30 minutes.

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

Tags: food markets Italy Italian cuisine Puglia cooking classes Puglia cuisine vegetables
Category Italy Cooking classes, Mediterranean Healthy food, Vegetables & Legumes, cuisine

Healthy Mediterranean Cuisine in Puglia 2

Posted on November 22, 2009 by Stile Mediterraneo

Puglia is certainly a region of extra virgin olive oil, which replaces butter almost everywhere: we put it on top of bread and salads; we use it for cooking and baking.

One of the most common questions our guests ask us during our cooking classes and olive oil tastings is whether it is better to fry in extra virgin olive oil vs other oils.

I and Marika think that one of the major takeways from our cooking classes is that our dishes can be delicious and very tasty even if we don’t deep fry ingredients, as the most traditional local cuisine would require.

I and Marika were lucky enough to be brought up by our GrandMother who taught us almost everything about the traditional home made recipes of Puglia. However, the traditional cuisine sometimes requires ingredients to be deep fried.

I and Marika have moved on and re-intepreted those traditional recipes in a healthier way. Because Marika is a Cardiologist and I am an extra virgin olive oil taster, we have a more Mediterranean approach. We love to smell and taste the flavors of raw extra virgin olive oil. We don’t want to destroy its healthy benefits and flavors by frying it.

Also, we don’t want to destroy the benefits of the ingredients we use by frying them.

Therefore our guests are always impressed when we can make very tasty stuffed eggplants, eggplant parmigiana or zucchini parmigiana, meatballs etc, without frying them!

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Tags: cooking schools Puglia healthy cooking mediterranean cuisine Puglia cooking classes Puglia cuisine stile mediterraneo
Category Mediterranean Healthy food, Puglia Extra virgin olive oil, 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.