Italy Puglia cooking classes and wine tours

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

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

One of the things I and Marika love about the summer in Puglia is the chance to enjoy our favorite aperitif, may be on the beach while watching a beautiful sunset!
There are many things that Pugliese people have during the aperitif.
What I and Marika love the most are the sea urchins. Both accompanied by a good glass of Italian Prosecco wine, the Valdobbiadene Doc is one of our favorites.
Aperitif is a very special moment of the day in Puglia. It can take place at around 12…after breakfast, before going to the beach; or at 8pm after a day spent on the beach before getting ready to have dinner. In Puglia we have a sort of Latin culture therefore dinner is never before 10.30pm, even in winter.
Many people say they will never try sea urchins ….never, never in their life! We have seen lots of people who started with just one….and who are now coming back to Puglia just to eat the sea urchins! Of course there are many ways to eat sea urchins: you can have them on top of the linguine, very simply cooked with just some parsley.
However, the most unforgettable way is to have them raw, by the sea while the fisherman opens them for you a few minutes after he cathes them!

Bread is allowed to get all the juice. Fishermen have their special or hidden places where they stop to open sea urchins. Usually you will find them in any village by the sea.

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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.

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If you ever arrive in Lecce any time from 1 to 5 pm you will certainly think this is a gost town.
All houses will have their shutters down.

All shops will be closed and most bars and restaurants will be empty.

Nobody will be around apart from a few tourists desperately looking for open churches or monuments.

The only proof that humans are around may be a bottle of wine with a few glasses left on the table after lunch in a private home.

For those wondering what goes on from 1 to 5 pm in Lecce and everywhere else in Puglia, the answer is very simple: it’s siesta time!
All people go home to have lunch with their families and then, they go to bed for a long siesta…before starting their day again which goes on until very late at night.

After 5pm, little by little people start waking up again: first you see a man riding a bike, then a lady knocking a neighbour’s door…until when you see all the ladies gathering in front their house and chatting about their plans for dinner.

Many medical studies demonstrated that having a proper and seated lunch with our family improves our well being and lifestyle. Moreover taking a short siesta reduces the risks of many heart and health diseases…..of course when associated to a healthy way of eating.
In general I and Marika like this relaxed lifestyle and for the past few years, since we are back home in Puglia, we “have been forcing” ourselves to take an after lunch siesta every day, even just fo 15 minutes. There won’t be anything else you coud do otherwise: you can’t call anyone because all phones will be off; you can’t go shopping because all shops are closed. The only problem with taking a siesta is that once you get used to it, it’s very hard to go back and not take it anymore!

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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;

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In Puglia, to have fresh tomatoes when it is not the season we prepare the so called Pendola tomatoes. In the summer we pick the tomatoes with the vine. We hang the tomatoes with the vine on a rope and store them in a cool environment. The skin turns hard but the juice stays inside! Then in the winter, we simply roast them: the skin breaks down and the tomatoes release all the juice and the taste of the sun!

Do you have any other way to suggest to preserve vegetables and tomatoes?