COOKING CLASSES
Book your cooking class with your prestigious Italian Chef. We will teach you how to prepare traditional Italian dishes including the final tasting of the dishes prepared together. I am proud to offer you a vast range of meal choices from meat to vegetarian/vegan cooking classes.You will also learn how to make fresh pasta (pasta dough). Together we can transform every simple ingredient into intricate pasta shapes inspired by the rich traditions of each Italian region. The art of handmade pasta may seem daunting, but it's actually a simple luxury in the home that you can enjoy every day.
Let's move on from PASTA CON LE MANI, a tradition that varies from Northern to Southern Italy, to DINNER AND WORKSHOP to discover the secrets of cooking.
Ready to become your own Chef?
Take your first step and book your lesson.
QUEEN LASAGNA
When you think about this worldwide well known dish, you’re probably thinking this might be the Lasagna alla Bolognese, a traditional dish from Emilia-Romagna. This recipe features the egg pasta layered with “Bolognese” ragù (named, in fact, after Bologna the capital of Emilia-Romagna), and creamy béchamel. Well, that’s no surprise! This tasty dish is one of the most ancient pasta recipes on Italian record. Once you try it, you want to be eating it for centuries yet to come.
Jacopone da Todi himself wrote “quartina” (form of Italian poetry) in the 13th century, proving that lasagna is indeed one of the oldest types of hand-made pasta originated in Italy, where the lasagna spread its layers of history.
The baked dish is often thought to be from Emilia-Romagna, region known for its rich ingredients and fertile land. However, rectangular sheets of pasta with a creamy sauce was first seen more south around Napoli in the Middle Ages. By the way, lasagna experienced a belated renaissance in Bologna only in the late 19th century where it became a “dish of honour” prepared by noble families to demonstrate their wealth of ingredients.
CANNELONI
Cannelloni ,a more modern pasta is a cylindrical type of lasagna served baked with a filling of ricotta and spinach, and covered by with tomato sauce. In Italian, cannelloni literally means "big pipes" or "big reeds", magic pasta tubes filled with savoury stuffing. Early references to “maccheroni ripieni” (again stuffed pasta) can be traced back to 1970, but the word cannelloni appeared at the turn of the 20th century.
GNOCCHI
Meaning "little knobs," gnocchi dumplings are made of rice, potato and flour. The dough is split in small pieces then rolled one by one over a textured surface that produces sauce-capturing ridges. While the exact origins of this Italian culinary dish are subjected to debate, the old belief is that the gnocchi became popularized when Spanish explorers introduced South American potatoes to Europe in the sixteenth century.
When many people hear gnocchi, they may be drooling over potato gnocchi, but did you know there are actually many different types of this pasta throughout Italy? Depending on where you travel in Italy, you’ll discover different kinds of gnocchi dishes with varying ingredients and sauces, each of which draws on the local traditions and the biodiversity of the region’s microclimates.
ORECCHIETTE
Dear gourmets, how many of you love tasty orecchiette? The symbolic pasta of Apulian gastronomy is prepared with a very simple pasta dough based on flour, water and salt. It derives its name from their shape that recalls baby’s ears.
The orecchiette spread in Puglia between the 12th and 13th century, especially in Bari where they are still called in the local dialect the "strasc'nat" or "strascinati", from the action of "dragging" the dough on a table with fingers in order to obtain classical round and concave little shapes.
Join us to learn how to knead la “pasta semolina” dough and learn about the art of fresh filled and unfilled pasta made by your own hands.
We can invent other optional versions of these amazing dishes, and have the joy of having created them together.
