...you've gotta take a cooking class! I consider myself great at eating food, but not making it. My school had a cooking class in the cool Trastevere neighborhood where I learned a *little* bit about Italian food.
The menu for the night was Cavatelli pasta with a fresh tomato sauce and tiramisu! I'm including the recipes at the end of this in case anybody is curious, but I loved making the fresh pasta so much I did it the entire time! We used little boards to roll small pieces of dough into the Cavatelli shape, where they curled up with ridges on the outside and had a nice air pocket inside.
Making the pasta was really relaxing and you really got in the "groove" of rolling out all of the pieces. By the time we ran out of dough, everyone was kind of sad as we were ready to do even more! Staring at all the pasta did make me super hungry though, so I was glad to see the finished meal and enjoy eating it with everyone we just cooked with!
While it took a long time, making the meal (and especially the pasta) was SO fun, and felt so right in Italy!
Ciao,
Alyssa
Ciao,
Alyssa
All the ingredients are listed by weight as well as by volume to make you all able to reproduce my food back home, but always keep in mind that measures by weight (especially for flour) are more accurate. Measuring flour by cup sometimes requires to sift it, as it might be more dense than the one we used - in Italy we use a 00 flour.
1. First course: Homemade Cavatelli shaped pasta with fresh tomato sauce and basil leaves (Cavatelli fatti a mano con sugo di pomodoro fresco e basilico)
Ingredients for the dough (serving 4 people):
- 500 gr / 4 cup of semolina flour (hard durum wheat)
- 250 ml / 1 cup lukewarm water
- 4 pinch salt
Ingredients for the sauce (serving 4 people):
- 5 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive oil
- 1Kg / 2,2 lb fresh and organic San Marzano or Tomatoes on the vine (back home you are able to use Roma tomatoes too)
- few leaves of fresh organic Basil
- 1 clove garlic
- 100gr / 1 cup Pecorino Romano or Parmesan cheese (to coat your dish)
Instructions for the fresh pasta:
Cavatelli pasta (also known as Gnocchetti Sardi or Malloreddus) are made with a hard durum wheat (semolina) flour and water (no eggs) which gives them a distinctive golden yellow color (if you want to increase the yellow color just add a few pinches of saffron to it). It’s not a difficult recipe, but you may want to have some helpers if you have large numbers of gnocchetti to make!
To get ready with the dough, make a ring with the flour on a flat surface, marble or board and pour some of the water into the middle. Add salt and draw the flour towards the middle using your finger tips. Keep doing this until you have incorporated most of the water and flour into a sticky dough. Knead it lightly, adjusting water and flour until the dough is relatively smooth and elastic. Wrap in cling film and chill for at least 15/20 mins.
Once chilled, divide the dough into quarters or more for ease of rolling. Roll these out using your fingers into long ropes of dough about 1cm/0,4 inch thick. Cut each rope into thin "pillows" and then press each pasta piece against the wood paddle or tines of a fork with your thumb, pulling down as you press and leaving a small dent inside. This should add the characteristic grooves to the pasta. Patience, practice and helpers will win out here!
Either cook straight away, or dust with semolina flour to prevent them sticking while you prepare the sauce. Once in a pan of salted boiling water, they will float to the surface when nearly done, needing no more than 4-5 mins to be "al dente".
Instructions for the sauce:
In a large frying pan over medium-high heat, saute garlic with extra virgin olive oil (remember to leave the skin on and do not burn the oil, just wait for garlic to get brown). Than add chopped tomatoes previously blanched and peeled, and allow them to cook and saute. After the tomatoes have cooked down for about 10 minutes, they'll look softer and release some water, add salt. You are able to add your own personal touch to the sauce with some chili flakes (but not too much) or fresh ricotta chunks in with the tomatoes. In the end add freshly chopped basil leaves.
To cook the pasta put a large pot of boiling water over high heat. When the water is boiling, toss in a couple of tablespoon of salt with the pasta. Stir to keep it from sticking and cook for 5/6 minutes until a piece of pasta tastes cooked (if the pasta if freshly made, just cook it for couple of minutes will be enough otherwise it will result too soft and mushy). Anyway once their ready they will float to the surface of your pot.
When the Cavatelli pasta is cooked, drain it and add it to the frying pan with tomatoes. Drizzle with cheese to coat the pasta. Season your dish with pepper if you like and garnish with some fresh basil leaves, and serve hot. It will be delicious!!!
2. Dessert: Traditional Tiramisù
Ingredients (serving 4 people):
- 4 eggs (large size)
- 4 tbsp sugar
- 250gr mascarpone cheese (I am not able to use cup measurements as it's an imported product that comes in 250gr or 500gr tubs)
- chocolate chunks (dark chocolate is preferred)
- ladyfingers or savoiardi biscuits
- 200ml (about 1 cup) espresso coffee
Instructions:
Using a moka (a typical Italian espresso maker) make some coffee to dip in your lady fingers and set aside until it will cool down. In the meantime you are able to start working on the cream mixture, all you have to do is to separate 4 eggs yolk from the whites, and use an electric whisk to whip 4 eggs whites with 2 spoons of sugar. Then into a diffrent bowl (aluminum is always preferred rather than glass bowls) you have to beat the 4 yolks with the remaining 2 spoons of sugar until very thick and light in color. With a wooden spoon or spatula stir in mascarpone cheese until smooth (since it is an imported product in most countries, I have used the Italian measurement so you will know how much to get!). Make sure all chunks of mascarpone cheese will disappear in the egg yolk cream mixture. As soon as both egg mixtures are ready, you have to fold them together from the bottom to the top with a spatula. This is the only way your egg whites will keep their consistency and not become flat.
To assemble your dessert dip the ladyfingers, one at a time, in the coffee mixture and line a long flat serving dish with them. Sprinkle chocolate chunks and spoon a layer of the cream mixture over these. Add another layer of dipped ladyfingers and some chocolate chunks, then spoon the remaining cream over the top. During the class we prepared only one layer of ladyfinger for a nicer presentation of your dessert, even if the quantity of cream was enough to make two layers.
Before serving, leave it chilling in the fridge for min. 2 hrs, and then cover your Tiramisù with unsweetened chocolate/cocoa powder.
If you want this dish can be made up within hours in advance, but in this case sprinkle cocoa powder only before serving and not while sitting in the fridge. It will be a hit!"